Public vs Private Trophy
 

The conception of a trophy white-tail deer differs from state to state and sometimes county to county, but does the conception of a trophy deer differ when going public to private land?

Personally, I think it does a little bit. If you can find a monster buck like some people have on their 1000 acre farms than that's when I think it changes. The public land has more people hunting it, which means more pressure and more killing per year. On a farm somebody could let a buck go knowing that heck...I'll give him another year to grow. On public land that buck could be shot the next day, or simply pushed to another part of the woods you'll never search. That's just my personal opinion though.

I dont know about trophys, but the deer on average get older on private land.

Trophy is in the eye of the beholder.

+ 2 :barmy:

NO KIDDING its in the eye of yourself... THAT'S WHY I'M ASKING YOU!!!

If I had a 1000acres under my own control there is no doubt I'd have a booner on the wall within 10 years.

Public land...depends...I feel like you can only hunt hard and smart on public land, managing the herd isn't really happening.

to me a public land diy trophy is nothing greater. but public land from state to state varies too, out west tons of guys hunt public land in their home state, east it seems to all be private...

That means that a trophy can be many different things to many different people. To me a trophy can be a buck that I worked really hard for 2-3 years to kill. It has nothing to do whether it was on private or public land but how hard I worked in my scouting and hunting to kill this buck regardless of what type of land I killed it on. To someone else a trophy may be a buck that was killed on public land and that meant something to that hunter so that makes it a trophy. Just because a buck s killed on public land may or may not make it a trophy as it depends on each individual.

I totally agree with you. But a lot of folks think a trophy is what the B&C scoring regs say it is. Kind of sad really....

My best "trophy" was a doe my son killed when he was 8 years old with his bow. I built the treestand big enough for both of us and had to reach over and help him get his bow to the let off point so he could hold it at full draw. He let it fly and looked over at me and said "I HIT IT!!!" I'm a grown man but don't mind to tell you tears rolled down my face that morning. That "trophy" wasn't a 170 class buck or even a buck at all but means more to me than any deer I have or will ever take. There are several good mounts hanging in my den but I go to that photo of him holding that little doe by the ears with a huge smile whenever I forget what a trophy is to me. I guess what I'm trying to say is a trophy is differant to each person no matter where they hunt.