I'm gonna be in my climber at caeser creek state park first evening . Anybody ever hunt there ?
Yeah, I hunted there a few times but saw more hunters than deer. Can't walk too far into a hunting zone cuz you eventually get to close to the loop road or another access point on the other side. Hikers,dog walkers,bird watchers and impatient hunters aplenty at all the state parks around Cincy from my experiences. I've hunted Caesars Creek,Hueston Woods,Paint Creek,Indian Creek(Fayetteville) and scouted East Fork and Stonelick and all were crowded IMO, but that was back in the mid to late 90's and early 2000's.
I took my family up to Deer Creek over Spring Break for a weekend getaway and did some shed hunting and saw some promising areas but don't know if it gets hammered during hunting season or not.
I was hunting in Hueston Woods one time and was in my climber from noon till 4 o'clock thinking things are going to start getting good during this early November evening. When I caught movement up the drainage bottom about 100 yards away and thought, "it's going to get exciting any minute!", thinking a buck was pushing that doe I saw looking back over her shoulder. Then she wheeled and came flatout hauling ass right towards me running thru one of my shooting lands at about 30 MPH! I was stood up with my bow in hand and release ready to draw looking back up the hollow looking for what made her run into the next county. When low and behold some big heavy set dude wearing hunter orange toting a walking stick. He proceeds to tromp his way towards me and stop to pause every so often looking around. Once he is standing right in my shooting lane where the doe came busting thru I whistled and he nearly shit himself looking all around trying to find me. I had to wave at him for him to locate me but once he did he made his way to about 20 yards and starts talking in normal voice asking me if I saw those deer he kicked up. I whispered back, "there was just one and she flew by me like her ass was in fire!" He says, well I'm sorry you didn't get a shot. I don't think he got the message that I didn't like it that he was talking to loud. Anyway I asked him whT are you doing walking around the woods during hunting season with just a stick. He said he just dropped 4 buddies with crossbows off along the road spacing them 50 yards or so apart. Then he drove down to the lodge parking lot and was doing a slow push back toward them. Needless to say, after he left I sat there till dark and didn't hear or see shit! When I packed my stuff up and left I never went back because of shit like that!
IMO, state parks are nice but not big enough to support the amount of hunters wanting to hunt there. It's nice they have some areas posted off limits to hunting to give a place for deer to find refuge but they aren't dumb, first sign of hunters they're in them during daylight hours and come out of them after dark. Lol Park employees have told me this as well. You can kill a mature deer in these parks but it won't be easy!
Good luck up there at CC but I hope you have better luck than I did!
If I were gonna travel to Ohio and hunt for a mature deer I'd take 2 weeks off and go camping and hunting at the Wayne National! It huge and less interference of other hunters I'd imagine.