I don’t know of any bowhunter who doesn’t relish the thought of wrapping his hands around the bases of a big set of antlers, especially when they are his. States such as Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri and the Dakotas are statistically the cream of the cop when it comes to sheer number and size of mature bucks taken per licensed hunter, and over the past 20 or so years, travel hunting to these and a few other states has become very popular.
Bowhunters from northeastern states down through the Atlantic coastal states and throughout the southeast have been entranced into traveling to these midwestern states by watching TV shows, YouTube videos and reading print media articles where bucks bigger than any they may see in their lives are consistently taken, and seemingly without much effort.
I know many bowhunters that no longer hunt in the heavily pressured home states they reside in, opting to travel and hunt in one or more of the big buck states where they can actually see and take big bucks. This practice is becoming quite popular.
I’ve written three bowhunting books and in each I have the hard statistics to back these claims up. Let’s face reality: hunting pressure throughout the Midwest is just not that intense, and that is the exact reason hunting personalities and hunters with the financial means are drawn to it.
I’ve always correlated crop yields per acre with deer body and buck antler growth. All the agriculturally rich midwestern states have much higher crop yields per acre than in states with sandy soil and low mineral content. The same minerals and moisture levels it takes to grow crops also aid in growing bigger deer and larger antlers.
Even in my home state, the soil in southern Michigan is much richer and has a higher crop yield per acre than the sandy soil farther north. The bucks coming out of southern Michigan are bigger bodied and
