Also guys, you gotta remember they hunt very very private farms....the kind of farm where you or I couldnt set foot on without paying a big fee.
Our best bet for a big buck (they are out there) is to gain access to a farm...public land does hold some bruisers but they are much smarter than a private land deer cause they got educated and on a public land you will have to fight other crowds.
Like I said public land does hold big boys....I shot a 155 5/8"er last year with my bow on a piece of public land that is heavily hunted.
Bob, hunting in the Midwest is like any other place...it is what you make of it.
Here is a typical 9 day gun season for me in Southwestern Wisconsin.
First two days of the season I am in my tree stand by 5:30 am located on a sidehill of mixed hardwood trees my own property. Terrain gives me shots from 0 to 125 yards. I will only come out of that stand to piss or gut a deer.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday...join up with the neighbors for some good old fashioned deer drives. Lot's of action while moving big nocturnal bucks and filling doe tags.
Thursday - deer drives in the morning, Thanksgiving dinner and football on TV in the afternoon/evening.
Friday and Saturday we get the boats out and drive some islands of the Wisconsin River. If the river is iced in a bunch of us will go north and still hunt along some of the rivers in the Black River State Forest.
Sunday morning I pussyfoot through my neighbors CRP ground and after lunch I climb back into my tree stand and watch the last couple of hours of the deer season fade in the twilight.
Dat's making the most of it - that's a nice plan and breaks up the monotony of all-day sits.
In Nebraska, it depends, to a great degree, on your choice of hunting modes; modern rifle, muzzle-loading rifle, or archery.
In Nebraska, the modern rifle season for bucks is only 9 days long, but the archery season runs for over 3 months, and the muzzle loading rifle season runs for the entire month of December. I have found that it is a lot easier to get permission to hunt on private ground with either a bow or a muzzle loader than it is with a high power CF rifle.
If you're only shooting deer for meat, IOW antlerless whitetails, there are lots of less expensive seasons choice tags available that can be used during any of the regular archery, modern rifle, and muzzle loading rifle seasons, plus the January antler-less herd reduction season.
A couple of my high school buddys regularly make a trip out here from NH in January to shoot does and typically they go home with between 8 and 12 deer.
What makes the midwest so much fun to hunt is that half of it is open crop land, and the other half holds the deer. It doubles the amount of deer that are in the cover/bedding areas, because you can see through the open fields that they aren't there, so they're in the cover. Lots of feed, lots of heavily used trails, and about half of the hiding spots.
One wooded draw, or one half mile long brushy fence row may hold half the deer in that square mile. Find a fence row that connects two brushy draws, or a draw and a wood lined river, and you just might have every deer in two sqare miles come by at any time of the season, which is during the rut.
Bob I do know of a piece of public ground that I have personally seen three booners and six or eight 150 inch deer killed off of it. I have thought about hunting it myself but I have always had a lease to hunt. I would guess that the pressure is fairly heavy but they kill some monsters off that piece of ground.
Last year I talked with some guys from maine that had killed a 140 inch buck off of it as well.
I think private ground is the best but the biggest bucks I have personally seen have all come off of public ground.
I grew up in Northcentral MO, and still hunt there. I'm lucky, all my family farms, so there is quite a bit of ground to choose from, in my case. It's rolling hills, mixed pasture/brush/fields/creek bottoms, etc. I don't get a big old buck every year, in truth, about one in three years I get a big buck (by Chariton County standards), but I get to visit family and have a good time, whether I get a deer or not. I seldom do without, I can always shoot a doe for meat, if need be, but I try to hold out for a big deer when possible. I don't use tree stands, there seem to be big haybales stored in most every field, and I usually crowd up next to one, to break the wind, which can be uncomfortably cold at times, or, I set up a pop-up blind and sit in it. I've even just sat, in the open, on a bucket (I did that when I killed my largest deer a few years back). Deer aren't too scared of people up there, the farmers, fishermen, mushroom hunters, wood cutters, etc. are in the woods all the time, and the deer are used to people being around, more or less. It's not easy, but it's not hard, either. Just relaxing.
You can roll a turd in peanuts, dip it in chocolate, and it still ain't no damn Baby Ruth.
