Which is the one state that you've never deer hunted but would like to before the reaper punches a tag on you?


New York for me

i don't know if i can narrow it down to one state but upstate new york would definitely make the top 5. gonna have to think about this one.

For some reason I always thought the UP in MI would be fun.

Maine.

Adirondacks

Utah. But I don't think that I'll make it.

I have hunted both the Adirondacks in upstate New York and Aroostook County in northern Maine. My biggest buck came from Aroostook County in 1974, a heavily palmated 11 pointer that field dressed 254#. I would like to hunt Kentucky's Land Between the Lakes.

aridzona strip

Montana.

I am hunting Kentucky's Land Between the Lakes this weekend on a Quota hunt.

I have always wanted to hunt Michigan for deer.

Oregon

Anywhere I could kill a big mulley.

New York - Adirondacks via canoe and boot

+1

Illinois

Henry Mountains...

Think we have enough New York votes to start a campfire hunt

Maine

The Adirondacks rock Steelie, but the Southern Tier will produce more and maybe better bucks.

Old School deer camps still thrive in Northern NY. And I think the word "remote" was coined by a Northwoods hunter.....

Haven't hunted there in years but always enjoyed it.

Mike

Yeah, it doesn't have to be the Adirondacks. My dad is buried in Sullivan county, along with many family members that I never knew. He spent the summers at his grandmother's farm when he was a kid.

I should have hunted it in the late 80's when my great aunt still lived there, but I was young and dumb.

I worked for a guy who was stationed at Rome for a while. He had two of the most impressive shoulder mounts hanging in his office, both public land DIY deer. When I moved back to Pa I had always anticipated a trip up to hunt, just never materialized. Spent a lot of time working up there, some beautiful and remote country.

New York, Maine, Michigan, or Wisconsin. Or all the above or any combination.

Yep that is on my todo list..If I didn't live 16 hours away I would do it every year

Iowa

Iowa. Hunted pheasants there for a couple decades, and saw a smasher buck, or 2, almost every year. Guy that owned that farm said it was typically non-residents for pheasants, locals for deer.
I live in Steuben County, NY. Deer take in this county runs just a bit shy of 10,000 per season. Firearm opener is Sat., and I suspect it will be another highly successful season.
Would also comment that the ticks are as bad as I've ever seen them. Need more cold weather.

ALASKA- Kodiak Island or somewhere in SE Alaska.

Choice "B" would be the Henry Mountains...

That'd be my #1 choice for sure!

I hunted the first quota hunt that they had there, back in the 1960's. Jumped a buck and run it out of a thicket to my buddy, who killed it. I've hunted it several times over the years. It used to be a great place to hunt. Haven't heard many good things about it lately.

Utah. When I was a kid I has a uncle who lived Blanding and when we visited we rode around and looked at mule deer. Always wanted to go back and hunt but never made it.

Montana

Those alfalfa fields around Blanding sure make for a sporty trip through there....

Alaska - Kodiak Island Blacktail

My earliest years hunting were in Sullivan County. A group of us would head up to the Catskills every year and stay on a dairy farm with access to state land. The family would cook for us and it was such a great time. A brown bag lunch was placed on a table by the door to grab on the way out each morning. We stayed upstairs in the big old farm house.

We would make a few trips up there each summer to shoot ground hogs in the fields. Oh the memories....... It seemed like it was always cold with snow on the ground whenever we went. Good times...

Iowa

Wyoming

Ok after thought and reflection I have come to the conclusion that I too can not limit it to just one state. I have several bucket list deer hunts. As all ready stated upstate New York or actually any of the north eastern states such as Maine, Vermont, New York would work but I would want to do that hunt with a period correct to my fantasy rifle. Either a Savage 99 in 358 win or a Marlin/Winchester lever. Northern Michigan interest me as well as does Montana but those would need to be done with a pre 64 Model 70. There are others but at this point it just becomes too much of a tease to think about..

Wyoming

First choice would be Saskatchewan but that's not a state,
Kansas would be next.

