Ok, here is a response someone posted on another thread...

"If you can't beat 140" in 5 years time for a new lease!"

This year I took the biggest buck I have ever taken and it will score in the 125-130 range. I am very happy with this buck. The lease is low fenced.

This past year was my first year on this lease. Due to cost along with the fear of paying for another bad lease I have not been on a lease in a few years.

Although there might have been one taken that might have scored higher mine was right there with it. We have seen a couple before the season and then another one last weekend that would probably be in the 140-150 class but of the eight of us hunting on the lease none of us saw one that big during the season to take and we were there a lot throughout the season.

So the question is this...

What type of lease do you need to be on in order to legitimately have a chance to get a 150 class buck? High fence only?

If you can get on a low fence lease and have a chance what type of money are you talking about?

I love to deer hunt and I would love to take a boone and crockett buck but at what price? That is the real question for me?

you need luck. They are out there. Like you said i see a couple every year. I've shot two deer in the last 5 that are 150 deer. the other years i simply didnt get lucky. You have about 5-10 day when those big bucks are showing themselves to get lucky.

Can't remember who wrote it (Kroll maybe) but your basic deer is an 8 point in the 120 or less range.

You have to have some good natural food sources for a start. This goes back to the age, nutrition and genetics threads.

How big is your lease? Is 8 hunters too many? I don't need to know, but I see quite a few leases that are overgunned just to keep the price down for each individual.

How many neighbors does your lease have and what is their "management" philosophy? Do they believe in "if it's brown it's down" or do the believe in "let 'em walk"?

You can get your deer to increase their antler size to whatever they are capable of, but it takes TIME and MONEY.

If you are supplementing don't expect a 120 to turn into a 170 in one year. It's not realistic. What you will see if you are ready to pour money into supplementing is incremental increases each year. That is if you have the patience to let them walk until they are at least 4 years old and preferably 5.5 and 6.5. Bucks put nutrition to their skeletal-muscular system before they put anything into antlers. They don't finish growing their body until about 3.5 or 4.5. After that they still have to eat enough to keep body and soul together but more will go to their antlers.

Once you get there then don't be shooting the biggest, widest, tallest, most mass deer on the place. You want him to pass those genetics on. You need to bite the bullet and get the genetics that you don't want out of the local herd.

Bear in mind this will take years, not months.

And when it's all said and done you still might not end up with a 160, but your bucks will have improved as much as they can.

Time, money, and dedication to it is what it's gonna take.

Another lease with bigger deer to start with is still gonna take you time and MONEY.

It is what it is.

Leases are out there, but a lot of it is luck. I have spent YEARS (18)hunting well managed leases and a few 150"-200" deer have been shot, but I was only lucky enough to have them cross roads on me for me to get looks at them. The past few years I have been fortunate to hunt just a small 300 acre property and have had several in the 140's and 150's make appearances while I was on the stand. Just happens to be a 1 buck county. Some places just have the proper make-up to have these kinds of deer naturally with no feeding program or management plan. There are a few older 8's on the place, but the majority are 1.5 yr old 4-8 pts and 2.5 yr old 8-10pts. By 3.5 most have grown into 130" 10's or 120-130" 8's. If enough of those get passed up, there will easily be 4.5-6.5 yr old deer in the 150"s.

Area and hunting pressure.

yall are right. I forgot to mention hunting pressure. If you have 8 guys hunting a 1000 acre plave every weekend Shooting young deer then Good luck. If hnting pressure is high in your area then hunt mid week. Deer are not stupid. They know when 8 guys go out in trucks and four wheelers in the AM and then drive around the place all day.

There are a lot of trophy type leases. These are usually more expensive because the amount of land it requires to produce trophy bucks year after year. Here in the Panhandle, 1 hunter per 600-800 acres is about right if you expect to shoot a Great deer every year. We only have about 1200 acres on our lease and have 6 hunters, but we have set minimum scores and ages in order to keep producing trophies every year. We only average 1-2 bucks per year on our place, though, otherwise our place wold be shot out very quickly.

