rancher, In my post was talking only about free range. I hunt with Judd Cooney (Iowa Trophy Whitetail Outfitters)..website below

http://iowatrophywhitetailoutfitters.net/iowa-deer-hunts/

I have no doubt Texas is a great place.....it's on my bucket list (and I'm 68 so the bucket needs to get filled soon)

My bad y'all on leaving off LF or HF. I meant strictly free range LF.
I might get killed by some folks with saying this but for the money I don't think Texas can compete with the Midwest or even Canada for that matter for body weight, mass and big racks. I appreciate it but I'm not a big fan of Tx whitetails unless you want to spend 10k for a lease in Webb county.

Let me get my armor on bf the rocks start flying my way.

Just curious, have you ever hunted the Mid-West?

We can't compete in body weight. They can't even come close on total number of big racks killed each year.

We don't even pretend to compete on price.

No rocks. And I have no problems with personal preferences.

However. I can guarantee that if I spent a couple of weekends at just a few choice processors in Texas I'd see more B&C total score bucks than are registered in any one of those top states during an entire year.

Since we're qualifying with low fence though I'll back out.
And Squiggy, yes I hunted Missouri once. Saw two does. Some of the most boring hunting I've ever done. It's really hard to justify leaving Texas to hunt big antlered deer.

I can't speak for the other states other than Kansas. I've hunted there for the past 9 yrs. Would love to hunt the others, but just don't have the time to get up there. I can be on stand in just 10 hrs in Kansas.
All I can say, it's totally different in hunting those deer than these Texas deer. I've hunted here in Texas for nearly 40 yrs and haven't even come close to what I have killed in Ks.

You just haven't been hunting in the right spots then. I agree that most of low fence Texas doesn't have the size antlers that Kansas and some of those other states have. But it's no contest at all when you include all ranches. Just go to the los cazadores or any of the top big buck contest web sites in Texas and look at the annual pics.

Many hundreds of deer in the 170-275" range.

And that's just the ones entered in contests. There are many hundreds of others that aren't entered.

I don't mean to be rude but I couldn't care less about shooting a 275" whitetail in a high fence area. To each his own, I don't want to bash anyone on this thread. All I care about is hunting the largest all around whitetails period. In my opinion, Texas doesn't match up with the others. I know I'm on a Texas forum but that's bc I currently live in Texas. I know that others hunt in other states and so far we've had some really good information. This thread is only meant to talk about the Midwest states and where the biggest whitetails are living and can be killed. I really appreciate all the information and discussion so far and lets keep it coming even if some are a little of topic, no biggie.

Why do you keep carrying on talking about high fence deer even after you said you would quit? No one cares about a 275" breeder reject someone stroked a $30,000 check to buy. It's ridiculous to even try to compare those deer with Midwestern deer. Frankly, I'm surprised you even thought the OP was talking about high fence deer from those three states---they don't have anywhere close to the number of high fence operations as we do down here. In fact, I'm sure most of them laugh at the chumps who buy breeder rejects to shoot, just because they can.

Take it easy friend. I was just answering someone who made a statement concerning something I said.

Have you ever considered Midol? I hear that stuff really works.

For free range deer..... I do not think you can beat Iowa, Kansas or Illinois. Having said that, each of these states has some great areas and not so great....and if I were talking my vacation to do a hunt I would go with an outfitter as much of the best land is leased ...and most of the public land is heavily hunted.

I have hunted Kansas twice.. both times early muzzleloader season with an outfitter and did not do well. So if I ever hunted Kansas again I would go during the bow season (rut) or rifle season in December.

Iowa I have hunted 5 times and will go there every year until I can no longer hunt. I use an outfitter and always hunt the late muzzleloader season since your odds on drawing a tag a pretty good and if there is snow the deer are very patternable as they are hitting the food sources.

I never hunted Illinois but that's more to do with how many hunts I can do each year and nothing negative about Illinois (other than they elected Obama as a Senator).

