Matt in IL

If you had to recommend someone a nice rifle public/special hunt area, what would it be?

mnbuckman

Lots of public land options in Minnesota. There are Wildlife Manangement area's (WMA), State forest lands, National wildlife refuges, National forests, and County land to name a few areas that are open to public rifle hunting. A good place to start looking would be the Minnesota DNR website. It has some nice interactive maps with haverst data that should help you narrow down where you want to hunt.

Matt in IL

Yep, I checked it out somewhat. Rice Lake NWR looks really good.

mnhunter_32

watch for hmong

Matt in IL

???

bdog2003

There is alot of public land in the northern half of MN. BUT there are also ALOT of people that know that and go up there hunting. So maybe scout out a spot that looks like it is out of the way, or way back off the road.

jsasker

I live right across the road from one of the DNR wildlife refuges/management land and the only way you can hunt without running across other hunters(usually)is to get up VERY early and walk a few MILES deep in the woods/swamps and if you do score you are forced to drag it out by hand as is is a no-motorized vehicles beyond this point type of place=GOOD LUCK!

WWhunter

Matt,
What has been already said is accurate. Lots of land but most of it can get pretty overrun by hunters during deer season. If you bowhunt you can hunt the refuges with bow during rifle season. This USED to be great but even those areas are getting crowded with bowhunters during the rifle season. One word of advice I will give, is to avoid opening weekend. After the first couple days all the city hunters leave and it is pretty quite. Only problem is, the deer are usually VERY spooked from all the idiots wandering around and it is usually mid week before the move much again. The bag limit has really risen in the last few years and most of the out of towners just want that "Big Buck". If you are willing to take does you shouldn't go home skunked.

If you are a trophy hunter the majority of big racks are coming from the southern part of the state. There is also a lot of big bucks in the central region but most of it is farm land, ie, private.

I also fly and scout from my plane alot and when flying during rifle season it is amazing any deer survive from the amount of hunter I see in my area.

j_beste

Good advise, ive been run out of a couple of my public hunting grounds from hmong hunters (we've since purchased our own private parcel). I left cause I did not feel safe with the hundreds (not kidding) of rounds going off. I have no idea what the he** they were shooting at. I have alsocalled thelocal DNR and was told they have been having alot of problems with these hunters but its hard to do anything about it without witnessingan offense. Just a heads up. You can avoid the numbers by going further north. Last yearIarrowed a PY on a small state land in northern centralminnesota.

mnhunter_32

I hunt alot of public land in central mn. There are a few good places that i can go were there isn't very much hunting pressure. you need to find the out of the way spot's or the little area's that get over looked by most hunters. Example the is a small parcel of public land probably 50-60 acres that is surrounded by houses so the gun hunters ignore it. on opening weekend last year i had 2 six pointers pass by at twenty yards and later a decent 8 pointer that busted me at half draw.get a map and do a little research.