A friend asked me which states produce the most big bucks (whitetail and mulies). I found little, despite half an hour on the net. B & C apparently don't publish this except in their record book. Any sources?

I've seen the breakdown before but I can't recall where I've seen it. If I remember correctly Colorado had the most B&C entries for Mule Deer. I'll have to look for it again.

Found some figures
Colorado Mule Deer entries as of 1999= 378
Idaho = 207
Utah = 169
Wyoming = 99
New mexico = 92
Arizona = 81

Rocky Mountain Elk as of 1999
Arizona = 74
Wyoming = 55
Colorado = 40
Alberta Canada = 36
Idaho = 33
New Mexico = 29

This was from the book Record book Bucks and Bulls of Colorado by Susan Campbell Reneau
No figures I could find for Whitetails.
Keep in mind these figures I posted are old. From the beginning of record keeping to 1999.

I recall seeing some data in a book by Kirt Darner many years ago. He was supposedly a wizard at shooting big mulies. He was later disgraced as a fraud and a poacher. Anybody remember him?

Yes Darner was famous for awhile, then infamous forever.
He had a habit of obtaining tags and hunting in the wrong units and even the wrong states in several instances. However the guy killed more record book Mule Deer than anyone else.

quote:

Originally posted by Snellstrom:
Found some figures
Colorado Mule Deer entries as of 1999= 378
Idaho = 207
Utah = 169
Wyoming = 99
New mexico = 92
Arizona = 81

Rocky Mountain Elk as of 1999
Arizona = 74
Wyoming = 55
Colorado = 40
Alberta Canada = 36
Idaho = 33
New Mexico = 29

Of course it's more complicated than that...and not just by area. If I were serious about big bulls or bucks and narrowing it down to a state, I want to know which state is producing NOW (not over the last century in the aggregate) and I want to know how many tags are out there. In other words, if some state offers 4x the tags as another, but they only have 2x the B&C animals coming out, I would certainly take that into account. Gotta factor in drawing odds and your age too. If you are over 60, you probably have more money than time and it is just worth it to buy a landowners tag and pay an outfitter in some places rather than hope to draw while you are still above ground. This relates to my theory that really hunting points should be inheritable. If I never hunt a particular unit because I die, I would like to think I didn't just waste 20 years applying and that someone might benefit.

Can't say for sure but there are no big deer in Missouri

Please hunt Kansas, Iowa or Illinois

Whitetails - Boone & Crockett and Pope & Young:

quote:

Originally posted by Snellstrom:
Yes Darner was famous for awhile, then infamous forever.
He had a habit of obtaining tags and hunting in the wrong units and even the wrong states in several instances. However the guy killed more record book Mule Deer than anyone else.

Problem is, he didn't kill all the record bucks he claimed. He bought several of them and then claimed he killed them. He has pretty much been banned from hunting everywhere in the nation for wildlife crimes. B&C and SCI purged his name from their record books because he was so corrupt.

Putting hunting and his name in the same sentence is a sacrilege!