Shoot when I put my 175 down I think I was flying on booner high too much and never downed another deer...I should have been in the 225 club!
I think it was MNpurple, not sure if that was his handle. He shot a 230 something buck. Can't remember if he shot a doe that year either. I know I could have if my first buck wasn't the smaller one. I shot 2 doe, a 117 buck and a 203" that year. But the smaller buck was the first one I shot. Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk
Justin my friend... I've watched you on the show for years... I'm pretty sure I know why there aren't more 150" deer on your wall... All joking aside, I am fully aware that there are not 150 inch deer running all over like cattle in the midwest. I hunt a place in Missouri every year now since 2014. Its not really managed outfitter ground like you'd expect to see. Its just private ground (not sure if I"m going back there for a while... lol). In that time frame, I've killed one deer that scored 151 and I saw I believe 3 other bucks over the years that I don't think had any issues getting above that number. I've always said that averages in the midwest in around 135 for what most consider a big buck, where here in PA its 120" inches.
One other thing a lot of people that aren’t from the Midwest may not realize till you’ve seen it first hand, even states like Illinois have regions where it’s great and regions where it’s just not. Example - Northern IL has been pounded by CWD sharpshooting for close to 20 years now. The genetics are here, but between everything being subdivided into smaller lots (and therefore more groups of hunters), and DNR knocking back the populations so low, the entire portion of the state north of route 80 is much different than let’s say west central IL. I’d say maybe 20% of the huntable cover type farms in Northern IL consistently hold 150”+ deer consistently. Most of the best hunting in this part of the state for truly big deer is in suburbs where no one hunts and it’s almost impossible to get permission and where there are too many people for DNR to sharp shoot them. If you were to draw a line around western IL though from Moline, to Peoria, and back down to St Louis, almost every huntable farm will hold a 150 and most will have a 170 show up on cam most years. It’s still all better than anything I saw living on the east coast, but it’s not all what you see on tv for sure. Consistent 130-140 bucks in Northern IL is much more of the norm.
Oh for sure many of you are 100% correct. There are guys that have trophy rooms that impress me more than many others and they might have just one or two bucks breaking 150 inches.....because of where they hunt. There is a reason my biggest questions I always ponder about harvest is what weapon and where from...both are massive factors to at least from an outsider's perspective how impressed I am....you kill a Pope & Young on public land in PA with a long bow....is freaking more impressive than a booner with a gun in Iowa....
I love my trips to the midwest to hunt deer. Its different and I may get some flak for saying this, but easier in many ways to at least locate a buck you want to pursue. I get spoiled out there being able to ride around roads and glass fields and CRP for miles on end. Its hard in PA. Its all tree covered and steep mountains mostly with ag in the lowlands. The larger, more mature bucks are ghosts here and their home ranges are enormous. Follow the food through the mountains is the name of the game. This could mean a 5 mile radius most years. I'm also really excited to see more and more what we all consider truly giant bucks being killed here in PA. Its cool to see. Last year these two bucks were killed within 5 miles of my house on public ground during our rifle season. 206 and 194 respectively.
I inquired about that a couple years ago, he disappeared around the time Covid started up and hasn't been around since. Sadly, can only speculate from there.
I think it's all relative - and we all think the grass is greener on the other side. The downside of hunting small tracts of private ground, even in some of the best places in the country, is that you're hunting a small sliver of any given buck's home range. Sometimes you get lucky, and your sliver is part of his primary bedding or feeding area. In others, you are the unlucky one who only sees him at night, or maybe during the summer, or visit or two during the rut. Hunting that type of deer can be extremely frustrating since many of the tactics we want to employ are rendered useless. There is no finding out where they live and killing them if they're living a mile away on a property you can't access. You just hope to be in the right spot when he finally decides to show up. I will also say that living and hunting in the suburbs brings an entirely new set of challenges that rural hunting does not. In short, rural deer tend to act more like we expect them to. They are a bit more predictable in their bedding and feeding patterns. Likewise, if you are fortunate enough to have a suburban spot that's really confined and the deer have no other options, you can pretty easily figure them out. But, if you're like us and live in that urban/rural transition zone, you have to deal with all of the suburban issues that can affect your hunting - hikers, dog walkers, kids on ATV's, trespassers, deer crossing major roads, etc, but still have enough room for them to roam so they can elude you when they need to.
All I can say is if you are hunting the Midwest it should be around rivers. Water .... Crops ... Age = big bucks period. They were all 150 bucks last year!
That is freaking awesome! Thanks for posting this, since I wasn't on the forum then. Oh and your Mark Twain quote in your signature line is one of my favorites that I use all the time...especially at work.
Thats a really good point Justin. Actually, that was a big reason I left the safe confines of private land this year to pursue bucks on public. There is just more options but I will say that the sheer number of acres at my disposal now is overwhelming. We deal with much of the urban issues you do on public I'm finding. But some of the things I assumed were going to ruin a sit turned out to not bother the deer much. I'm learning i have to be really adaptive and be willing to just climb out of a stand and relocate quick if needed. I'm also getting used to the idea of scouting three times as much as I actually hunt. Something I have gotten lazy at on private because I know it so well.
This is very true. Im in the same setting around St Louis area. I often prefer public because it has less limitations when it comes to area. Especially in illinois. A 200 acre farm is considered big. That may be 10% of a mature bucks range if he isnt a home body. Permission is harder and harder to get. When i hunt pyramid or shawnee i have thousands of acres of public and the headaches that come with it. So i enjoy a mixture of both. The private i hunt is often consisting of me listening to neighbors having conversations in the distance. Yelling at their kids or dogs. Playing music while they bbq. I have no doubt that the challenges in mountains of PA or new york are more grueling than what we have here in the midwest but this isnt shooting fish in a barrel either.
I will weigh in as a lifelong Midwesterner. My wife and I just flew out to NYC a few weeks ago and took a cab up to Greenwich, CT where we picked up an Airstream van that we drove home through New York, Pennsylvania and Northern Ohio/Indiana/Illinois. I told her that I had huge respect for anyone that could consistently kill good bucks out there. I could not believe the unlimited acres of forest and "mountains". I was completely dumbfounded by how much ground you would have to cover to find and chase a good buck. The Midwest has great genetics and lower pressure in many areas so the bucks can get some age. We also have enough open crop ground to successfully scout a lot of ground with binoculars from a truck. Field edges also make great spots for trail cameras to catch a lot of activity vs simply putting one on a trail in the woods. We also have the bonus of being able to hunt edges early in the season so we are not putting a lot of pressure on the deer. That being said, it took me a long time to figure things out to the point that I could consistently have an opportunity to at least see a shooter from the stand. Getting one shot is another story. A little luck definitely never hurts either. Bottom line is, you have to hunt where the big bucks live. No different than looking for trophy bull elk. You have much better chances in Utah and Arizona than you do in Colorado. I will always maintain that the best trophy buck hunter that has been a member here is Shed (Troy Pottenger). He is the most consistent killer of top end bucks in a very difficult mountainous region of the country. If you have never read his method on making and hunting over mock scrapes to pattern mature deer in forested mountains, you are missing out.
