Hope everyone's Holidays are going well. For Christmas my wife and family have decided to give me a Christmas/ early 50th B-day gift. I get to pick an out of state whitetail hunt of my choice. Would like to keep it under $3500 and east of the Mississippi. I live in Pa and have never traveled out of state to hunt. My brother in-law will be going along since we always do a 10 day trip to the cabin every year together. He suggested Illinois, Indiana, Iowa or Ohio. Been looking all over the internet and there is some many to chose from. Some suggestions and thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks in advance to all who reply.
Indiana sucks now and the pressure is unbelieveable .. also to many Does have been killed off, we are down 7000 compared to last season ... Illinois is a good destination ... Kentucky is a quiet hot state as is Ohio ..
Thanks for the reply. Kentucky never crossed my mind will look into that. My cousin lives in Tennessee and her husband seems to always get a nice buck or have pics on his trail cams.
I would agree with what your brother in-law suggested. Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, and Ohio would be great states to hunt. Unfortunately, they also get a TON of pressure. That's not to say that it can't work, there just seems to be a ton of pressure on public lands in those areas during Rut. If you're open to traveling a bit further, Nebraska would be a decent option for you. Out of state tags are pretty cheap and very easy to come by. The eastern side of the state is limited with the amount of hunting ground and tends to get more pressure due to the population being heavily skewed towards the east. The western part of the state is sparsely populated and has massive tracts of land where you can spot and stalk mule deer, whitetails, and a number of different species. I also wouldn't sleep on the South East. Parts of Western VA, NC, KY, etc have a ton of public land that's not hunted that hard (it's mostly mountains though - not sure if that's what you're looking for).
I would choose Iowa but with preference points needed a bow hunt takes 3-5 years to draw. Wisconsin, Kentucky and Ohio have great hunting available with over the counter tags.
update, Indiana is now 12,866 down from last year ... also Non-res licenses just went up quite a bit ...
Personally I would do something other then a whitetail hunt, just me. You already can hunt them in PA. Here is my thoughts. 3500 doesn’t go far unfortunately, and really not if you toss in tags and travel. Hunter success on “guided whitetail” might be about 25% if your willing to shoot a smaller buck, say 120 ish … if your looking for mature buck 140ish and up…well I bet it’s closer to 10%. Most outfitters really over pressure there ground to clear enough margin to make a living. Especially the more responsible priced ones. All in all paying for hunts whitetails are about the worst return you will have for your money in the guided hunting world Now if your set on whitetail and your willing and would be happy with a 120ish-130ish buck….look to south and go latter in year and you will find more options and success for you budget. Some other really cool hunts that you can pull off with that budget is pronghorn hunt or bear hunt. Both of which will get you a higher rate of success vs dollars spent on a whitetail.
I'll never do this but thinking on it I'd research recent blue tongue out breaks the past few years. Who's had severe weather or fire events.Multiple species tags. Bordering close states with over the counter tags. Then I'd send out some E mails and or comments to videos to the hunting public and other similar crews for advice.
