This is an issue the Minnesota Deer Hunters Association (MDHA) would like to rectify, and is one of the reasons they are currently putting together a state-record book to be published within a year.

"We currently have about 500 entries on the book, but otherwise there is no central clearinghouse for that sort of information," said Mark Johnson, MDHA executive director.

The major challenge in putting these numbers together, Johnson said, is that a lot of trophies are never reported to Boone and Crockett, or Pope and Young, or exhibitions like the Minnesota Deer Classic.

"If you get a big buck, it is publicized and everybody ends up knowing about it, which is something a lot of hunters don't want to reveal, especially if they shot it on public land," Johnson said.

Johnson said you could walk into a local barbershop in most any town and you'd find out about huge bucks shot over the years that are not listed in any record book. "If you only look at the published numbers, you are missing a large segment of the actual harvest," he said.

An unnamed bowhunter Johnson knows has taken a Pope and Young-class trophy buck three of the last four years and it wasn't on private land. "He hunts public land in Zone 1 that is pretty highly pressured but he just hunts it smarter," said Johnson. "The big bucks are there and they are available, and he knows he's lucky but he keeps doing well even though he realizes it could be another 10 years before he gets another."

As was mentioned earlier, St. Louis County is tied for the most B&C entries since 1830. That is an impressive figure considering the expanse of the whitetail's range, but does that statistic make it one of the best trophy whitetail locations in the country?

St. Louis County is the largest in Minnesota and third largest in the entire country. The city of Duluth is in the extreme southeastern corner of the county and constitutes half the total population. Most of the rest of the county is rural with a considerable amount of state and national forest lands. The point? There is a lot of huntable land and a lot of deer in St. Louis County, making for a great deal of hunting opportunities. There are a lot of hunters who venture into St. Louis County each November, but most of them never venture very far from the roads and trails. The unanswerable question is this: Are those trophies from hunters who ventured far from the beaten path or are there just a bunch of trophies running around the woods?

"There are probably big deer all over Minnesota, and there are naturally areas where they are more dense than others, but the simple fact remains that they are found all over the state," said Johnson. "The secret is to target them using techniques that other hunters are not."

FINDING THE LOCATION
With the area you are going to hunt, find something that is large enough to provide adequate cover year-round. That means cover from the elements, year-round access to food that is high in protein and predator escape routes, although the absence of predators is better yet. Johnson said predator escape is absolutely critical for big bucks.

"A lot of times that means a river they can jump into where they'll hunker down with their nose down and let the wolves pass," said Johnson.