Been hunting southern Illinois for 4 or 5 yrs and ready to move on to something new. Wolf Creek or Tranquility or even AEP land just kinda wanting to narrow down things with some suggestions
Public land?
- Thread starter Ol'Mossyback
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Not sure what your experiences have been in IL, but the grass isn't always greener. Ohio public land has been under assault for the last decade. I love Wolf Creek and AEP, but good luck not tripping over someone from another state, down the road, or named Yoder.
What type of hunting experience are you looking for? If it's big woods, I'd suggest Vinton Furnace or Shawnee. Tar Hollow, too. If you want something more like IL, Wolf Creek and AEP offer a similar type of habitat in terms of a mixture of timber and open areas. Plenty of Wayne National Forest to choose from as well. No matter what, you'll need to do your homework and be prepared to walk if you want to avoid the masses.
What type of hunting experience are you looking for? If it's big woods, I'd suggest Vinton Furnace or Shawnee. Tar Hollow, too. If you want something more like IL, Wolf Creek and AEP offer a similar type of habitat in terms of a mixture of timber and open areas. Plenty of Wayne National Forest to choose from as well. No matter what, you'll need to do your homework and be prepared to walk if you want to avoid the masses.
The other suggestion I'd offer you is download, or hop on, one of the many apps that has mapping data like OnX, HuntWise, etc. and find the type of habitat/terrain you're after, then randomly scroll around. There's a lot of isolated/stranded/random pieces of public ground in Ohio. Especially in the Wayne. I've experienced good hunting on one such parcel that I never knew existed until OnX, and I lived within 5 minutes of it for 35 years before that.
Cut Ohio in half from Cleveland to Cincy and its two different experiences. There's some "middle" ground too. Best of luck if you venture this way.
Cut Ohio in half from Cleveland to Cincy and its two different experiences. There's some "middle" ground too. Best of luck if you venture this way.
Forked Run State Park and Gavin Hunt Area, along with some random parcels can be found in Meigs. I can tell you that Forked Run is the biggest embarrassment I've been on when it comes to public land in Ohio. It's overrun with locals who've carved out ATV/UTV trails throughout a lot of the area. I've found multiple bait sites there as well. The DNR is doing 0% to enforcement anything down there based on what I've seen.
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Bigcountry40
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I haven't deer hunted Eastern, Central or Southern Ohio Public ground in a couple of years, but from my understanding is that after opening weekend things slow down in the first few weeks in Oct, then late Oct- november is a hot mess. Gun season is actually becoming less intense, then late season is a ghost town.