Whatever your opinion on trail cameras, for me, checking the contents of an unread SD card from a cam I’ve had sitting in a remote, potential public land hotspot never fails to quicken the pulse. And during one recent check my jaw dropped wide open. Viewed on my laptop back at the cabin, the card revealed the type of mature buck I work long and hard to locate — in a spot I knew was far from other hunters. Paydirt! Then came a horrifying realization. A double-check of the date and time on the image showed that a quirk of fate had prevented me from being on stand as I’d planned — the very moment that heavy-tined, day-walking brute had come through the week before. However things shook down, this scenario shows why taking the time to get away from crowds and focus on isolated sanctuary areas big bucks crave is time well spent—and well worth the extra effort.

Let me explain. This particular spot, on an isolated ridgetop bench that funneled deer into and out of a recent clear-cut thick with aspen regrowth, was found several months previous, after first perusing a detailed digital topo map. What had drawn me to it was a wide river guarding its southern access, but there was more. Access from the north, east or west required hiking in more than a mile across thickly overgrown, roadless terrain. Promising indeed. When I crossed the river in chest waders to check things out firsthand my smile grew wider. Once on site, I knew it was hot when, nearing my destination, I pushed several deer from their day beds, and found many more fresh beds clustered throughout a fairly concentrated area. It was a spot I knew funneled deer travel along the river, and where competition from other deer hunters would be virtually non-existent.

Fast-forward to late October. With the early stages of the rut just kicking in, I’d been eager to hunt this spot, but had not counted on — of all things — some unusual late-October flooding. And this was a 10- or 15-year flood. Although I’d again brought both hip boots and chest waders to make the river crossing, my first trip there that weekend had seen me come within a literal inch of water spilling over my waders; the flow was up some 2 feet. Worse, despite my trusty wading staff, the raging current nearly swept me from my feet — three or four times — before I was safely across. Whew! And this was in full daylight. 

After mounting a trail cam and setting my stand, I hunted out what was an uneventful evening. The next morning, after still more rain fell overnight, I made the tough decision not to return, avoiding what would almost certainly be a predawn dunking. Instead, I opted to hunt a safer spot. In a week I was back and the river had finally fallen.

After an uneventful half-day sit back in there, on the way out I’d snagged the SD card from the lonely trail cam covering my main shooting lane. To my horror, as detailed in the opening above, it held a beautiful, mature public land 10-point (trail cam photo below). That deer had strolled confidently beneath my stand the previous week. And the timing? The bruiser had appeared the very morning I’d planned to be back in that stand and had begged off — and at the no-brainer time of 8:36 a.m. Long story short, it would be the closest I would come to getting a shot at that bigwoods buck all fall. I’d found the perfect spot and a near rock-solid plan — yet Mother Nature had thrown a nasty curve.

Start With Limited Access

Although I certainly wasn’t smiling then, at this point in my whitetail bowhunting career getting away from competition is so ingrained in my public hunting DNA that it’s almost funny. You could say I’ve become predictably picky. It doesn’t seem to matter if I open a paper topo map or access the digital variety via a hunting app, the first thing I tend to look for is just how remote a particular good-looking tract might be. And that includes distance from any type of road, two-track or trail, potential parking areas, homes, cabins — or pretty much any other signs of regular human activity. Most big bucks are recluses; I’ve become one as well, by default. 

Barriers Deter Competition

Especially attractive are isolated tracts “protected” by predictable human barriers. Larger rivers and streams we’ve already covered; lakes with undeveloped shorelines are another, as are expansive swamps that typically remain wet right through the summer months. Steep, hilly terrain is another no-no for most people who are considering both access and game retrieval. Yet I’m drawn to these areas like a moth to a flame.

At the core of my strategy is hunting deer less pressured by humans and their activities. And to my mind, finding these areas will result in not only more daylight encounters, but generally, more encounters with mature deer. As is typically the case with public land hunting, the goals are easy to lay out; it’s the execution that hurts. And it can hurt. Especially waking earlier, getting back later, and logging all those extra miles in between. But for many of us, just about every aspect of public land hunting is a challenge we can’t resist. As goes the old saying, your successes are all the more sweeter, the more effort expended. If you’re like me, bigwoods, public land hunting is simply in my DNA and I can’t get enough. 

Still more fans of terrain “barriers” for finding isolated deer hunting hotspots is the team of skilled hunters who make up The Hunting Public team you may have seen in action on YouTube. This small group chronicles its hunting efforts on video, in part to show others that “everyman” work-a-day hunters can score big on both public and private lands — if they take the right approach. Lots of times that can mean help from canoes and kayaks, hip boots and waders.

