A quick look at the state records for North Dakota will have you scratching your head:  bull elk just shy of 450 points, a pronghorn over 90, a typical elk over 400. There are also Canada moose (you read that correctly), bighorn sheep, mule deer (of course), cougar—you get the point. While hunting for most of these species is limited, once you actually draw (or buy) the tag, you hunt the…

If you’re a big game hunter and live in New York, your big game hunting is going to be limited to whitetails and black bears. That’s not a bad thing. In the counties that border Pennsylvania and New Jersey, there are more woods than steel and concrete. And that’s where you’re going to find those big bruins. In 2017, one hunter killed the state record that landed in the top 10 of All-time at 22…

Nova Scotia offers Atlantic Canada hunting traditions

This tiny state and its liberal seasons make it a solid place to fill the freezer — It makes sense that the smallest state in the U.S. would have the fewest record-book entries at just four. And that’s okay. There are a lot of deer here. 

Ontario offers diverse big game opportunities

That’s right, Oklahoma stakes claim to the world’s largest peanut, but a quick look at the record book reveals a variety of big game species there for the chasing. The panhandle features pronghorn hunting with a 2018 entry that scores more than 82 points. Typical and nontypical whitetail deer entries abound. Black bears aren’t shy about making the book, either, but the real curveball is elk.…

So you like Columbia blacktail deer? How about Roosevelt’s elk? If either one of those species happens to be your jam, then Oregon holds the best book potential for your money. Look to the wet and rainy West Coast timber cuts for them. It’s not all rainforest, though. Look to the arid southeast where the antelope (pronghorn) play, and you might even find a top 10 all-time entry down there.…

Pennsylvania is known for huge record-book black bears. The whitetail deer is also the official state animal—and they are huge. Most recently, the state has seen some massive non-typical American elk enter the record book. Elk reintroductions in Pennsylvania started as far back as 1913, and they are descendents of Rocky Mountain elk from Yellowstone National Park. With help from organizations…

It doesn’t matter if you like the clean lines and picture-perfect symmetry of a typical whitetail or if you’re more into the kickers, stickers, drop-tines and freakish nature of a big non-typical, Ohio has you covered—and the deer are all over the state. The state has seen some real whoppers since 2000, including one non-typical that scored 295-3/8 in 2006. Since then, there have been more…

Nunavut offers Arctic big game adventures