Right place right time. Best deer hunter I know has a 143 to his credit, he hunts bow only and hunts here in Cass county. Have a car salesman from Dallas hunting next to us in Collingsworth and he has taken 153 and 161 in the last 2 years. He is an idiot, but he is lucky and has a great spot.

Big bucks can turn up anywhere!!

My dad hunted a 100 acre lease in Fairfield for 22 years! The biggest buck killed on that place the first 19 years would score about 120" at best! Then on year 20 there was a 150"+ 10 point killed, and the following year my dad arrowed a 176" 18 point!

tkuehn5410,

So based on your post you are on a lease with 6 hunters and pay quite a bit to hopefully take a buck every 3-6 years? If that is the case that is what I call a TROPHY hunter.

I want to shoot nice bucks but I am not going to spend $1500 per year, this is how much I spend now, and then only take a buck every three years.

That means it would cost $4,500 just to get a "trophy" buck. The price is simply to high for me.

If it costs that much and it was that big a priority for me I would spend the $4500 each and every year in order for me to get a buck.

Otherwise during the years when it was not "my turn" or the years I did not get one I would feel like I was paying each year for someone else to get his trophy.

And based on your statement about trophy type leases costing more you spend more than the $1500 per year that I do.

My hat is off to you! That is a BIG commitment and anyone who is willing to pay that big a price is quite committed!

If I am going to spend $4500 a year then I would go Elk and Mule Deer hunting with a guide and get two trophys. And I understand it would cost a little more but when you get to $4500 what is another $2k?

You have to be willing to let really good young buck go and grow up. We hunt in the panhandle too and even with one hunter every 600 to 800 acres your not going to get one every year. Guess that’s why it is hunting not killing. It's like BMD says "you can't kill a 180 of you keep shooting the one forties and fifties".

I have a couple on my place. I've never seen them but my Game Cam has.

I'm still looking but doubt that I will actually kill one.

Anothe rkey.. to kill big deer,,,, you have to hunt where big deer are. Another words. I lived just north of san antonio for years. Hunted some great ranches. If you saw a 130 class buck in that area then it was BIG. Out here a 130 class buck is nice but there's a bunch of them. JMO

It all comes down to the value of a dollar...that is a very subjective term..what the value to me might not be to the next...i have a big family that needs extra cash for essentials,now somdbody else that is single can afford that "trophy"..it all depends on what is important to that particular person...also if i am hunting a small lease, why should i spend all that money when that 140 that i let walk is just going to jump the fence and get blasted by the next lease? a 140 also might just be my "trophy"

Sorry there's no magic formula but my philosophy is If you want to shoot big bucks you have to let the smaller ones walk.

This is hard to do if you aren't on enough acreage or you're on a lease with others that don't do that too.

The other thing that will help is to make your stand as comfortable as possible and STAY in it. Harder to see great
deer if you come out of the stand at 9:00 or 10:00 am and then wait 'til 3:00 or 4:00 pm to hunt the evening.

You've been thinking about deer hunting ALL year now get up there and hunt !! Oh yeah, good luck !!

This is just a post to let anybody know that I can produce a 150 class deer or better every year. This is an outfitting business and we only hunt for quality deer. So here's the deal...in order to produce big deer year after year, you have to limit deer taken off of property....so we do about a thousand acres to one hunter...aproximately...knowing that some areas will hold more than one giant deer. And we let alot of really nice deer walk...he'll be bigger next year. So proper management is crucial as well as having "undisturbed" land...not any people wandering the fields every week.

Why not just buy a 200 inch deer from a breeder and let it go on your place?

I have a buddy that got a 173 class deer last year. I still wonder if he wondered over to my property and took it from my blind. He was awful secretive about it. My place is 60 acres...obviously, low fenced.