What State Has the Wariest Whitetails

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I have seen such a variation in videos, and real life, hunting deer where at times people do all sorts of movement and the deer just stands there. I have also seen and experienced where you turn your head an inch to the left and all of a sudden a deer you didn't know was there freaks out like you blew up a grenade in the woods.

What state do you think produces the most alert, spookiest, wariest, (however you want to phrase it), whitetails?
 
The twin tiers along the Pa/NY line from McKean county east to the east county line of Tioga/Bradford counties. Lots of hunting pressure on both sides of the state line going on at the same time, lots of state lands on both sides, deep valleys with larger headwaters creeks/rivers, heavy timber on steepish hills, crappy thermal dynamics, always windy.. never calm. It sucks. Very smart bucks. I wish hound hunting were legal here.
 
My best guess would be a state that has an expanding wolf population in addition to large number of hunters. Wolves hunt all year round and would keep deer on high alert.
 
Eastern Kentucky has some wary deer. Central and western KY, not so much. In Eastern Ky, there is very high hunting pressure, plus many people poach year round due to the high poverty. Prior to the 90’s, seeing a deer in the daylight was like seeing a wild black rhino in Africa today.

Although, TikTok and the opioid epidemic cleared a lot of the would be poachers out of the woods, so that might be changing.
 
If there are any whitetail that are more wary than those on Stewart Island NZ I’d be very surprised.
 
Definitely NOT East Texas lol…

I could fill my freezer standing naked in a field with nothing more than a pocket knife :D
 
BourbonTrail said:
Eastern Kentucky has some wary deer. Central and western KY, not so much. In Eastern Ky, there is very high hunting pressure, plus many people poach year round due to the high poverty. Prior to the 90’s, seeing a deer in the daylight was like seeing a wild black rhino in Africa today.

Although, TikTok and the opioid epidemic cleared a lot of the would be poachers out of the woods, so that might be changing.
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I grew up in E. KY and until I was 16yrs old, I had only seen one buck and a half dozen does. They had been hunted to near extinction. That was in the 60's and 70's. About 1974 I saw my first buck while hunting and literally did not know what I was seeing. It was in the 1990's that I finally got to shoot a buck but that was in WV. These days they are plentiful in both states due to proper game management. I hunt Fleming County in KY and we have BIG deer that are somewhat wary but not overly so.
 
JG26Irish_2 said:
I grew up in E. KY and until I was 16yrs old, I had only seen one buck and a half dozen does. They had been hunted to near extinction. That was in the 60's and 70's. About 1974 I saw my first buck while hunting and literally did not know what I was seeing. It was in the 1990's that I finally got to shoot a buck but that was in WV. These days they are plentiful in both states due to proper game management. I hunt Fleming County in KY and we have BIG deer that are somewhat wary but not overly so.
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Lewis county deer were still skiddish back in 2012 when I last hunted there. Although, the Robertson Co deer I hunt now are pretty easy going unless I jump them frequently.

My grandfather was the game warden for Lewis, Greenup, and I think Carter Co in the 60’s & 70’s. He had lots of harrowing tales of his encounters with deer poachers.
 
Arizona/New Mexico and their coues whitetails. If you even breath wrong in their canyon they will head to the next county.
 
You’d have a difficult time convincing me it’s not Pennsylvania. Eastern Ohio, Southern New York, West Virginia are the also same deer. Small properties 10-100 acres and a lot of hunting pressure make very alert deer. Pennsylvania is particularly difficult to get a nice deer because we cannot bait. I’m uncertain rules in other states.
 
375Fox said:
You’d have a difficult time convincing me it’s not Pennsylvania. Eastern Ohio, Southern New York, West Virginia are the also same deer. Small properties 10-100 acres and a lot of hunting pressure make very alert deer. Pennsylvania is particularly difficult to get a nice deer because we cannot bait. I’m uncertain rules in other states.
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Agree with this, and I would add NJ. I think NJ might be the worst, to be honest.

My part of the state (northwest) is very thick, somewhat mountainous, and small parcels of land. I am about a 30-40 min drive from the PA line with no traffic.

We have tons of deer, not a whole lot are big, super liberal seasons, with a ton of pressure.
 
JG26Irish_2 said:
I grew up in E. KY and until I was 16yrs old, I had only seen one buck and a half dozen does. They had been hunted to near extinction. That was in the 60's and 70's. About 1974 I saw my first buck while hunting and literally did not know what I was seeing. It was in the 1990's that I finally got to shoot a buck but that was in WV. These days they are plentiful in both states due to proper game management. I hunt Fleming County in KY and we have BIG deer that are somewhat wary but not overly so.
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This is how my Grandfather described central NC southern VA back then, when we hunted together he used to always tell me how good I had it. Now we have reasonably large deer. I always describe the deer in this area as Ghost's they are wary but not paranoid, they just appear silently and melt into the forest just as fast. They don't respond to calls or rattles where I live, you just have to be at the right place at the right time.

Turkey's were another game species that made a remarkable comeback. I remember when I killed my First Turkey on Youth day in early 2000's my Grandfather was so happy because Turkey's were so rare even then.
 
Definitely not Texas.
 
mdwest said:
Definitely NOT East Texas lol…

I could fill my freezer standing naked in a field with nothing more than a pocket knif
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Depends on where in East Texas--when poaching is year round, they stay skittish as cat squirrels 24/7
 
My answer: whichever area has the most constant poaching.

Thankfully, it's not as bad in some places as it used to be....
 
I’ve hunted white tails in Southern Arkansas and they are definitely jumpy. Now Kansas they are not nearly so spooky.

Coues deer in Arizona are really jumpy, but not so bad in Sonora.
 
Public hunting is a challenge. Public hunting in TX is for people who like dropping their odds even lower.

Of course that varies depending on the WMA/NWR etc. But it's usually hard to find higher hunting pressure.
 
Wariness of whitetails is not about geographic specific location, but about pressure put on them by hunters, coyotes, wolves, mountain lions,, and human encroachment. By far the least wary deer I have ever seen were on an 18,000 acre low fence ranch that had not been hunted in over fifty years. They stood out in the open in the middle of the day and I could walk to within 100 yards of any of them and less than fifty yards for most. BY FAR the most wary/most challenging hunt of my entire life was when I went to cull a small high fence enclosure, about 600 acres. I was supposed to remove ten does. I thought I would be done by lunch time. By the end of the day I only shot one doe and saw one other. For comparison, I helped a ranch owner remove 100 does in three days on a large low fence South Texas ranch.
 
I’ve hunted them in every region of the country. And IMHO the coastal SE states. SC, Eastern coastal Ga, Florida are the spookiest. Bow hunting, I would aim well below them so by the time the arrow got there they dropped into it.

Deer here at home are a whole different species compared to the SE.
 
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