A 28 day firearm season, that catches most of the rut.....multiple buck tags, huge areas of forever wild in the Catskill park and ADK.....all that has to change before NY ever breaks the top 25 list for whitetail deer hunting. The only states I have hunted that are worse then NY is other New England states.( with the exception of CT)
You sound so bitter......LOL the hunting in CT or RI is the best in the New England. Archery in RI goes from sept.15th-january 31st, (same with CT on private land)and you can hunt Sundays. 2 buck limit, 3-4 doe limit depending on the county. Plenty of deer and good size mature bucks. (120-130 class) and a few that go higher in certain areas.
I have bow hunted CT since 1995, it's been ok for me over the years. I am lucky too have two sizable properties. That said I never let it get in the way of heading to better places. ...most of CT is better then NY except for a few western ny counties. Bitterness comes from the *** backward thinking of our DEC and local hunters in NY .....they keep doing the same thing year after year with the same or worse results. There are several better models for deer management to chose from yet they ignore them.
What, no PA :D The high land prices, extraordinarily high hunter population, and spotty quality public land options doesn't make the cut?
Ive given up worrying about th best hunting states. Heck everyone knows as well as I do one persons hunting grounds might be horrible while anothers may be awesome just 400 meters away. Thinking in terms of states is way too general.
Missouri COULD be much higher if they would make some much needed changes to the regulations. They are considering some of these changes. Under considerations are one buck only(all methods), and they are considering moving the rifle season back one week to get it off the peak of the rut. I would be all for moving rifle back, but I don't support only one buck. I would support one buck for bow and one buck for rifle, just on one buck for all methods. They have already eliminated the unlimited doe tags for most counties(For the firearms season). We now are only allowed one doe in my county with a firearm. I believe we can still get unlimited during the archery season, but I'll need to double check that. I usually only take one doe a year total anyways. I would also like to see them raise the price for out of state tags to be in line with Kansas, Iowa, and Illinois. I certainly don't mind and understand out of state hunters, I would just like our state to be more in line with the surround states. They have not considered this mover, which kinda blows my mind. I guess it's all about revenue.
Author lost all credibility with this statement "slim chance of bumping into anyone else are but a few of the many reasons that Kansas is our top state for whitetails this year."
Just keep in mind that these numbers were based on P&Y and Boone and Crocket book listing... How many guys do you each know that has bucks on the wall that was never entered in those books? I say articles like the one in question helps sales more than it provides meaningful information.. Everyone knows there are no big deer in Indiana..
Solid stuff by Mark as usual. I thought Iowa would at least be top ten but really I think the list is pretty solid. I am an out of state hunter for Indiana and if the role was reversed I don't think I would be willing to pay for a tag in IL. It just costs way to much.
I have often wondered if each state has the same rate of not entering deer in the record books and also if the number of people who score deer are the same in each state.
