I wonder the same thing Mr. Bestul. Im right next door in Missouri, and we do have some mighty fine deer over here too, but boy does Illinois have the rep for bruisers! I honestly don't wish I lived there though. Just try to find a 'private' place to hunt in Illinois w/o a wad of cash these days.
Whitetailhunter706- I'm with ya', I hear of tons of monsters shot in my home state that never get entered into B&C. And I understand it, if I killed one, sure I'd like to see how many inches of rack it had total, but as far as 'submitting' it, deducting this and that, Nah, could care less. Record books are for people who care about what other people think, and thankfully, I ain't one of those kind of people. A trophy is a trophy in the eye of the hunter who took it. Whether it's a 6 pointer or a 26.
I honestly hope Missouri doesn't climb any higher on the list, or I'll surely lose my 'free' places to hunt. The wolves are already circling.

but i guess a reason for that is that the midwest probably has the highest deer population, has the grains acorns and other deer foods, lots of woods with thick places for bucks to hide and just a lot better habitat for deer. but you wonder y the midwest doesnt hav the totals of car deer accidents of other states and thats because there are less people and less need for deer to move longer distances, which means less roads to cross, and most of us know where the deer are in our areas and so we know when to watch for deer crossing the roads. So its not strange to see these numbers in a mid west state.

I love that Cabelas Outfitter Camo pattern!

Im with Whitailhunter some of those big boys need to stumble over into Indiana. Indiana has big deer but nothing like illinois kansas or wisconson i love to see big deer and they are always from that area when im looking at them. I would be neat to see how many deer are harvested in those states and who has the better all around quality of deer produced not just the giants. It was nice to see that deer was a B & C free range deer to not one that had been farmed to be that big.

Buckhunter and Jbird are right, you have to know someone or be willing to shell out the cash to hunt deer in Illinois. That would be the reason I gave up on hunting deer. We also can't hunt deer with high powered rifles. We are limited to shot gun, muzzleloader, pistol and bow. So there are times when we pass on a shot on a nice buck because he isn't close enough for comfort. But if I dont get him this season he might be there next year, and bigger.

If I’m not mistaken don’t most of the giant non-typicals come from Ohio… I’m pretty sure we have had several 275” plus bucks in the past decade.

I heard that Ark. WAS pretty big in the Non-typ. books at one time too. Any truth to this ?

Nice Buck