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Slow Day... The Best Big Buck State
- Thread starter bwoods11
- Start date
S.T.Fanatic
5 year old buck +
The numbers don't lie boys, Wisconsin is the clear leader ...
No restrictions to out of state hunters or non-rez land owners like Iowa, cheap non-rez license tags at $165 (Illinois is $450), plenty of public land. If Wisconsin went to shotgun or muzzleloader only like other states, scary what what could be produced.
And by the way we have pickled eggs & northern pike, Hamm's beer & Point Bock beer, cheese, and bacon fat basted eggs to cure that hangover
Top B&C Whitetail Producing States Last 10 Years
Typicals:
Non-Typicals:
- Wisconsin: 1,770
- Illinois: 1,405
- Iowa: 1,291
- Minnesota: 1,168
- Kentucky: 1,009
- Ohio: 977
- Missouri: 851
- Kansas: 828
- Indiana: 739
- Texas: 731
- Wisconsin: 712
- Ohio: 457
- Kentucky: 418
- Indiana: 369
- Iowa: 354
- Illinois: 331
- Kansas: 322
- Missouri: 301
- Minnesota: 293
- Texas: 248
Top P&Y Whitetail Producing States Last 10 Years
1. Wisconsin 12,246
2. Illinois 7,891
3. Iowa 5,025
4. Ohio 4,020
5. Kansas 3,534
6. Colorado 3,174
7. Indiana 3,045
8. Minnesota 3,005
9. Montana 2,658
10. Missouri 2,354
You take the firearm season out of the rut and see what happens to Minnesota. The not registering thing is popular around here too
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Catscratch
5 year old buck +
Yep... er, nope. What I mean is all KS deer are in the books. If we don't have comparable numbers with other states it simply means we don't have big deer.
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bwoods11
5 year old buck +
Totally agree it could be amazing!!
IkemanTx
5 year old buck +
The numbers don't lie boys, Wisconsin is the clear leader ...
No restrictions to out of state hunters or non-rez land owners like Iowa, cheap non-rez license tags at $165 (Illinois is $450), plenty of public land. If Wisconsin went to shotgun or muzzleloader only like other states, scary what what could be produced.
And by the way we have pickled eggs & northern pike, Hamm's beer & Point Bock beer, cheese, and bacon fat basted eggs to cure that hangover
Top B&C Whitetail Producing States Last 10 Years
Typicals:
Non-Typicals:
- Wisconsin: 1,770
- Illinois: 1,405
- Iowa: 1,291
- Minnesota: 1,168
- Kentucky: 1,009
- Ohio: 977
- Missouri: 851
- Kansas: 828
- Indiana: 739
- Texas: 731
- Wisconsin: 712
- Ohio: 457
- Kentucky: 418
- Indiana: 369
- Iowa: 354
- Illinois: 331
- Kansas: 322
- Missouri: 301
- Minnesota: 293
- Texas: 248
Top P&Y Whitetail Producing States Last 10 Years
1. Wisconsin 12,246
2. Illinois 7,891
3. Iowa 5,025
4. Ohio 4,020
5. Kansas 3,534
6. Colorado 3,174
7. Indiana 3,045
8. Minnesota 3,005
9. Montana 2,658
10. Missouri 2,354
The only downside is the whole dang state is a CWD zone... if it weren’t for that, I’d probably pick up a nonresident license next year.
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S.T.Fanatic
5 year old buck +
What does CWD have to do with it?
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Tree Spud
5 year old buck +
The top ten 125" bucks? You asked ... which state is the Best Big Buck State and Why??
I showed you recorded results for 10 years of the best big buck states, multiple perspectives and scoring for both P&Y and B&C. If you want to focus on just big B&C bucks, over 160", here are the numbers for the last 10 years in the top 5 states....
WI 2482
IL 1736
IA 1645
MN 1461
OH 1434
You can claim that IA has lots of non-registered big bucks, do you think that IA is the only state where guys don't score officially the bucks they get to protect their property or lease? People are people, probably 30-40% of big bucks are scored in any given state and the rest are not.
Smart folks don't tell anyone about their fishing honey hole.
IkemanTx
5 year old buck +
I can’t transport the carcass back home to Texas.... that’s the whole point of hunting. Also, a 50/50 chance of not being able to eat it at all anyways.
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Tree Spud
5 year old buck +
That is kinda a statement without fact ... of the ~ 283,000 deer harvested in Wisconsin in 2019, only 1217 have registered positive for CWD. Less than 0.004% of the deer harvested annually.
If Texas has any deer farms, captive herds, importation of out of state stud deer for breeding, fenced operations, etc. CWD already exists or it has been brought in.
