You want to hunt private land unless you want to suffer with the hunters that think that the public land is their private hunting preserves. Northeast Mn around the Red river valley area, central Mn, or southern Mn for your very large farm fed deer. I hunt around Hibbing area on my land which butts up to several 1000s acres of county forfit state land and due to swamp issues, this is pretty much my whole private hunting area. I filled out my tags with does this year, and I saw several bucks.