If you are using a climber, make sure you get up 35 feet or so. That helps alot. I rarely get winded when I am that high up.

Couple things I have noticed. In every single club I have been in, there are places the guys won't go hunt. Guess where the deer go? Where they don't go. I have set up on places and watched them drive by and laughed, because I would see deer there. Guy on our lease killed a deer within 50 yards of our sign in, on a field I made, before we had to move the sign in. Saw a buck there too. At the end of deer season last year. No body sits there. Ever.

Something I discovered last year that might help. Noticed this during the rut. I had a cell camera set up, sort of off to the side of a couple different pine thickets. There were 2 hardwood fingers with a very small creek in them, and the deer used these fingers alot, because I had pic's of them. But when a buck came thru, I always checked the huntstand app to see which way the wind was blowing. 9 times out of 10, the buck came in with the wind at his butt. What I learned was he was coming in to get downwind of the pine thickets to scent check them. Often this happened later in the morning too, when other hunters were long gone.

I watched a buck come out of a pine thicket yesterday morning on our lease. Southeast wind. He was headed northwest. I was in a climber right off the road too. Right by a road into one of our stand sites. He went behind where our stand site is. So if you can set up downwind of a pine thicket you know deer bed in, and get more downwind than a buck, watch the upwind side and see if you don't see one come in there scent checking it.

Are you scent free on the days you go to work and leave and hunt?

This thread shows how, over and over again, we sensationalize deer hunting pressure on public land. Compared to what? To a 1000 acre club with 15 members. To a rural but populated county where every single 10 acre parcel gets hunted and half of those from the back window of a house. Some public land gets LESS hunting pressure than private land. Whether you want to believe it or not.

I was in two clubs that you were better off hunting public land. Learned two hard lessons those two years.

Man that’s tough. I would go somewhere else to hunt. At the rate you are going, it would be easy to get discouraged.

They sell bowling balls at Academy.

Redcoat, I admire your persistence! Don’t give up.

If you’ve hunted 26 times and seen 3 deer I’d say you need to change your tactics.

Are you hunting the same 2 or 3 spots every time you hunt? How often are you checking your cameras or are they cellular?

First time sits have been very good to me so you really need to bounce around. Even if you’re only adjusting your set up by 100 yards. In my experience you have to scout weekly to have success on public land. The pressure on gun days causes deer to change their behavior and patterns. If you’re not scouting more than you’re hunting then you are not going to have consistent success. For what it’s worth I’ve killed most of my public land bucks in the morning and a couple of my best bucks were killed after 9am.

You're new to hunting, right? I'd say you're doing pretty good if you are. Public land in the southeast is some of the most challenging whitetail hunting there is.

23-24 deer season starts on Feb 11, and that's when the real work happens. Cover ground like a madman in the offseason, bust through thickets and find the bedding areas. A few years of that will give you a bunch of hunting spots. First hunt is the best hunt. Cameras can be helpful, but don't rely on them.

If there's swamps, hit'em. Most people don't like to hunt the wet spots and therefore less hunting pressure. Good luck.