Tough week in Ohio

[Bullshot]

Took a trip to public land in SE Ohio for the first time. Tough week! Big steep hills and deep hollows and leaf litter a foot thick and noisier than I thought possible. VERY few hunters afoot (only three other people in 5 days), and only saw a few does and a forkhorn despite hunting hard and getting in early and leaving late, and sitting patiently for much of it. It just seems that the deer density was incredibly low everywhere we went, and what was there had gone almost fully nocturnal. Not at all what I expected. I could hunt 1/4th as hard for half the time in New Jersey and probably see 10X as many deer and would expect a chance at a decent buck, yet nobody (including myself sometimes) thinks where I live is any good, LOL!

Would love to hear if anybody had some Ohio success during the gun season on public forest and what they might have done differently than this fool.

 

[Bullshot]

Obviously not corn and soybean country

 

[EKYHunter]

Did you hunt Wayne National Forest? Been some great deer killed there this year. Which county were you hunting? I’ve seen some big bucks taken in Lawrence county.

 

[Four22]

Welcome to Ohio high pressure public land hunting!

 

[Bullshot]

Did you hunt Wayne National Forest? Been some great deer killed there this year. Which county were you hunting? I’ve seen some big bucks taken in Lawrence county.

No that was option 2. Hunted in and around Pike.

 

[HerkHunter]

That’s some super thick woods (compared to what I gotta deal with)

 

[Deleted member 28227]

That’s some super thick woods!

-A MASSHOLE HAS ENTERED THE CHAT-

Psssh this f- guy… here’s thick

 

[Bullshot]

That’s some super thick woods!

Not sure what to make of this comment? The woods varied from too wide open unharvested timber land to acres of impenetrable saplings in recent clearcuts to thickets along stream corridors to dark cedar stands. I hunted or hiked some through / adjacent to all of that.

 

[HerkHunter]

Not sure what to make of this comment? The woods varied from too wide open unharvested timber land to acres of impenetrable saplings in recent clearcuts to thickets along stream corridors to dark cedar stands. I hunted or hiked some through / adjacent to all of that.

Nah wasn’t bein rude. It’s thick to me. I’m used to lodgepoles which are skinny so a bunch of them ain’t really thick per se.

 

[brownbear932008]

Nah wasn’t bein rude. It’s thick to me. I’m used to lodgepoles which are skinny so a bunch of them ain’t really thick per se.

Man you gotta head East I've had to actually crawl through vegetation here in VA. Our mountain laurel can be brutal in the dark.

 

[HerkHunter]

Man you gotta head East I've had to actually crawl through vegetation here in VA. Our mountain laurel can be brutal in the dark.

I’ve gotten spoiled with my central montana landscape

 

[Bullshot]

Crawling on hands and knees through “rabbit tunnels” is pretty common in the east if you get after it. Of course, everything here also has hooked thorns, tons of ticks, poison ivy, etc. Then a lot is in swamps with bottomless muck. I LOVE hunting out west and leaving that behind for a week. Western oakbrush is no fun… but we have some scrub oak thickets that can rival that too. Fun to experience different habitats… its part of what hunting is all about.

 

[Stretcher_Jockey]

Man you gotta head East I've had to actually crawl through vegetation here in VA. Our mountain laurel can be brutal in the dark.

Beat me to the mountain laurel. That stuff is no joke. I’ve battled that stuff numerous times in Eastern TN. Throw that in with the steepness of the Appalachian Mountains and it can be total hell.

 

[EKYHunter]

Beat me to the mountain laurel. That stuff is no joke. I’ve battled that stuff numerous times in Eastern TN. Throw that in with the steepness of the Appalachian Mountains and it can be total hell.

And then throw in where a tornado or ice storm came through and you got some places that are almost impenetrable.