The East Lynn WMA is similar to Beech Fork in its challenging topography; oaks and hickories likewise heavily blanket it. The major difference, of course, is the large size of East Lynn, thus giving bowhunters the real option of finding unpressured whitetails, if they have the gumption to walk back into the hinterlands.

DISTRICT VI
District VI, which consists mostly of the north-central counties, has long boasted one of the largest deer herds in the state. Jackson County led the region last year with a tally of 768, and traditionally a number of counties have contended for that honor. For the upcoming season, assistant district wildlife biologist Jeff McCrady, who is based in Parkersburg, offers up this choice as an underrated destination.

"Take a look at Wirt County for the District VI representative," he said. "It has a higher percentage of its land in public hunting than any other county in the district. Also, it's a rather small county, so total harvest figures can be misleading."

Indeed, they can be. Wirt only tallied 264 bow-killed whitetails last year, a total that ranked it a humble sixth among the 10 counties in the region. For the previous four years, the harvests are as follows: 2001 (569), 2002 (489), 2003 (367) and 2004 (341). Although the harvests are unimpressive, Wirt does have something much more important -- plenty of farms that lie along small tributaries of the Ohio River system.

These farms have a reputation for producing both good-sized and good numbers of whitetails. The reason why is that these concerns typically feature rich soil and such crops as corn. Wrangle an invitation to one of these farms and you have a real chance at arrowing a fat doe.

West Virginia's bowhunters are often an adventuresome lot. We like to sample new places in counties that we have never or rarely hunted before. Every October, I like to go afield on some of my favorite farms, wood lots and public lands, but I also enjoy traveling to new areas and scouting out the possibilities. Ironically -- and there's that word again -- this wanderlust can lead us to harvesting deer that we never would have otherwise if we hadn't experienced a case of wanderlust. Perhaps a visit to one of the counties covered here is in your future.