If you could hunt Kansas Iowa or Illinois. Which one and why?

[WCB]

Def not Illinois....probably Kansas. I currently have 3 points for IA and have about a thousand acres in unit 4 I can hunt on different farms (same owner) and a really good 300 acre farm in unit 5 I could hunt. Hard for me to spend that kind of money on a whitetail tag.

Of course it helps when I can hunt 40min from my house here in MN and hunt a spot I know there are booners walking around.

 

[axemill]

kansas, great opportunity to shoot a trophy buck, walk in areas, lower population as you head west

 

[beforethehunt]

I’m trying iowa this fall and maybe Kansas in 2023


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[30338]

Hope to try Iowa again next year for the first time in a long time. Had some very fun hunts there. I did buy land in KS though and son killed a clean 8 there last year that was pretty nice. Eastern CO is down a lot from the mid 90s when I started hunting there.

Depending on your access, I'd go Iowa, Illinois, then KS.

As a side note, investing in hunting lands seems to be a decent way to go. I pulled money out of the market and bought acreage to hunt on and enjoy. Its up over 20% since I bought it.

 

[Rich M]

Which one do you have private access to? Otherwise it’s you vs a hundred other guys. How good are you?

 

[cwb1975]

Illinois because I'm a resident

 

[mossyoak52]

As a lifetime license holder, but a current resident of another state you can still legally purchase and hunt with a KS resident deer tag?

yes there are a few states where you can do this
i live in montane but i have a lifetime license in ny i get my ny resident ny license mailed to me in montana every year

 

[mossyoak52]

none of the 3

 

[Kurts86]

I have lived in Kansas and Illinois. Kansas hands down would be the winner because there are fewer people almost none in the western 3/4 of the state. You can go west and hunt western spot and stalk or stay eastern and do the Midwestern whitetail game plan.

Illinois was the worst hunting state and experience I’ve ever had. There are too many people and in most cases driving just puts you into another small city. The lease rates are at the tip top of the scale. A huge part of the state is an agricultural wasteland with ditch to ditch row crops for hundreds of miles. The riparian ecosystems are heavily silted in and degraded. IDNR is underfunded and largely incompetent. The water access laws suck. The IDNR site specific regulations are burdensome and arcane without improving hunt quality. 75% of the public land is 7 hours drive away from 75% of the population. The coolest part of the state, the driftless area, has been heavily culled to prevent the SE WI CWD spread. No thank you, never again Illinois.

 

[P Y Buck]

Having hunted multiple counties in Illinois for many years primarily on leased ground and privately owned ground I say Illinois is tough to beat, but if comparing public ground I say Iowa tips the scale. Very few bow hunters and we encountered many bucks 150+. I stay away from the south eastern part of the state though and am able to draw every 3 years. Wish Michigan DNR managed the heard like Iowa DNR does.

 

[Brooks]

Kansas…at my buddies big ranch where the only trees are along the River bottom with stands set up in some of them. You can see nothing for miles all day long then just when you think no deer live within miles of this place out walks a big P&Y whitetail. Seems to happen every year.

 

[bmrfish]

Anybody have suggestions for Iowa outfitters? We have been accumulating points.


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[Miflatlander91]

Having hunted multiple counties in Illinois for many years primarily on leased ground and privately owned ground I say Illinois is tough to beat, but if comparing public ground I say Iowa tips the scale. Very few bow hunters and we encountered many bucks 150+. I stay away from the south eastern part of the state though and am able to draw every 3 years. Wish Michigan DNR managed the heard like Iowa DNR does.

Been saying that for years now! Never hunted Kansas but I the hunting is better in Iowa but that 1 tag every few years got old and expensive

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[jshelton2006]

IL because it’s a 5 min drive!

 

[beforethehunt]

Bump. I scored in ia last fall and hoping to repeat in ks

 

[Deleted member 8-15-23]

Wi. Has twice the book entries has #2 IL. I could take anyone in the rut and they would kill a book deer in 5 days on my chunk.

 

[OMB]

Wi. Has twice the book entries has #2 IL. I could take anyone in the rut and they would kill a book deer in 5 days on my chunk.