“When it comes to terrain features that are human barriers, we really like water access, especially if it’s over your knee boots — and some other factors help, too,” said Hunting Public team member Aaron Warbritton. “If a river or creek has got steep banks, and it’s maybe 4- or 5-feet deep, maybe with some downed trees — that’ll keep people from crossing it. And most people don't want to pull a deer back out of there; that’s another issue. 

“The other thing with water access, you’re leaving much less of a footprint on the landscape for deer to find as you enter and exit. You’re not leaving ground scent, and also, it’s much quieter and stealthier. That can be a really big deal. And we’re not necessarily getting very far off the road; sometimes it means just 300 yards off a road, or simply crossing a specific body of water to get there.”

The Steeper the Better

Another favorite barrier for The Hunting Public team is very steep terrain. The steeper and more difficult, the better.

“Most every spot is situational, but if you’re in steep terrain, I like spots where you have to go up to access them,” Warbritton said.  “Maybe there’s this huge steep hill, right off the road, and that will generally keep people out. And experience has shown that if you can find a spot where you have to hike over two or more hills to access — that kind of topography will keep a LOT of people out of there. And those are precisely the types of sanctuaries that attract mature bucks, because they absolutely know where they experience the least amount of pressure.”

Apps Can Lead the Way

So how do you find and effectively access very specific spots off the beaten path?  In the “old days” wise hunters who didn’t have the many days and weeks required to scout effectively on foot, could save some time by buying up a stable of topo maps. You’d also need some plat books, county by county, and hope for accuracy. These days, premium hunting apps such as HuntStand, OnX and others have revolutionized public land hunting. They will help you find, and navigate to and from promising areas, with crazy high levels of efficiency. Who wouldn’t like to make the most of every minute you are in the field? It’s all about hunting smarter. Or at least, smarter than the competition.

“These days we have a lot of good research that looks specifically at hunter access, including some from Pennsylvania that found the average hunter doesn’t get more than a quarter-mile off the road,” said Brian Murphy, deer biologist for HuntStand.  “And there are reasons for that, including that many are unfit; maybe some have concerns about getting a downed deer out of the woods. If a hunter is willing to get a half-mile or more off the road, there are plenty of data sets that show deer density picks up noticeably 500 yards off a road. Not only will an app let you find those areas, it will let you navigate to and from them, safely and efficiently.”

Safe, Accurate Navigation

One of the best features of an app, Murphy says, is the handy, bright backlit screen on your smartphone that can help you travel to and find very specific areas even in the dark — where you are able to set up before first light.

“That would have been almost impossible back in the day, to navigate a mile or so into a specific location you’ve never before hunted, through woods in the pitch black, before daybreak.”

Murphy says the same principle applies in the evening; he said he can recall many times hunting an isolated whitetail-rich ridgetop area that was a full 3 miles from his vehicle. To make the hike out safely, he and his buddies would pack up to leave while it was still daylight, to ensure making the long, difficult hike out safely.

“In the past I would not have hunted those kinds of remote spots right up until dark, but now, with technology that allows you to navigate with it, it’s a whole new world,” Murphy continued. “And now you’re most efficient at the times of the day — daybreak and right before dark — when deer movement is maximized. An app just gives you the ability to be so much more efficient, and ultimately, so much more successful.”

Final Thoughts

Are you ready to step up your whitetail game and find hot areas others typically won’t? Taking the time to carefully study maps, find some promising locales, and confirm your suspicions with diligent boots-on-the-ground scouting is not for everyone. Make no mistake, that’s the way heavy-beamed mature bucks would like to keep it.

Sidebar: Phone Tips for Using Mapping Apps

In my experience, there are very few downsides to a premium mapping app, with maybe the biggest being that you must keep your smartphone charged to access it. For that, a wide variety of affordable, compact portable phone chargers are available, which can easily get you through a day, or even a couple, in the field. Typically, my whitetail pack holds two, fully charged portable chargers, each about the size of a deck of cards or smaller.

A major misconception is that for an app to work, you must have cellular service, which of course is not an option in many remote locales. Luckily, with most premium apps you have the ability to “cache,” or save, a specific hunt area map — when and where you do have cell service.  Then, when the map is opened in the field, your location will show up as a glowing dot on that map for easy real-time navigation, even with no cellular service. Ingenious.