Opening day at the public land near me...

[Core]

I hunted Lake shore marsh WMA in 2015, 2016. Very hard--not deer as season gets going Last year I managed to hunt private land and this year hunted that same private land during archery. However, I wanted to get back out to lake shore during gun because it's the closest decent public land east of Rochester.

The older section by sodus bay is I think 600 acres, very hilly, hard to access. It's knarly and a major chore to get deer out (you need a buddy or you need to be very determined). I only saw a few cars on the entire section as I drove up before sun rise, and just a few when I drove home. 

I saw nothing but gobs of deer tracks in the snow. Anyway, on the way home I wanted to drive past the new acquisition by DEC at shaker tract road and to my shock and horror and amusement I counted no less than 11 cars parked in front of this section of forest over about 1/3rd mile of road. I laughed out loud when I saw one guy about 200 yards off the road in the tree line sitting in his tree.

I finally saw what orange army means. Of actual forested area I'd say these 11 cars worth of hunters were sharing around 100 acres of hunting ground.

[JRod 8G8H]

Interesting... I live in Brighton and bow hunt 5 private acres and some family and friends during gun. Wouldn't mind trying this public area during bow.. You wont find me joining the orange army however lol

[pitweiler]

That's one of the reasons I don't like hunting southern zone. Lots of hunters and they just show up out of the woodwork. Northern zone seems to be less crowded. I'm lucky that I live in CNY where either zone is 45min away.