I know this is a midwest forum, but for those of you wanting to try for a public land monster, Maine is a sleeper state. There is a lot of open land, and some real monsters there. Maine doesn' t get the attention that the midwest does, so hunts are generally 1/3 the price of a guided hunt in Iowa or Ill. Or, you can just go camp and do it yourself. You may not see 30 deer per day, but the percentage of older bucks in the herd is higher in Maine than just about anywhere, and you likely won' t see too many other hunters up there either. It' s not an easy hunt, but if you have a week or ten days to put in around the 3rd week of November, you could bring home the biggest deer of your life.