Hunting the islands

[Fishhunt223]

I just took my dad to the spokane area for whitetails this last weekend but the fog messed everything up.  I just noticed that the San Juans are any deer for the late season.  Is there any public land to speak of?
Travis

[hunterbuilder]

There really isn't a whole lot of public land on the islands. Each of the islands I've hunted (Orcas, Lopez, Cypress, and Guemes) have bits and pieces of public land. You'll need a good map that shows the ownership to find the places to go. But even with that, some of the public land is landlocked by private ownership. It would be a tough place to go out for the day and find the huntable land and hunt and be successfull unless you went with someone who knew their way around. Just my  . Most of the success we had out there was on private land. There was a good piece on Orcas but the last time we were out there it was blocked by private land and they wouldn't let you cross to get to it.

[JB]

I agree. We used to hunt Orcas every year but it was almost entirely on private land. I haven't hunted there for several years as the access to the public land is pretty much all blocked. I think some of it may even be in dispute. When I asked DNR about it they couldn't really tell me anything about their land on Orcas. According to the maps I've found it's encircled by private lands. There was some public land not too far from the ferry terminal. Last time I was there someone had set a whole camp up on it virtually cutting off the access to anyone else. Just as well as it was really small.

[Fishhunt223]

Thanks for the info guys.
Travis