The undisputed king of North American big game animals is the whitetail deer. With cutting edge wildlife trophy management and the meteoric popularity of harvesting high-quality bucks, hunters are finding more and more opportunities in more and more places. If you want to kill a true trophy, go to one of these top big buck states where getting a deer tag is easy.
Idaho
With over 1 million acres of public land, hunters can’t possibly cover that much ground. If you can imagine all the quality bucks that have never even seen a human, Idaho seems like a great place to make something special happen. There are plenty of trophy bucks in the books from this state and the deer tags are over-the-counter. Hunters have a 40% success rate on whitetails and there is a healthy whitetail population of around 200,000 animals. Considering all of these facts, Idaho is looking to become a better option than some of the popular sates like Kansas or Iowa.
Missouri
Often overlooked, people seem to forget that Missouri borders the three Midwestern whitetail powerhouse states of Kansas, Iowa and Illinois. With over 2 million acres of public land and over-the-counter tags, Missouri is underrated. Hunters kill over 300,000 deer a year here and the Boone & Crockett record books are starting to fill up with Missouri monsters. There are over 1.3 million deer and plenty of room for more hunters.
Wisconsin
This state has already began the process of becoming a legend for whitetails. Record book bucks seem to be everywhere and tags are not too difficult to obtain. There were almost 250,000 deer killed here last year and there is plenty of public land, but be prepared to see other hunters as Wisconsin does have a high hunter density. In the last 10 years, there have been over 700 B&C trophy bucks killed. That is phenomenal.
Kentucky
This state is coming on strong as one of the best trophy buck destinations. With over 1.5 million acres of public hunting land and long deer seasons, Kentucky is a true sleeper state. There were over 140,000 deer killed here last year; tags are reasonably priced and bowhunters have a very high success rate.
Indiana
Some think of Indiana as a true best-kept-secret for trophy whitetails. Not only is it another state with over 1 million acres of public hunting ground, but there are almost 1 million deer living there. For $150.00, a non-resident can go deer hunting, and with some good luck, your buck can be one of the 360 entries into the Boone & Crockett record book during the last 10 years.
