Scouting deer on public ground isn’t going to be all trail-cam pictures of big bucks and digiscoping giants in a green field. Here’s your preseason reality check.⁠ ⁠ Much of the preseason scouting content out there (some of it published on our site) is overly optimistic in comparison to the real-world scenarios that most public-land hunters face this time of year. Sure, your social media feed might be full of people posting trail-camera photos of big bucks in velvet. But we’re betting that most of those photos and videos were taken on private beanfields. While the master plan of patterning one mature buck and then killing him on opening day is challenging even on great private properties, doing it on public ground is like pulling Excalibur from its stone. So while you might not get a big buck on camera early, that doesn’t mean you can’t scout effectively on public land early. alexrobinson_mn recently scouted a few public land spots with veteran hunter shane_simpson_hunting. He broke do...