Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Best state or province to shoot a 300 pound whitetail?

Exactly the buck I shot with the scale pictured was at least a foot longer than any deer I've ever killed

Right on Tzone, the big ones get really long. Just thinking back, my group in West Central Minnesota has killed 7 over 300 pounds over the years. Dressed weight from 245 lbs to 267 lbs. It has been a couple years since we have shot a big one though. A few years ago I shot a thick upper 140s rack that didnt look that big in the body to us. It weighed 201 lbs.

That said, my brother and I have been giving my dad grief for the last two years cuz he shot a doe fawn that yielded 14 pounds of hamburger...no steaks or anything....14 lbs! Everywhere we would go, I would tell guys that Dad shot a 14 last year, ask him about it!

If you are a good hunter, you can shoot a 300# buck in MN. Check out the special Ripley Archery hunt, they always shoot a couple on that hunt.

The heaviest whitetails on record are from the Minn/Wisc/Mi UP area and some of those are listed at dressing over 300 lbs. The 500 pounder mentioned dressed just over 400. BUT most of those were from years ago. The UP of MI has changed....the deer yards aren't what they used to be due to overpopulation...our regulations for years didn't promote older age bucks, etc. They have new regs they started a few years ago so hopefully we'll see some really big boys again....if the wolves don't get them first. Stateside, Minn probably first, then N. Wisc. Some of the Canadian Provinces are a good bet too.

I was going to ask about the U.P. I figured they'd have some bruisers.

M1-

That's an interesting observation on the UP and I wholeheartedly agree. Much can be said for WI as well. While we get some that dress at, say, 240#, it's still pretty rare - though I'm sure someone will provide ample evidence that it happens regularly based on a guy at work's second cousin on their mom's side and will swear they are regularly weighed on a certified scale sans innards.

And, generally when that happens, it's one taken with stick and string in the latter part of October.
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Gents have offered a lot of places where it can happen and I'll throw North Dakota in for good measure too. But the reality is, the OP asked the best state or province for a TRAVELING hunter to shoot a 300 whitetail - IE the best odds - and that answer is still SK. There isn't a province that affords you a greater luxury to look at a lot of antlered deer (in the good years - lack of harsh winters). AB and MB are good too but the baiting equation helps SK.

If I was looking to scratch "huge-whitetail-that-I-can't-budge-when-I-try-to-drag-him" off my bucket list, it'd be NW SK.

MooseMike (OP), this buck easily makes the cut and I know he didn't die via bullet this year.

Great pic SKane! That's a brute. Where was it taken (the picture of course)?

If this was a goal of mine I would try and hunt before they run themselves ragged during the rut. Might mean using stick and string depending where you end up.

NE SK - Carrot River area.

My phone cam wasn't cooperating due to the cold or I'd have gotten better picts.

Mike,
That buck was actually a high-fence deal. I like Mark Kayser a bunch, just disappointed he didn't take the thirty seconds to check his facts.

They have, but nothing like they used to when it was thee place to go for big bucks. I still see some big ones shot every year and hopefully it'll get better with the new regs.

Some whitetails in Saskatchewan look like farm cows.

Our deer get large bodies in east central, MN. Last 6 years we have taken 240, 225, 215 and 3 or 4 between 205-210, all dressed weights. A few of those would have pushed 300 live weight and ironically the largest was a 3.5 year old. Racks on said deer varied greatly with only a couple being really nice. They can be tough to move if we can't get an atv to them!

Well....when it comes to big whitetails no one I know has been around more than Skane. would listen carefully to what he says and get up to Saskatchewan.

If I were a Vegas oddsmaker, and based on what I have seen, I would say that if you don't live where 300 pound (aka really large)whitetails live, you have to travel to get them.

And Skane brings up an excellent point about the "odds" of success, which I think will be higher in the prairie provinces than possibly anywhere else.

The Maine record for a field dressed buck is 353 pounds IIRC; in a harvest of about 21,000 deer, only 600-700 dressed in excess of 200 pounds. What these numbers don't tell you are the large number of bucks that will dress from 160 to over 190 pounds.

But the success rate for ANY deer generally runs about 10%...for a legal buck it will be far lower. It is not an easy place to hunt, and I have never been anywhere continent wide where it has been more difficult.

I recall reading years back that the number of B&C bucks as a percentage of the harvest was far higher in Saskatchewan and Alberta than anywhere else on the continent; Dick Morris pegged the region as one of very few places on the continent that a guy could reasonably hold out for a 150+ scoring buck; few other places were mentioned. I know antlers are not body weights but it is also axiomatic that big antlered northern deer are generally big bodied as well.

For "best" odds of personal success I'd still lean to Canada.

Well I can tell y'all that for double damned sure there aren't any 300 plus pound deer in Florida that haven't been raised inside a high fence... LOL

I also hunt south Georgia and the game processors periodically mention 300 pound bucks being brought in but that's a freak occurance and there is always speculation that they spent their lives eating a lot of corn and peanuts of which there are many places they can do exactly that around.

I was raised in Southern Illinois and can testify to seeing some huge bucks there but I don't think I've ever seen one that would go 300. I've probably seen a few that would easily top 250 though. The farm I was raised on was my grandfather's farm and he didn't allow deer hunting on the farm so it was somewhat of a sanctuary and we almost always had some pretty big bucks that often had some pretty impressive hat racks.

Bob

I have never killed a deer dressing at over 250 pounds but I can tell you that seeing a big bodied deer, like in this picture, is almost better than sex.

LDhunter: I have heard that parts of Georgia were restocked years back with northern strain whitetails, so some of them get pretty big....never hunted there though.

Then you're doin it wrong!!

I said almost.

Almost! but not quite.

Or she is....