In 15 years as a conservation officer in southern West Virginia, Sergeant Terry Ballard has seen a disturbing decline in the region's trophy buck population.

"When I came to Logan County, you could hunt all day, and if you saw eight deer you'd had a pretty good day," Ballard said. "But of those eight deer, five of them would be bucks -- and three of them would be Pope and Young (P&Y) class bucks.

"Nowadays, you might see 20 or more deer in a day. But of those 20, probably only eight would be bucks, and only one of those would make the P&Y record book."

Ballard isn't the only one who sees the difference. Wildlife biologists are noticing it, too.

"The thing that's so upsetting is that it shouldn't be happening," said Gene Thorn, a biologist and manager of Wyoming County's R.D. Bailey Wildlife Management Area (WMA). "These counties are bowhunting only. There's no way you should have a decline in any deer population in a bow-only area."

Since 1979, four southern West Virginia counties have been closed to any sort of firearms hunting for deer. Since then, Logan, McDowell, Mingo and Wyoming counties have become "the" preferred bowhunting destination for archers throughout the state. The region has yielded eight state-record bucks since 1986.

Even last year, during a season most hunters considered sub-par, the four counties produced 26 bucks that qualified for the P&Y book of bowhunting records. The largest of them -- an 18-point non-typical taken in Mingo County -- was also the biggest whitetail killed in the Mountain State last year.

Sgt. Ballard knows all about that buck. He killed it.

"It was Nov. 9 of last year," he recalled. "I had dropped the kids off at school, so I didn't get to start hunting until 8:30 or so in the morning."

It didn't take Ballard long to find what he was looking for.

"I was walking up the hill to my tree stand," he said. "I looked off to my right and saw a nice buck. I couldn't tell how big he was, but I knew he was something I was interested in trying to take."

Ballard watched the buck come down the hill and drop into a small hollow about 30 yards away. "It was so thick in there I couldn't see him, though. I could hear him moving around, and he seemed to be angling back uphill. After a while, I couldn't hear him any longer and I figured he was gone." Ballard pulled a doe-in-heat bleat can from his pocket and flipped it over. No response. He grabbed his grunt tube and blew a couple of grunts, also to no avail.

"Then I grunted and turned the can over at the same time," he said. "Not more than two seconds later, I saw him coming down the hill toward me, winding through the trees."