Top 5 States?
 

What is your top 5 whitetail states in terms of trophy potential?

I'll start in no particular order; Iowa, eastern Colorado, Illinois, Ohio, Kansas

iowa, wisconsin, illonois, ohio, kansas,

iowa louisiana kansas texas wisconsin ... imo

good point cammo. i forgot bout texas

How about the top 10 rankings based on the past 10 years?

http://www.northamericanwhitetail.co...k-states-2013/

Ohio is closest to me so Im gonna say Ohio would be my best bet

Nice list Lunkerdog! I knew Wisconsin had a lot of entries, but didn't realize so many were in the past 10 years.

Is there a similar list which shows whitetail populations by state?

Rob, I knew Wisconsin would be in there. I worked in the Pepin area in the mid 90's, and saw some pretty impressive things ... Didn't know they would be ranked # 1 by B&C tho.

If you look threw the rankings you'll notice that not all are ranked by B&C... What that indicates is another discussion altogether.

I'd have to go with the list. Haha, I primarily hunt white tail deer in Nebraska and mule deer in Colorado.

I don't know who lied to you fellas, but there aren't any big deer in Kansas. Half of our bucks don't even have antlers, and those that do are scrawny and have tiny antlers. :bash:

I'd have to say KS, WI, OH, TX, IA, KY, & IL. Oh wait, that's more than 5 :)

Ha, a good campaign to raise...
 

fees for non-resident hunters.

Southern Michigan Kansas, Idaho, Vermont and Texas.

Non Resident fees are about to go up here in Michigan as well as Resident fees. Going to force us to buy a small game license too even though we have no interest in small game hunting.

:D Al

What are you defining as "trophy"? That's an important distinction because people have differnt ideas when it comes to trophy deer. If you're talking about the odds for a good mature buck for the average hunter without a guide then that is different than stricty record book deer. So, the original question can be taken 2 ways.

If you are serious about a buck that makes Boone and Crockett these states would give you the best odds based on recent record book entries:

Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Missouri

If you expand to include Canada then Saskatchewan and Alberta would need consideration as well.

If you are just after a good mature buck then I'd say that the following would be best:

Illinois
Missouri
Wisconsin
Eastern CO
The Dakotas

I pick those due to the number of good deer in relation to the herd sizes and the ease of non-residents to be able to hunt them on their own without a guide. That is why TX doesn't make my list because a non-resident isn't hunting without a guide there.

For all you guys thinking Iowa is so great. It's not what it used to be. Way too much over harvest and with EHD the last two years we are really hurting when it comes to big mature bucks

finally someone who stays up to date on deer hunting iowa USE to be good now its just above average. Your best states are Illinois, Wisconsin, and Ohio and look out for Kentucky in the next few years. INdiana would be if the regs weren't designed to slaughter all the deer so they will never be considered one of the best for growing trophy deer IMO.

Kind of depressing for us in Michigan. Our state is surrounded by states on the list with Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota....

this was a little suprising to me: http://www.northamericanwhitetail.co...nting-in-2013/

Scratch N.WI off that list - there will only be about 10 deer left after this winter.

Ky, wi, ia, oh, il

MZS, NE Minnesota is about the same... The DNR released funding for feeding for the first time since 95... Heard on the news last night that there are over 1000 volunteers helping with the feeding, and that they are finding a lot of dead animals.

Quite a shame. I hunted a few years in the French River area. One guy in our party got a buck that was near 225 pounds. Some really nice bucks and was a great area to hunt. Even the 6 pt buck I got was over 150 pounds I think. You needed some know-how in cooking them up though - a little wilder taste than field fed deer of our area. But some garlic and added beef suet always did the trick.