This map from the Quality Deer Management Association shows deer densities in each county. From this, you can see that the counties west and south of Ithaca have the highest densities. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean they produce the biggest bucks.

Look for a tab or link on the agency’s homepage about hunting or buying a hunting license. For New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation, the web link reads, “Hunting & Trapping Guide.” From here you can usually find all that you need to know about season dates; bag limits; and buying a license, either online or at a retail store. In our mock scenario, you are in luck -- New York’s southern zone archery season runs from October 14 to November 17, and nonresidents can buy a license by mail or over-the-counter.

Find the “Best” Place to Hunt The potential for discovering new areas remotely gets better each year with the addition of new technology and data. In our scenario, let’s start scouting on a broad geographic scale and narrow the possibilities to a few preferred spots.

Your first concern is the distribution of deer, including trophy bucks, across the state. The best place to find this information for any state is on the Quality Deer Management Association’s Whitetail Map Guide website (www.i-maps.com/qdma/). Here you can view whitetail deer densities and Pope & Young and Boone & Crockett records by state and county for the entire country. The map’s shading tells where deer densities are highest and which regions have produced the most P&Y and B&C bucks. With this information, you can narrow your hunting focus to a county, or even a particular part of a county.

Getting back to the mock hunt, you see that overall deer densities are generally highest in the counties west and south of Ithaca. However, if you look just at P&Y bucks, the map shows a different pattern. Tompkins County, which includes the area north of Ithaca, east of Cayuga Lake, and immediately south of town, has produced more P&Y animals when compared with counties immediately to the south, east, or west. If you have to leave Illinois for New York, Ithaca isn’t a bad place to be. It’s still lemonade, but it’s getting sweeter.

With one county in mind, it’s time to decide exactly where to hunt. The primary question is: private or public land? Some might argue that this decision drives the entire process because public land is often the only option. Frequently this is the case, but with a little legwork, you often can gain access to private lands. Phone calls to family, friends, and local conservation officers can sometimes reveal farmers eager to have someone trim the deer herd. A few years ago I put together a do-it-yourself hunt in North Dakota. After phone calls to a local conservation officer and an acquaintance who lived in the state, I had access to more ranches than I could possibly hunt during my weeklong stay.

With that said, some public lands can be excellent. In recent years, I’ve hunted public lands in several states that received only modest bowhunting pressure and held good numbers of deer, bucks included. The trick is to do your homework to avoid bad experiences -- as I had a few years ago in Illinois.