This whole "the deer belong to the public" agenda is ignorant. The deer belong to noone, they belong to the land they inhabit.
Yes they do belong to the land they inhabit BUT........they also can move to other lands if they want.
Could some of the folks living in those fabled trophy producing states give us your take on what it's like to be a resident hunter in such a state ?
Although my side of Illinois is not as deer populated as western Illinois, the greed factor is beginning to take hold. For example a non-resident started leasing 900 acres last year near my hunting area, he then sold 3 guys hunts for $3,600 a piece...which helped pay for part of his lease costs. In my experience, most land is leased by hunters to keep others out so that they can have the land to hunt by themselves.
As a side note, a group of outfitters in Illinois recently went together and have filed a lawsuit in Federal court challenging the state's caps on non-resident bowhunting permits. This is very similiar to what USO did in Arizona. My problem with this is not non-resident hunters........but that the outfitters think their ability to make a buck is more important than the state's ability to govern our herd, and allow taxpaying resident hunters more opportunities.