I'm sitting here at working with some down time and I'm running in my head what states I want to go back to or go to next spring. My only thing is I only get a few days off every spring so that leaves me with weekends. How does everyone go about making a weekend trip out of state successful?
Few things popped into my head:
First, if limited to weekends, can you hunt Sundays in the state you are visiting? There are still states where you cannot hunt Sundays which eliminates 50% of your time in the woods. Can you hunt all day? Many states have half day hours first half of the season, then all day the second half of the season. Doesn't make sense to travel out of state to just hunt a Saturday morning and quit at noon.
Second, will your trip out of state coincide with opening weekend? May want to avoid the first opening weekend if hunting public ground. Postponing your out of state hunt a couple weeks will reduce public ground pressure and may open all day hunting mid season if its an option.
Third, do as much internet scouting as possible. Google Earth is an excellent tool and its free if you aren't familiar with the ground firsthand.
If you hunt an adjacent state or a place within a easy drive you can get there more in off season to scout and learn the land. 3 hours away is better than 12. If you find a area you like even if you are only there a couple weekends a year, over the years you will learn it well. I go to same part of KY each spring with limited time and it helps me. Bird still beat me some years.
Agree with Baron do your research on an area with the help of local DNR, locals or forums .Put yourself in area that increases you odds then stick with it. Don't give up on an area because you don't have success on a two day hunt. To many variables involved. Back to the question drive time determines where I go for a weekend hunt. .
I live fairly close to my home state of wv. I can conveniently drive to my hunting areas in an hour or so and have been branching out even more. I have no problem getting up at 2am to go hunting. So I have probably around a 150 mile radius that i hunt. With my job i learned to live off of 5-6 hours of sleep so anything more than that is considered sleeping in. That comes in handy during turkey season. It's all in how bad do you want to do it. That and what will you significant other tolerate. I am lucky on that end also. I spend a lot of time with my wife and an very involved in my kids activities. When I get free to hunt my wife has never even tried to stop me. That helps a lot also.
I work Mon-Thurs... a lot of times I leave after work on Thurs and try to be hunting Friday morning.
Hunt Sat and Sun if necessary and then drive home.
Hunted 8 states this past spring. It's gets tiring after several weeks.
Drove almost 8000 miles this past year not counting local hunting.