It only takes money

If you want a world class mule deer then you want to go to Utah where there is an island called Antelope Island that is a state park and they started allowing 2 mule deer a year to taken in 2011, 1 tag is a special draw and the other is up for bid to the highest bidder.

The first four years bids add up to more than 1 million dollars,
2011- $265,000-39" wide- 240",
2012-$160,000- 38" wide- 271",
2013- $310,000-? wide 247",
2014-$305,000- 40" wide and 223".

Heres a link to the 2013 http://my.kingscamo.com/2013/antelope-island-mule-deer-2013-247-giant-buck/

http://blog.kingsoutdoorworld.com/2011/11/22/antelope-island-mule-deer-taken-2011/

http://blog.kingsoutdoorworld.com/2012/11/13/denny-austad-antelope-island-buck-271-inch-mule-deer/

cant find a story with a picture for 2014

Was a wide deer, can find it on Mossback site, which adds another $200k to that hunt. They score as SCI, but can buy the conservation tags on the Henrys and kill giants.

2012 was a heck of a deal.

Wow

#10 on the list....

http://jdheinerblog.com/2014/11/24/utahs-top-10-mule-deer-of-2014/

It's hard to hide money.

I wonder if instead of auctioning that tag off they had a lottery for $100 per chance how much more they could get for it? Instead the rich guy just has to outbid the other rich guy.

That would be nice. Bet you could find at least 3k people that would pay $100 for the chance and gives everyone a good shot at it.

I would put in $200-300 to buy 2 or 3 chances every year to have a shot at it myself. I don't think it would be too hard to find more guys. Let Denny buy 2000 chances himself if he really wanted to hunt.

Not really, there's a Sportman's Tag option for $5/ticket for other gov-like tags and they don't bring in what the auction goes for a lot of times and have bigger deer killed off them. OR like a sheep hunt last year that went for $1.4 million just to be donated back and bought for $27K. Plus there's $1500/table tacked onto the auction.

Those deer in the Sportman's Tag don't look bigger than these....but I would pay $5 for a ticket like that too.

They are, you're talking about deer on an somewhat small island vs having entire states to hunt. Generally the gov tags beat the sportsman's tag bc the $5/ticket guys usually can't go out and spend $100K+ on a team of guides or offer the standard $20K finder's fee.

I was just looking at that pictures and comparing them.

Gov tag UT - 277
Sportsman's - 240
AI drawn - 226
AI auction - 223

IDK about the deer/elk, but sheep tags all over have a great balance of draw, auction, and raffle opportunities-by both the states themselves and tags allocated to conservation groups. Plus groups buy thinhorn/Mexico hunts and raffle those too.

So I assume both ways raise $$ about equally well or one would be preferred over another....

You can shoot a black rhino for that kind of money! I know which I would prefer.