norseman, you are right, some n.e. states do turn out huge bucks, but this is the odd part, maybe someone can give us some insight. i have hunted vt, me, and mass myself seen lots of deer to no deer.how is it possible, that i have seen pics of big deer coming from both heavily human and deer populated areas, and have also seen the same from sparsely populated areas? i would say that the manner in which they were killed don' t matter, some were shot by bow, some muzzleloader, and of course rifle and shotgun, and this is the point of this post, from what i have seen, it really doesn' t matter what you use, there will still be big boys for everyone willing to put in the time, and not sit in a spot overlooking a food plot. we need to learn how to hunt again. and about that family, personally i don' t know, but i have heard way to many bad rumors about their methods of hunting to respect it. maybe the rumors were a result of someone that is just jealous.