I had planned on going to either Kentucky or Ohio this year for a chance at a big one, but circumstances forbade it. Maybe next year, but since I started thinking about it, I discovered that I can probably go to Texas and shoot a nilgai for about the same price. Lotsa tasty meat on a nilgai, I’m told.
You're absolutely right. If you hook up with a guiding service, expect to pay through the nose. I'm not saying it's not worth it. If you are willing to pay a guy to do all the pre-season legwork, it probably is.
Take my place in KY. I have deer coming out of my ears and over the past 5 years, the number of worthy bucks has gone way up. Part of that is hunting pressure is down somewhat. A good part of it comes from the fact that I had a neighbor that was pouring $800 worth of corn into a feeder every year. When he sold out, the bucks didn't have an all-night buffet to go to anymore, and daylight buck sightings increased. I'm out on the property every week. I'm glassing the pastures. I'm checking my camera. I'm shaking my rattle.
My guess is that I've seen no more than a dozen B&C-class bucks in 20 years. Oh, they are out there. It's just that they tend to roam a lot. The buck you see today is going to be over in the next county by nightfall. I've got one of them up on the wall. The rest were all chance encounters. That's okay. I'm happy with what I've got. On my 200 acres, there is usually 1-2 mature bucks-- these are shooters, not B&C record book material.
I did some figgerin' a number of years back and figured out there were probably 8,000 B&C bucks in the Commonwealth of Kentucky at any given time. That's about 1 per every 5 square miles. Ohio is about the same, maybe a bit less. Kentucky is one of the top big-buck states in the union.