I live in the U.P. of MI...hunted all over the state. Don't bother. I've been holed up for five years raising two kids. I'll be exiting MI next November for another out of state hunt. Thank God!!!

Going to SD the next two years, IA in 2019, WY 2020 with a WI bear hunt mixed in there somewhere...then probably back to SD or ND. Have points all over! Would like a blacktail one day too.

I've hunted MI, MN, Ontario and WI. Ontario was killer in it's prime. MN was #2. Did a week long canoe hunting trip in 09 in the BWCAW and ended up in magazines and newspapers. MN was good until about 2010 and has gone downhill since. Seems like any area with 200 miles of Lake Superior is toast.

NW Montana is on my "to do" list in the next two years also.

Oh.... Hey...... is New Zealand a state?

Kansas.

Two of the guys in the camp next to ours are from West Virginia. Older fellers, these are the last men that hunted with my dad and the other original members of our camp. I love to go down there and just sit with them for a day, hearing the stories from all those hunts over the decades. It would be my honor to help them fill one last tag and drag a deer out for them.

More than just hunt there, I'd like to buy a hunting camp in NY.

This!!!

That's where I'll be Sat. morning.

You mean nobody wants to watch a feeder in Texas?

F No! That's the a main reason I get the hell out of MI is all the bait piles... and guys with a hair trigger and no restraint to let 3" spikes walk.

This and paying per antler inch is not what stirs me come early fall. Rather roam the big woods and shoot a basket rack. To each there own...

South Dakota

The Black Hills would probably be number 2 for me.

Being specific, that’s where I’d pick. I have enough points for a tag, I need the dates and timing to line up correctly.

That is tough to narrow it down to one, but I've always wanted to hunt the Sandhills of Nebraska.

I'd like to hunt whitetails in one of the Canadian provinces...if that counts as a "state".

Staying true to the OP, Maine is on my wish list.

Oklahoma maybe. But no need to leave Colorado and Wyoming really.

Of course if I knew someone with hunting spots in MN and MT say, I could be talked into hunting one of those states I guess.

Mule Deer - Colorado; early season and high altitude

Whitetails- Iowa; in the rut with a bow; #2 would be Texas during the rut; rattling/calling from the ground.

Columbia Blacktail- Oregon; late season muzzleloader

Coues - Arizona; during the rut with a rifle

Sonora, Mexico. E

The Southern tier does not produce bigger bucks in terms of weight. There are defiantly more deer, but they are typically smaller.

No better way to hunt.

+100

I'm lucky enough to have a father that owns 500 acres in the heart of the Adriondack Mountains, which is surrounded by 20 square miles of state land. I grew up hunting these big woods, and if I could be anywhere, that is where I would be. I have been hunting in 13 different states at my young age, and none of them compare to my home. From a young age, I was taught to be a woodsman, rather than a hunter. Has anyone ever hunted in Boise, Idaho? That's defiantly the next one on my list.

Pretty much hunted all of the ones I really want to. I'd rather hunt them again than pick a new one. But if it had to be a new state, probably Utah maybe Idaho.

Kansas

With Northern NY at a very close second.

Saskatchewan....too bad it's residents only for their giant mule deer bucks. Probably why they grow the biggest, and most huge bucks.

They have some fine whitetails too.

That ain't a state, silly

Mule Deer-Wyoming.
Whitetails-Oklahoma.

I'd have to disagree on that one. Huge bucks exist both north and south of the blue line. Agriculture plays a big part in the body weights of southern tier deer. My experience has been that the racks and weights are pretty darn close in both locations but finding those big bucks in the Adirondacks is a whole lot harder. And seems to be much more rewarding.

+1!

Hunting I knew that is now gone is woodchucks on land like New York's dairy farms.

Due to the coyotes infesting that land the chucks are mostly gone. We were welcomed.

That's a simple fix silly

We went pheasant hunting in Southern SD . It looks like it could hold some real nice trophy deer. We jumped a beautiful whitetail buck in some millet or milo. I can’t remember. The guide/owner said that was a typical sized one for the area. I’ve always wanted to go back. Mule deer there too.

