They say there are no big bucks on public land. Too much pressure, they say. Hunters on public land kill all the young bucks and they don’t have a chance to grow bug.
Mark Faulk, age 22, would disagree. A few weeks back, the young man dropped an 11-point, nontypical deer while hunting public land in Caroline County.
Faulk had seen the big deer the year before. He captured three trail camera photos of the buck in 2023, the last in December. This year, he had cameras out but had not seen him again.
“I thought somebody had already killed him since it’s public land and because I didn’t get any pictures this year,” Faulk said.
Then, the big deer popped into view an hour into his hunt and Faulk dropped him with a single shot.
Jeff Phillips, who runs Star City Whitetails, said, “For the past couple decades people in Virginia have vacated public land because so much private land is available to hunt on, and the habitat is thought to be less than desirable on lots of public land, But many adventurous hunters these days are finding tremendously mature animals on public land across the Commonwealth simply because of less pressure.”
Duly noted, and a very nice buck for Mark Faulk.
