Side effects of using N-Tune™ Wraps and Tracers may include, hitting where you’re aiming, a more precise nock tuning experience, and straightening of arrow flight, resulting in more consistent groups.
N-Tune™ Wraps and Tracers are also reflective, so you can find your arrow much easier in dark conditions.
You may experience strong feelings of overwhelming joy and uncontrollable fist pumps while nock tuning with N-Tune™ Wraps and Tracers.
You should stop using N-Tune™ Wraps and Tracers if you notice the urge to go back to being less accurate, less lethal, and having less meat in the freezer.
Talk to your arrows about whether N-Tune™ Wraps and Tracers are right for you.
N-Tune™ Nock Tuning Arrow Wraps and Tracers… Get N-Tune™!
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We also have lots of tools for bowhunters that will help you with your setup, so that you can have the best odds possible when that moment of truth comes!
As hunters, we all dream of harvesting the trophy buck of our dreams, but harvesting a trophy whitetail for the record books is often similar to winning the lottery.
So, what states have the best whitetail hunting in the United States? Below, we’ll take a look at just that, and we will also explain how we came to rank the states where we did.
A look at the data
We have very few places where we can find trophy whitetail harvest data. Sure, we can get data on the numbers of whitetails harvested in a given year from the various states’ departments of natural resources, but this is all deer and not just trophy whitetails.
Looking at the Boone and Crockett record book is the best indicator of which states are best to target when hunting trophy bucks. (photography by Jeff Coldwell)
If we want to find the best states that produce the biggest numbers of trophy whitetails, then we have to look at the Boone and Crockett record book.
So, now that you know where we are getting the data to determine our selection of the best five states to bag a trophy class whitetail, let’s get started!
#5 – Ohio
Ohio is fairly recent to the number five spot on the list and has now surpassed the number of records held by the state of Kentucky.
All of the top 10 typical records and 6 out of 10 top non-typical records for the state were harvested in the last 22 years of the 2000s, and when you consider that the records started nearly 100 years ago, that is a sharp increase in the number of giant bucks.
This sudden jump in record whitetails is due to the stellar management practices by the states’ conservation agencies in recent years.
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#4 – Minnesota
Minnesota has four counties that rank in the top twenty best counties for whitetails in the U.S., and St. Louis County is #2 in the entire nation. A grand total of 1,194 trophy whitetail entries have been recorded for the entire state of Minnesota.
Minnesota may not be top of mind when it comes to whitetail, but it ranks #4 according to Boone and Crockettstatistics.
The other 3 counties listed in the top 20 counties in the U.S. are Otter Tail, Houston, and Winona counties.
Oddly enough, the top 5 record whitetail bucks in the state didn’t come from any of these four counties.
In 2012, with a typical buck scoring 193-⅛ being harvested in Winona county; this buck also ranks #15 in the state’s history.
Iowa coming in at just #3 may surprise many hunters, especially those from Iowa, as the state has a legendary status regarding the number of big whitetails roaming the state’s woods.
But the Boone and Crocket Club record books don’t lie, and the numbers are what they are.
Iowa is epic hunting grounds for those chasing large whitetail deer.
Iowa has 1,330 records in the books, and the state is home to three of the top twenty counties in the nation, with Allamakee, Warren, and Clayton Counties making the list.
Like with Minnesota, it’s interesting to note that the top five record bucks harvested in Iowa did not come from these three counties.
In 2016 a whitetail scoring 194-⅛ was entered in the record books. This Clarke County buck ranks #8 in the rankings for Iowa’s highest scoring whitetails and #70 on the all-time record list.
Coming in with a total of 1,445 trophy whitetails in the books, Illinois comes in at #2 for record whitetails.
Four of the top twenty counties in the country call Illinois home, and these four are the legendary Pike, Fulton, Adams, and Jo-Davies Counties.
This non-typical giant, harvested by Luke Brewster, is an example of what is possible in the state of Illinois (photo credit: Boone and Crockett).
Keeping with the theme set by Minnesota and Iowa, the top five typical record bucks to come out of Illinois were not harvested in any of the top four counties.
Illinois has had more entries into the Boone and Crockett Club record books in the 21st century than any other state, with eight entries.
In 2018 an Illinois trophy buck of massive proportions was harvested that came in at #3 on the all-time record list. This monster non-typical buck scored 327-⅞.
Wisconsin is the top state in the nation of trophy whitetail records, with a whopping 1,822 record bucks registered since the Boone and Crockett Club records began.
The state is home to six of the top 20 counties in the nation, with the trophy whitetail powerhouse of Buffalo County, Crawford, Trempealeau, Vernon, Richland, and Sauk Counties rounding out the six.
Buffalo County is such a good county for producing whitetails that if this single county stood alone against the rest of the states, it would still rank at #19.
Wisconsin ranks #1 when it comes to trophy whitetails, dominating the Boone and Crockett record books (photography by Jeff Coldwell).
