The perfect place would be a location with a high deer population and lower hunter density. "This does still exist in some areas, but you should also go after those areas where hunters are primarily going after antlerless deer," Johnson said.

Other factors are at play here regarding the classification of the permit area, but for the most part, those permit areas with the lowest percentage of bucks as part of the total harvest are the locations Johnson recommends focusing.

Operating under the premise that trophy deer are found all over, finding those locations where they are most likely to hang out is critical. Thoroughly scouting an area is critical when going after trophy bucks, and that means patterning them. Understanding the lifecycle of a buck is an important part of this step. Once they survive their first season as a fawn, they are kicked out by their mother and they need to find a place that is safe. Doing so is risky since there are usually numerous roads to cross, wolves and other predators to avoid, plus being gored by other bucks when they wander into the territory of another.

"Once they've hit the 3 1/2- to 5 1/2-year-old mark, they've made it through the most vulnerable times of their life and are now in the trophy range," Johnson said.

Most bucks never make it to that stage because they succumb to predators, die of starvation or are killed by hunters happy for a deer with antlers even though it is not a trophy. DNR studies show that most bucks are unable to escape the high hunting pressure found in most places and only end up living a season or two.

"Once they make it past all that, they have their smarts about them and they go nocturnal," Johnson said. "Being nocturnal allows the buck to move more freely with less pressure from predators, competition for food and danger crossing roads. The temperatures at night are cooler, allowing them to be more efficient with their energy."

An expansive piece of privately owned land with zero hunting pressure is ideal but impossible to acquire for probably 99 percent of hunters. The good news is that there are a lot of unexplored sections of public land that hold deer throughout the year, especially during the hunting season.

I personally hunt in north-central Minnesota on a piece of county land that has received increased pressure over the years. We saw several large bucks the first few years we hunted there, but they have since disappeared during the hunting season. They still exist and are seen throughout the summer, but during the season they move to a large section of adjacent land that is closed to hunting. Deer are not stupid, and they will move around the patterns of hunters. That land closed to hunting doesn't hold a lot of deer throughout the year, but is stacked with them once the season begins. The presence of fresh sign throughout the season proves that they are still moving only at night or when most hunters are not in the woods.

Another option Johnson talked about was corporate land that is open to public hunting. Large corporations like Boise Cascade, Blandin and Potlatch own large chunks of forestland, and most people only hunt the periphery of that land. According to their Web sites, Boise Cascade owns over 300,000 acres of northern Minnesota forestland, Bladin owns almost 200,000 acres and Potlatch owns over 320,000 acres.