Pope and Young book, for sure, in probably half the counties in Wisconsin with 5 days of hunting.

Always has blown my mind that Kansas/Iowa/Illinois get so much attention for the top end of bucks, and Iowa/Kansas are seeing point creep from guys that are driving through states where they have a better chance at a nice buck than they will fighting it out on public ground in Kansas or paying huge $$$ for a marginal lease in Iowa. If you're happy with a 130-150" buck, there's a dozen+ states you can hunt every single year affordably at this point, instead of waiting 3-5 years for Kansas/Iowa.

Those 190" bucks aren't going home to Florida or New York guys doing DIY hunts, they're coming off extremely low pressured and well manicured blocks of private land.

Not to discourage the DIY hunter, but in Iowa you're looking at 5 points minimum to guarantee a southern unit draw tag at $60/pop plus $650 for the license. Add in food and lodging, potentially a lease, and that $5k could get you a hell of an outfitted hunt or a great leased property that you could hunt every year in Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, Minnesota or Wisconsin (not to mention Colorado/Montana/Canada for outfitted.)

 

[IAMike304]

Pope and Young book, for sure, in probably half the counties in Wisconsin with 5 days of hunting.

Always has blown my mind that Kansas/Iowa/Illinois get so much attention for the top end of bucks, and Iowa/Kansas are seeing point creep from guys that are driving through states where they have a better chance at a nice buck than they will fighting it out on public ground in Kansas or paying huge $$$ for a marginal lease in Iowa. If you're happy with a 130-150" buck, there's a dozen+ states you can hunt every single year affordably at this point, instead of waiting 3-5 years for Kansas/Iowa.

Those 190" bucks aren't going home to Florida or New York guys doing DIY hunts, they're coming off extremely low pressured and well manicured blocks of private land.

Not to discourage the DIY hunter, but in Iowa you're looking at 5 points minimum to guarantee a southern unit draw tag at $60/pop plus $650 for the license. Add in food and lodging, potentially a lease, and that $5k could get you a hell of an outfitted hunt or a great leased property that you could hunt every year in Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, Minnesota or Wisconsin (not to mention Colorado/Montana/Canada for outfitted.)

I’m a B&C and P&Y measurer living in Iowa. I see more 200”+ deer newly shot and old laying around in peoples barns than the ones I measure. People here just don’t care about having them put in the books. Biggest I measured that went in the books was 258”


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[OMB]

I’m a B&C and P&Y measurer living in Iowa. I see more 200”+ deer newly shot and old laying around in peoples barns than the ones I measure. People here just don’t care about having them put in the books. Biggest I measured that went in the books was 258”


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Yup, and there's multiple actual world record racks just laying in some machine shed in Guthrie County that an 89 year old farmer shot with his 870 Wingmaster in the 1990's but he doesn't care about the score.

Iowa and Kansas never fail to lead to the way on the internet when it comes to "Trust me bro, we just don't care enough to enter our deer."

I know, you've scored them yourself so you know, and maybe it was that way in the 1990's and early 2000's, but there isn't a treasure trove of hidden 180" bucks that never see the light of day anymore.

 

[IAMike304]

Yup, and there's multiple actual world record racks just laying in some machine shed in Guthrie County that an 89 year old farmer shot with his 870 Wingmaster in the 1990's but he doesn't care about the score.

Iowa and Kansas never fail to lead to the way on the internet when it comes to "Trust me bro, we just don't care enough to enter our deer."

I know, you've scored them yourself so you know, and maybe it was that way in the 1990's and early 2000's, but there isn't a treasure trove of hidden 180" bucks that never see the light of day anymore.

There still are, just not what I would expect at the capacity of what there used to be. I didn’t grow up here, rather moved here after hunting here years ago. I see piles of them every year that I never put a tape on and are crazy huge deer.

Not comparing it here to other states, as I’ve hunted a lot of them but only measured a small amount from them so I can’t justify trying to compare as I don’t have the data, but it’s crazy just in my area what gets killed and a tape never touches year after year.


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