Keeping with the weird traditions of other top-ranking states, none of the top five typical whitetails in the record books were shot in any of the top six counties.
The top five record bucks were harvested in five counties spread throughout the state. This shows that the entire state of Wisconsin hosts exceptional populations of trophy whitetails.
In 2018 a typical buck scoring in at 192-6/8 was harvested in Columbia County and took the spot as the fourth largest whitetail harvested in the state’s history and #96 on the top 100 trophy whitetails list.
While the state of Texas is ranked as #11 overall, it is our pick to be an honorable mention for one simple reason.
Texas is home to four of the top six counties in the entire country, which is one heck of a statistic for only coming in at #11 on the list of best whitetail hunting states.
These four counties are Maverick, Webb, La Salle, and Dimmit Counties.
Texas is a state you shouldn’t overlook if you are interested in hunting big whitetails.
Texas has a total of 767 records in the Boone and Crockett record books, and unlike every state on this list, 2 out of 5 of these bucks were shot in the top four counties, and the other 3 were harvested outside of the top 4 counties.
In this review, I tested a classic broadhead that has been around forever… the Vortex.
I had been hearing about it for a long time and it’s been a staple in the market from the very beginning of mechanical broadheads.
For this test, I used my Bowtech SR6 set at 72 pounds and Bishop FOC King Arrows. I also used the Bishop FAD Eliminator, for the concrete test because they are just so durable. So let’s check out the Vortex 125 grain…
At the end of the review, I will post the score sheet, and give it an overall Lusk grade, so you can see how it did in each of the test and compare it to other broadheads.
The Vortex 125-Grain Broadhead
Let’s take a look at the Vortex 125-grain broadhead closeup…
As you can see it’s just this classic mechanical, over-the-top deploying head. I really like the looks of it.
The blades in the closed position have 7/8″ cutting diameter. And, you can see they have the sharp edges going forward, so you’re going to get that cut initially. Plus, the chisel tip is going to put you at over an inch of cut. So, even if the blades didn’t open, you’d at least get that much cut.
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The O-ring on the Vortex head is really stout. It rolls back and is reusable.
When the O-ring rolls back, the blades of the Vortex open up, expanding to a full 2-3/4″ of cut, which is one of the widest cuts on the market. Pretty cool!
It has an aluminum ferrule as well as a really stout, strong-looking, steel chisel tip. The blades are 0.032″ thick and are made out of a spring steel to aid in their durability.
I was eager to put this head to the test and see how it performed.
I shot the Vortex into layered cardboard to see how many layers it would penetrate.
The Vortex broadhead penetrated through 39 layers of cardboard. And, just like some other long mechanicals, a lot of that penetration was the tip and not the blades. But, that’s how I count it, nonetheless.
Here’s the Vortex head after going through the MDF 5 times. Now, I want to point out, you notice all the scratching on the ferrule itself… that’s not for the MDF. That’s from me trying to get it out of the MDF because on the fifth shot, it got like super lodged in there and I had to use a power saw to get it out. But, I was really careful to not bend the blades or the ferrule while I was getting it out, and that’s why I had to get so close like that. I’ve actually never had that problem, with it being so difficult to get out.
The ferrule held together fairly well. There was a little bit of wobble, which is not bad for such a long aluminum ferrule that had 5 impacts of the MDF. And, the tip obviously held together in excellent shape.
As for the blades… the extended part of the blades on either side broke off on then second shot into the MDF. However, I kept going because I still had well over 2″ of cut, which is significant. And, even if at the very end, after the fifth shot, as much as these blades had bent backwards and lost those end tips, there was still 2″ of cut.
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So, it’s really significant that it still cut a lot of tissue, even with the bent blades, because the blades are so long. They got a bit bent and after those two broke off on the second shot, then they got a little bit more bent up on the third shot and on the fourth shot. And, then of course, the fifth shot.
So, the good side is, you still have 2″ of cut after 5 shots in the MDF. The bad side is, they did lose those ends to the blades and they did get a bit bent up there.
I shot the Vortex into a concrete block, which is extreme, but it helps show durability on extremely hard impact shots. Here’s the 125-grain after impact in the concrete.
As you can see, the ferrule got pretty jacked up and bent. One of the blades also got bent. They both impacted the concrete a bit and one of them got bent back, while the other one didn’t. The tip really buried deeply in the concrete. It might be the deepest-penetrating tip that I’ve tested. I couldn’t get it out. And it broke off on impact. It broke off at the threading where it goes into the ferrule.
I know you won’t be shooting this head into concrete and you’re not expecting maximum durability. But, in this test, It actually performed a bit better than I expected it to.
But, it actually exceeded my expectations in durability. Of course, you have the damage from the cinder block test and the damage in the center block and yeah, you see the damage in the MDF but that’s what a whooping big cut.
So if you got a really powerful setup or you’re going after a bit of a smaller animal like a turkey, a smaller deer, a hog, man, this is something really worth checking out because it’s going to put a whoop on whatever it hits.
