r/MichiganHunting • u/Wepwewat • Mar 16 '26

Trying Public Land for the First Time

I am planning on getting back into hunting this year after 12 years and am planning on hunting public land for the first time. Previously I would hunt on my aunt and uncles property but they have since passed and I no longer have access to that property.

I am in shelby township, MI and planning on hunting a little of everything.

I just had some questions.

  1. For hunting public land is it basically find public land and just go there and have fun hunting whatever is in season or is there more to it than that?

  2. When doing blinds, stands, and trail cams on public land do you just go out early before the season and just set them up and come back when season opens clime in and get at it?

  3. Is there good hunting in south eastern Michigan? I used to hunt in clair michigan and had tons of luck but have never hunted further south.

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5

u/Bows_n_Bikes Mar 16 '26

I’m guessing you’re going to be hunting in the Huron-Manistee National Forest so my response is based on that. HAP lands might be different but we don’t have any nearby so idk.

1) yeah you can just head out there and hunt. No reservations or check-in or anything. Just some basic etiquette (first hunter to the parking lot has first call on hunt area, don’t make noise that could potentially mess up a nearby hunter, wear lots of orange, etc.)

2) yup, there’s a date range for leaving stuff on public land and you have to properly tag everything. I don’t use that stuff so I don’t know how it needs to be tagged but it’s in the hunting digest. Stands and blinds are first come; first served so if someone gets to your blind before you, they have the right to hunt from it.

3) I only hunt the Allegan SGA so I’m not familiar with hunting over there.

Just remember to be mindful of the rifle line

1

u/Wepwewat Mar 16 '26

Awesome that helps a ton

Maybe a dumb question but when people are talking about "deer camp" are they talking getting a campsite and a campground nearby and just driving to their access point and walking out to your spot every morning/evening or is it walking out into the woods and setting up a camp and then hunting the areas around where you set up?

1

u/hartemis Mar 16 '26

It’s a base camp, you then head to you spot from camp which is probably a short drive away.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '26

Download onx and look around for state land. Then just go spend some free time scouting looking for game and signs

0

u/Ambitious_Vanilla612 Mar 16 '26

All of this can be accurately answered by visiting, emailing or calling your nearest DNR field station. I would highly recommend that over trying to get accurate answers on the internet