I don’t know a particular state ,but I’d think Missouri, Illinois or another Midwest state. Where’s the golden triangle?

My buddy who just battled cancer (had to remove part of a lung) just got back from Missouri. He didn’t see a big enough buck to shoot he said, but he did shoot a doe for the landowner.

I've never been to California and that's ok with me, but if I ever went it would be for a California Blacktail.

Alberta.

Oklahoma

i'm not picky. i would just like to hunt some place that you could have a reasonable chance of seeing a nice buck and be able to get it out of the woods without crippling yourself. the state property i hunt in PA is getting harder and harder for me. mountainous as hell and all the roads are blocked off and you have to walk and drag a long way. i miss real farm land hunting.

Adirondacks with my Ruger Hawkeye RSI S.S. 30-06

Are you required to bring out your deer whole in PA?

no. that thought has crossed my mind but then its multiple trips of multiple miles so i'm not sure if it helps. i shot a big doe way back in last year on the last day at 1PM and got it to the truck right at dark. stretched my achilles tendon in the process and ain't been right since. this year i will be just out walking and scouting since i had shoulder surgery in sept.

Dragging will tear you up. Unless you're shooting moose sized doe, should be no problem to fit one in a pack. Bone that bitch out, leave everything beyond that you will not eat.

50 pounds on your back is much easier than any drag.

Dragging will separate the men from the boys!! I can't wait to kill something in a state where game doesn't have to be checked whole.... However, stalking in the big woods of Maine have always intrigued me. That'd be my bucket list deer hunt for sure.

Montana

Growing up where I did, we often quartered deer up to get them out. It is simply mind boggling to me that some states (or areas) make hunters get deer out in one piece.

I've often thought about driving to a state somewhere with a real late season to get more hunting in, and it has never occurred to me that I may have to get one out whole. I'd inadvertently break the law in some areas it sounds like...

stupid question, but do you quarter them with the hide on? if not, how do you skin them yourself in the woods?

Sometimes I leave the hide on, if the pack isn't too long and it isn't too hot out. It keeps things cleaner and you don't have to deal with the red crust.

Usually though, especially on an elk, the hide comes off at the same time as quartering.

Edited to add: I just flip them on their back best I can, start on a leg, then brace that leg over my shoulder to keep the quarter off the ground best I can, and go to town.

Start skinning on one side and then roll them to the other. No big deal to skin them on the ground if the law in your state allows.

No you don't quarter them with the hide on, as JSH said, start on one side then roll them to the other. If you have a big deer, quartering only gets you part way home, you want to debone them too.

There are more than a few deer that if I had to get them out whole I would have just brought a tent and some BBQ sauce with me and ate the SOB on the spot.



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One more thing, you'll notice in Inman's post he mentioned about throwing a leg up on his shoulder. In treeless areas you gotta do what you gotta do. But if you're in the trees, make sure you have a little line with you. I'll tie off the leg to a tree so I don't have to skin in the 'missionary' position.

Again, not a state, but Anticosti Island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Trouble is it's in Quebec.

Jim

Kentucky

I happen to like being in the missionary position with deer....

Anyhow Steelhead is right: tying off a leg to a tree can certainty help. The elk, antelope and one mule deer I shot this year were easily 50 or more yards from a tree though....but some stout sagebrush can easily work as well.

While this isn't a deer, the concept is the exact same: Use the missionary position to get to this point:


Then pack this out:


Wayyyyyyyyyy easier than dragging a couple miles, which has to be the most frustrating thing in the world.

This wasn't the cleanest job I ever have done, but it was piss'n rain the entire time from shot to dropping the tailgate, so I wasn't in the mood to be Charmin style squeaky clean, which is why I left the hide on. That, and a somewhat short pack of 3/4 mile or so. In this case, I also left the lower legs on so I could use them as a handrest above my head, as I find stretching my arms up relieves sore shoulder muscles when packing out. The little bit of extra weight of hide/legs is worth it to me sometimes.


If the pack out is longer though and/or is is cool out, especially with an elk, I won't be packing the extra weight of the hide.

Sorry for the detour off the OP's question.

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