Of course, the BEST part about hunting farm country, is going to the house to get the tractor to haul it out. To hell with dragging it out of the brush.............
You can roll a turd in peanuts, dip it in chocolate, and it still ain't no damn Baby Ruth.
I've hunted in Illinois and Iowa a couple of times. Mostly small farms (300 acres or so). I really liked it, as both places were smallish fields (compared to here) with wooded areas connecting them.
Plenty of natural funnels and the deer had to use them or take the risk of crossing open ground. I found it much easier to locate the main travel routes there vs. here, as there were far fewer of them due to the terrain.
Another advantage is they don't have a billion food sources still available like we do here, so targeting groceries is not such a crap shoot there as it is at home.
Pretty country, big deer and easier to figure out IME.
In my part of Kansas you don't hunt a deer, you hunt a good place to set so you can SEE the deer. This is open prarie ground and crop fields, with the cover along the creeks and scattered woodlots. CRP fields next to crops and creek bottoms hold a lot of deer. Overgrown pastures, without cows, are deer magnets as well. This is perfect for a good rifle and scope and some patience. Watching a narrow place in a brushy fence row or creek between crops and CRP, from 2 or 300 yards away downwind is what I want. It's deer shooting more than deer hunting. The bigger piece of private ground and fewer county roads the better. It ain't what it used to be tho. Too many people chasing a dwindling resource, exagerated by outfitters and supported by the state legislature after that out of state money.
We used to have a lot of big deer. Now it takes a BIG piece of ground out of reach of the road hunters or outfitters who cycle one guy after the other in the same stands from late Sept muzzle loaders thru bow season and into rifle season. A lot of good habitat is continually hunted from September thru the first 2 weeks of December. If you can find several hundred acres where the deer have a chance to grow up, and have several days to stick it out, this is still a good place to shoot a great deer. You just have to let the almost great ones go, and hope the neighbors do too.
Bob, hunting in the Midwest is like any other place...it is what you make of it.
Here is a typical 9 day gun season for me in Southwestern Wisconsin.
First two days of the season I am in my tree stand by 5:30 am located on a sidehill of mixed hardwood trees my own property. Terrain gives me shots from 0 to 125 yards. I will only come out of that stand to piss or gut a deer.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday...join up with the neighbors for some good old fashioned deer drives. Lot's of action while moving big nocturnal bucks and filling doe tags.
Thursday - deer drives in the morning, Thanksgiving dinner and football on TV in the afternoon/evening.
Friday and Saturday we get the boats out and drive some islands of the Wisconsin River. If the river is iced in a bunch of us will go north and still hunt along some of the rivers in the Black River State Forest.
Sunday morning I pussyfoot through my neighbors CRP ground and after lunch I climb back into my tree stand and watch the last couple of hours of the deer season fade in the twilight.
That sounds like one hell of a way to spend deer season if you ask me. Well done!
I hunted the last two years during the firearms season in south east Illinois. The first year I was there five days before the opener while friends bowhunted and my routine was to drop them off before daylight and then just drive and look. The second buck I saw was an honest 160" class 5x5-the rut was really on and the corn was out of the fields. In the next few days I saw more mature bucks than most of a lifetime in TN. Sometimes five bucks chasing a hot doe. Last year it was different, I did not see nearly the amount of bucks as the year bfore-different weather and rut timing, but it was still much better than the best season here. It's not like it is on "kill TV" but it's worth experiencing. And you get used to the shotgun or muzzleloader part, just make them do their best and know you won't get to shoot at some of the deer you see. I drew an Iowa tag this year (another diy like Illinois) I hope it's anything like Illinois.
I have lived in Illinois my whole life. I live a little over an hours drive South of the golden triangle and hunt in areas of private ownership. I can tell ya its nothing like ya see on TV where I hunt. I may see one or two big bucks all season (if I'm lucky). I killed my first deer with a bow 25 years ago and have been harvesting deer every year since. I have four nice deer on the wall and a couple smaller ones. My better deer are 130" to 155". I can tell ya ... I have hunted alot for the few nice deer I have. Don't be fooled into thinking all the MidWest is like the TV shows.
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