Where to Hunt

Finding property lines for hunting in Oklahoma starts with HuntWise, the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation's (ODWC) public hunting area maps, and your county assessor's GIS tools.

Finding property lines for hunting in Arkansas comes down to three resources working together: HuntWise, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission's (AGFC) public land maps, and your county assessor's records.

The quickest path to finding property lines for hunting in Georgia runs through three tools: HuntWise, the Georgia DNR's interactive WMA map, and your county board of tax assessors' records.

The fastest way to find property lines for hunting in Wisconsin is to combine HuntWise with the DNR's Public Access Lands tool and your county's GIS or treasurer records.

If you've heard that purple paint marks private land in Ohio, that's actually a myth. Ohio lawmakers have proposed a purple paint law twice, in 2017 and again in 2020, and neither bill passed.

Illinois' purple paint law comes with an odd carve-out: it doesn't apply to real property inside a municipality of more than 2,000,000 people, which in practice means Chicago. Everywhere else in the state, that same purple stripe on a tree or post carries full legal weight as a "no trespassing" notice.

By 1857, Iowa had already sold off nearly all of its public land, save for a sliver of federal ground in the state's far northwest corner. That history still shapes hunting today: Iowa now has one of the highest levels of private land ownership in the country, with roughly 97% of its land in farms, timber, and pasture.

Ask a Kansas game warden what trips up out-of-state hunters most, and permission comes up before anything else. The state requires it on every private acre, posted with a sign or not, which makes Kansas one of the stricter states in the country on this point.

Texas hunters face a boundary problem most other states don't. With more than 95% of the state in private hands, nearly every promising piece of ground belongs to someone.

To find the best dove hunting location near you, scout areas where food, water, gravel, and roosting sites meet, such as harvested grain fields, stock ponds with bare banks, and gravel pits.

The best way to get private land hunting access is to identify the landowner using the HuntWise hunting land app or county parcel records. Then, reach out to the landowner between four and eight weeks ahead of your hunt.

Free hunting land near you is accessible with the right tools. When I want to find free hunting land near me, I typically check my HuntWise app and then confirm with my state mapping app, which overlays all hunting zones.