Do you feel less impressed by a trophy killed by bow on a large tract of QDM land than you do by a trophy killed by bow on public land or small tract of land in a non QDM area?
I personally don't but I may have a skewed perception of that. The reason being is that the two different public hunting areas that I hunt are bow only and one is 15,000 acres and the other is close to 30,000 acres. One of these is pretty much limited to access by boat and the other you typically have to walk 1 1/2 miles to get to decent hunting. Therefore, the deer are realtively unpressured. I have occaisional access to a large tract of QDM land (1500 acres) that is bordered by one of these WMA's on two sides. I haven't found it any easier (nor have the guys that lease it) to kill good deer on the QDM land. I think big deer are big deer and they are tough to kill no matter where they are. I think the key to killing big deer is hunting where they are but I think if you kill it with a bow then you deserve a pat on the back. I think some areas of the country lend themselves more to being able to pattern and therefore kill big deer. For example, I find the mid-west to be much easier to hunt than the contiguous 30,000 acre block of bottom land timber, that I hunt, that has virtually no distinquishing characteristics from a terrain standpoint. It has no funnels, no draws, no thick areas that you can distinguish as bedding areas etc. but at the end of the day you still got to get the deer in close and you have to be able to get drawn on him etc. and you have to keep your composure together enough to make the shot, and you ultimately have to make the shot. So no I don't make any categorical distinctions between the two.