Looking for opinions on which one of these 3 states is my best bet for a heavy population of whitetail and a chance to kill a nice 140” or up. This is for a do it yourself bow hunting only public land hunt for the 2nd week of November for 8 days. Missouri, Kentucky, or Ohio. Thanks for any advice.

I think you couldn’t go wrong with any of these states.

Haven't hunted those but, first thing I would be checking is which state had more public access. OTC tags don't always mean there's a place to hunt.

Missouri would be my pick.

I live in IN. Kentucky would be my choice lots of public land.

I did my first diy public land hunt last year. We went to Ohio (east central). Terrain was very rugged. We had a flat stern canoe, and without it we would have had a hard time getting far off the roads. We hunted lakes and creeks. Did see a lot of deer and first 2 sits saw 4 shooter bucks, at least to me. I killed smallest of 4 and it was 130” 8 that weighed 250lbs. Would’ve been a tough drag up any of the hills, but he died 10yds from creek and we rolled him into canoe...awesome experience but it was tough. Hunted 4 more days trying to get my buddy one and we saw 10-20 deer a day but never got another good buck in range. Would like to try something more Midwest this year.

I've been spending a lot of time at pennyrile state forest and Peabody wma here in western ky. Pennyrile is bow only and I see deer every time I go scouting at Peabody. Can point you in some directions on both if you want.

I think Kentucky had a bad EHD outbreak last year, I believe it was more central and east part of the state but you make want to look into that before you look at Kentucky.

Yep, central and east KY would be off my list due to EHD. I would also leave off any KY lands where there is no point/spread restriction. They have been hammered by hunters from the deep south and no longer support the numbers or quality they did just a few years ago.

I have decided on Ohio, but now comes the hard part of which public land to hunt.

Just find harvest data and maps of public land. Also, call DNR and get some insight

There’s lots of land in area we were. Egypt valley was biggest wma nearby. We hunted the watershed land that borders lakes in the area. Place has lots of deer in general but they know where the pressure is. You can walk 1/2 miles worth of steps and only be 200yds off road due to steep hills. I never saw another hunter in the woods and my buddy only saw one guy. Locals told us to avoid rifle season because of Amish, but there were some Amish we saw bow hunting.

Fort A P Hill in Virginia. Best and most diverse public land I’ve ever hunted.