BTW ... what does CWD have to do with taking a trophy buck? Are you actually worried about bring the meat home?
Tree Spud
5 year old buck +
I learned about 20 years ago about sharing game cam photos of big beer or a big buck you took ... bad idea! All you do is invite night time shiners, poachers, trespassers, and fence line sitters during the hunting season ... then the shed hunter trespassers after season.
bwoods11
5 year old buck +
Wisconsin is very good no doubt ... but
You can’t go by registered bucks only. Who has consistent video of shooting 170-200 inch bucks in Wisconsin ... every year?
Let me know I’d like to watch.
S.T.Fanatic
5 year old buck +
I’ll just say I’m glad that Minnesota isn’t #1
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Peplin Creek
5 year old buck +
Drury Outdoors maybe.. they’ve started Hunting other properties in other states now as well.
Mortenson
5 year old buck +
Yeah, but are they tubing OR caging their trees? Lol
I think IA vs WI is interesting. Maybe different traditions going on in different states these days. I feel like a lot of young slayers who can pick up and move, go to IA, and then manage maybe 400 to 1K ac and film a lot of 170+ deer. Seems the trendy thing to do the past few years? Guess I dont see as much of that coming from WI. IA (and really every state for that matter) always likes to brag they don't register hardly any bucks. Who's to say WI isn't the very best at that trick though? If regulations were all equal, I agree WI and MO would lead the way overwhelmingly. PENN still leads the way in hunters per sq mile! So you have that going for you.
I think IA vs WI is interesting. Maybe different traditions going on in different states these days. I feel like a lot of young slayers who can pick up and move, go to IA, and then manage maybe 400 to 1K ac and film a lot of 170+ deer. Seems the trendy thing to do the past few years? Guess I dont see as much of that coming from WI. IA (and really every state for that matter) always likes to brag they don't register hardly any bucks. Who's to say WI isn't the very best at that trick though? If regulations were all equal, I agree WI and MO would lead the way overwhelmingly. PENN still leads the way in hunters per sq mile! So you have that going for you.
Bowsnbucks
5 year old buck +
Mortenson ^^^ Don't worry - Pennsylvania won't be leading any charts for big bucks. If a buck makes it to 3.5 here, it's a miracle. Since AR here (which helped bucks get some age on them), if a buck has 3 points on a side he's a goner. You might be able to cover the antler spread from thumb to pinky, but the mindset is too often, "Hey …… he's legal !"
hillrunner
5 year old buck +
16 million acres of timber in Wisconsin, 3 million in Iowa. Almost 600,000 hunters in Wisconsin compared to less than 200,000 in Iowa.
Obviously a much higher percentage of Iowa hunters are successful to keep the book numbers as close as they are. If Iowa was to manage the deer herd the way the neighboring states do, it would be devasted in no time with the small amount of habitat it holds. I couldn't care less what state is considered #1, I just want Iowa to leave it's regulations alone. We have to fight every year to keep things as good as they are. It's really frustrating.
Obviously a much higher percentage of Iowa hunters are successful to keep the book numbers as close as they are. If Iowa was to manage the deer herd the way the neighboring states do, it would be devasted in no time with the small amount of habitat it holds. I couldn't care less what state is considered #1, I just want Iowa to leave it's regulations alone. We have to fight every year to keep things as good as they are. It's really frustrating.
bigbendmarine
5 year old buck +
Putting aside state regulations, qdm practices, etc for a moment... I'd just say y'all fellas in what I'd call the "Upper Midwest" are blessed as all other factors aside summing the harvest data that's online here's a graphic of the 3 top states...
Expanding out to the top 7 states...
And finally the top 9 states... no offense to Baker, but I dropped 10th place Texas from the graphic not only because it's the one state that isn't quite in the "upper" midwest, but also as a former resident of the great state it's almost like its own nation and in large part to its huge size doesn't just have one type of geography / climate. Heck driving across it represents driving across about 1/3 of the mainland.
May be faulty thinking but if it were me, seems like an ideal scenario would be to have land around Dubuque, Iowa, near the point where Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa all meet together.
Expanding out to the top 7 states...
And finally the top 9 states... no offense to Baker, but I dropped 10th place Texas from the graphic not only because it's the one state that isn't quite in the "upper" midwest, but also as a former resident of the great state it's almost like its own nation and in large part to its huge size doesn't just have one type of geography / climate. Heck driving across it represents driving across about 1/3 of the mainland.
May be faulty thinking but if it were me, seems like an ideal scenario would be to have land around Dubuque, Iowa, near the point where Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa all meet together.
Tree Spud
5 year old buck +
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IkemanTx
5 year old buck +
Why would I be hunting if I wasn’t worried about taking the meat home...?
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