Here's and ironic twist: Opening day, after we had taken care of Micks buck and to kill some afternoon time, Jeremy agreed to show an old friend from Idaho around on the open side. There, in one of our public-land honey holes, surrounded by one billion hunters, he came face to face with an honest 200+ inch 6x7 that he couldn't shoot because (get this) as bad as he wanted one at the time, he didn't possess a general state-wide archery tag. I'm not even kidding.
I guess Drum is right. Opportunity does exist and has for us in the many really big bucks we have hunted over the past ten years on public land. No question about it.
The flip side is that then Jer returned to his little piece of heaven on the "P", locked the gate behind him and calmly selected one of the many great bucks we had been seeing on a regular basis and had a great time stalking and killing him without interruption. Sounds easy but believe me NOT SO.
Meanwhile me and the other 1,999,999 lucky/unlucky souls who knew where Mr. Open Side was, commenced racing around over the top of one another in hopes of a fleeting glimpse/shot while cussing one another, the buck, the other bucks, the DWR, the damn dust, the dry, the rain, our luck and any thing else that we imagined might give us an advantage. During that time I have been within 100 yards of him at-least five times, only to have some other hunter screw it up. OK OK I missed once. Flat missed. But can you imagine the satisfaction that would actually come with killing him under the circumstances? Different than the satisfaction of drawing and successfully hunting your own land on the "premium" side of the road but both are great. Challenges exist both places that make the taking of bucks like these a real special accomplishment. More exist on the "private" land than you might think.
What I'm saying is that I think you are both right. I do have a little jab for Drum though. Randomly using the big guys name to make your point and then suggesting in the same post that your listener/reader thank or pray to him seems a little "contradictory" to me. But hell, I'd hate to sound self rightous since I'm a long way from perfect.
I'm killing him tonight though. Got his new pattern figured. - I'll post pictures tomorrow. Ha