CJ, if you are on a budget and want to hunt trophy whitetails on public land without question I feel that the best place would be in one of the 4 bow hunting only
counties here in West Virginia. For the cost of your gas, food and $150 for your license you have access to all the land you could hunt in a lifetime. Almost 90% of the land in these 4 counties is open to public hunting. However, with that much land hunting pressure is not an issue. The deer population here is low so there has been no gun season for about 30 years. The buck to doe ratio is almost a perfect 3:1. You can do a search under my username and see the many P&Y buck trail cam photos that I have posted.