I'd recommend checking out the DEEP Hunter Survey and look at the towns with a high take for deer. It's ideal if you can start your search close to home but if it's worth getting the most quality opportunities I wouldn't let an hour or slightly longer drive stand in the way!
Once you settle on a spot (or spots) I'd recommend doing some driving around neighborhoods late May/early June (after the fawns have dropped) and the deer are moving a lot more looking for food. When you find likely areas start knocking on doors and make your pitch-be polite, respectful and expect to get an earful on what a vile, disgusting human being you are from a few.....stick to it though and you'll probably find some who are fed up with their gardens, shrubs and small trees getting vaporized!
Historically I've found people are much more likely to give permission when they understand it's only bow hunting!
When you are fortunate enough to secure a spot I'd knock on adjacent neighbor's doors and ask for permission to recover deer if needed; you may get a request to hunt adjacent properties with this approach but you can, if you want cut to the chase and just ask them as well-your call.
I don't know if you've got kids or not but one "trick" that never let me down was when my son was younger and played youth soccer I'd take him with me in his nice uniform; he was a great ice-breaker! The point with this is it humanizes you in some people's eyes, and every bit helps.
Good luck!
When I go on the Deep website and click areas of the map that shows all the places to hunt the drop down menus confuse me... Itll say things like permit required area, bowhunting only, then the next line down says shotgun A, shotgun B and im sitting here scratching my head as to what is actually allowd there or not. Anyone know what I mean? Have you seen it yourself? Makes me leary of going to these places because god forbid I misunderstand and get ticketed.
Also ive been trying some suburban areas to no avail. I did however manage to get permission to hunt a 30 acre property last Friday but havent the slightest clue if its even good.
Mike are those surveys where the deer were taken or where the person who took the deer lived? Thats a great idea haha, Ill bring my nephew along maybe and have him work his charm on the owners while I ask for permission!
Brian thats kinda what ive been doing. I have this guy in my town who spent like $1000 on his new plants and the deer ate them all so i knocked on his door let him know that I noticed and hes thinking about letting me hunt. His wifes very against it but hes been trying to convince her. Hes got 16 acres up in stafford with like 20 deer at a time in his yard. Some huge bucks too!
The surveys are the towns the deer were reported as being killed in, hence my listing this as a good starting point in trying to gauge where you've got a decent likelihood of seeing deer.
With regard to the state land questions I'd filter a search on google with "CT Bow hunting only areas for deer"; this should get you a good list to start from. You can then use google maps of bing and start analyzing the areas for structure, etc that are conducive to holding deer.
PM me if you have any questions and I'll be happy to walk you through this.