I've hunted MO twice, IL twice, KS once and headed abck to KS this year.
Pike County, Missouri both years. Pike County, Illinois both years and Unit 7 in KS. I saw the biggest deer of my life in Illinois. Easily a 200" deer and I saw him 3 days in a row, just too far out of range for the PSE.
I saw the 2nd biggest deer Ive ever seen in my life in Illinois. I saw him 3 or 4 times before seeing him dead at the hands of my best friend. We never had him scored but he is in the 170s.
I saw several 150s in Missouri and even missed one my 1st year as nerves got the best of me.
I saw a bunch of good deer in KS without any shot opprotunity on a mature deer but my group of 4 that I hunt with was able to take 2 bucks last year up there and both are 150" deer, one being a 152" 8pt with 15" G2s.
Driving around in Kansas, I saw more bigger deer than I saw in Il and MO combined but none of the 200"ers. We did see several solid 150-170" deer in the fields driving around.

With that being said, KS is the new hotspot that everyone wants to hunt, including myself bu if I were you, this year, i would go to Pike County, IL and go with an outfitter around the 1st week of Nov. You should still be able to get a tag OTC since they havent sold out in several years now. By far my favorite place in the world to hunt is Pike County.

Western Kentucky is really putting a lot of bone on the ground these days too and I wouldnt overlook that area if a possibility came up.

BTW, I hunt TX as much as my wife can stand. I hunt 2-3 days a week once bow season opens and I have my place patterened pretty good but I would trade my TX hunting for MidWest hunting all day long. It is different but I will say that it is way better.

Also, PIke COunty was hit with EHD 2 years ago pretty hard. Their harvest numbers have went down due to this and other a few outfitters packingup and moving to KS along with a lot of hunters going elsewhere. 10 years ago Pike County was the place to go and a lot of deer were killed. It is losing a lot of the pressure it has had over the last few years and this year and next year it shoudl really start to make a good turn around.

We are planning on going back up there next year if out buddy will allow us to hunt his farm again. He didnt allow any hunting last year and will not allow any this year and have it surveyed for #s since he was hit so hard by EHD. He thinks that next year may get good again. We will see.

I had heard the same thing about the EHD in the Pike County area, but never read how bad it affected the herd around Pike, Adam, and Brown counties. However, I went two years in a row (2011-2012) and saw the biggest deer in my 60 years of hunting! Even the doe were huge....much bigger than any Texas buck! In 2012 I took a managment 8 that dressed at 198lbs, and a doe that dressed 169lbs! I may give it one more year, and try to do a muley hunt next year, before going back to Pike. I had a great outfitter in Pike - Extreme Hunts with Tony May as my guide. One of the best experiences I've ever had.

Even their bad years are good! I hunted there in 2011 and 2012 with 11 being way better. I would typically see 30-40 deer a hunt in 2011 and saw 4 different mature shooters over 10 hunts.
In 2012, it was more like 3-15 deer on a set and I only saw 3 mature bucks with all 3 being seen on the same set as there was a hot doe 60 yds out. I watched her get bred by 2 of the 3 bucks and the other was run off by a yote chasing the doe.

I did kill a doe my 1st year there and she dressed around 160. I love Pike County

the west part of the Ks. is in a big time drought, people that bought my place has had 4 failed wheat crops in row, not saying that deer are not there, just not like they were a few yrs ago.

The area I hunted south of Goodland the last 2 yrs was hit bad with the drought. WT numbers are down due to it but MD are holding stable in that area.

Dude, you should really get out more. You have never hunted Ks, much less Ill. Iowa, Ohio or any other mid-west state other than Missouri.
Now, with that said, there are many deer that are killed in Ks that will put those Texas deer to shame, that you will never see posted on the net or in a magazine. I have seen a few. Only they are hangin on the wall just for friends to see. One could easily be a state record, except my friend doesn't want any attention, especially around where he hunts.
Time for you to get over your self!!!

I really am flattered that you think I'm "Texas". But really, quitit.