Scott - I'd LOVE to agree with you here, but I can't. There's a very distinct reasonwhy you stay on the west side of the PA/OHline. We both know that there's a finite limit to how much one person can "watch" or "study" deer -and no matter what - it isn't gonna make 'em grow any bigger. I could walk the PA gamelands until my feet bled, and I'd never kill a 150" deer. I could drag Cox's army through there on a shed hunt, and I'd never find a 70" shed. It's just not gonna happen. You just can't find a deer that isn't there. It's like Polar Bear hunting in Florida.

I hunted Ohio this year. In 3 days in the stand, my buddy shot the biggest buck of his life. I spent 5 days on standand killed a buck that would've torn the antlers off of the one I killed in PA, and passed up about 5 more just like it. 5 days, and I saw more quality deer over that span than I'd seen in hundreds of stand-hours in PA, hunting some of the best land that my home county has to offer. Sure, we scouted fast and dialed-in on some good activity - but I do the same thing at home every year. It just doesn't yield the same results.

I spot/glass literally thousands of PA deer all over Fayette, Greene, Washington and Westmoreland Countiesevery year. Thousands. I can say without hesitation that it's everything a guy can do to kill a 130-class whitetail here.

It's easy to sit back and say "you're not trying hard enough" or "you're not looking in the right places," but there comes a point where you are legitimately and routinely shooting the biggest deer around, and you have to accept that you're not hunting in Pike County.Or just realize that you're waiting for a statistical anomaly that might only come along once-in-a-lifetime. If ever.

A 165" buck goes down inElk County, PA or Preston County, WV - it's headline news. The same deer eats a bullet in Iowa, nobody notices. It's just that simple.