Brandon Mosteller of Lincolnton took this 9-point buck on a draw hunt at the Pee Dee NWR. Photo by Mike Marsh.

One of the most commonly cited concerns among hunters in North Carolina who do not hunt on public land is that public-land hunts are overcrowded. If that's your concern, you might want to consider applying for one of the many draw hunts held on public lands each year in North Carolina. We'll take a look at some of the different kinds of draw hunts for deer run on public lands across the state. It's quite possible that one or more of these hunts will fit what you are looking for in a deer hunt.

PEE DEE NWR
Long before sunrise, I drove my pickup through a road bisecting a harvested soybean field. A recent rain had softened the red clay soil of the field, showing the pockmarks of thousands of deer tracks when I had scouted the field the day before.

I was hunting at the 8,443-acre Pee Dee National Wildlife Refuge during one of the gun hunts. It was one of the best times for a gun hunt, with dates that overlapped the opening of the muzzleloader deer season on the final Saturday for surrounding private and public property in Anson and Richmond counties. I was able to hunt with a centerfire rifle at Pee Dee NWR in advance of the state's regular firearms season for the region because I was hunting on federal property.

In fact, several national wildlife refuges operate under the same cooperative agreement with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission. That agreement opens the wildlife refuges to early regular firearms hunts, because the chance to use firearms early on these hunts helps to attract hunters to them, which in turn helps the refuges achieve the goal of controlling refuge deer populations.

Despite the fact that I thought I had made it to my preferred hunting spot early enough, flashlights winked at me from every trail I tried to enter around the field. Eventually, I settled for one of my backup choices way down the list, which was at the peak of a high ridge overlooking a honeysuckle thicket between two fields. It was well back from the fields, beyond the distance that most hunters are comfortable with hunting from any nearby road.

For many hunters, draw hunts are a big draw, while for others they never top the list of places to go. One reason hunters don't participate is that they must plan ahead for draw hunts, knowing they can take off work if they win the hunt lottery. I had obtained a permit application for the Pee Dee NWR hunt on June 1 and sent it back in with the required fee soon thereafter. I didn't receive my first choice of dates. But I wish I had. I found out from refuge manager J.D. Bricken that hunters had taken 43 deer during the previous hunt, which took place during the pre-rut period.

"We have some excellent quality deer for this area," Bricken said. "We would like to see more does taken, but hunters can harvest whatever they want. Many hunters wait for bucks because they know some nice-antlered deer are here. It's rare to find a property in this area open to public hunting with so many fields planted in crops. We plant 1,100 acres, mostly for waterfowl management. The farmers leave 20 percent of the crop un-harvested as part of their farming agreement. These crops, along with controlled burning and other landscape management practices, benefit the deer along with other wildlife."