The county's other public tract, the 11,772-acre Chief Cornstalk WMA near Southside, consists mainly of mature hardwoods, overgrown farmsteads and wildlife food plots.

Getting to both WMAs -- and to the county's prime private-land hunting spots, for that matter -- is a cinch. U.S. Route 35 carries traffic to Point Pleasant from the Charleston area, and state Route (SR) 2 brings hunters from Huntington and Parkersburg.

Second on this year's best-bet list is Wood County. Hunters there enjoyed a banner year in 2007, ranking sixth in raw kill with 4,365 and fourth in deer per square mile at 14.1.

Like Mason, Wood intersperses rolling, wooded hills with bottomland farms. About the only thing that keeps Wood from joining Mason at the top of the rankings is a regrettable lack of public-hunting land.

A portion of the 965-acre Sand Hill WMA, which straddles the border with neighboring Ritchie County, keeps Wood from being shut completely out in the public-hunting department.

The county's mostly private status doesn't appear to have affected hunters to any great extent. For the past several seasons, Wood has ranked solidly among the state's top 10 whitetail producers.

An extensive highway network provides easy access to public and private lands alike. Interstate 77 bisects the county from north to south, and U.S. Route 50 is the major east-west artery.

A fixture near the top of the Mountain State's annual list of whitetail producers, Lewis County ties for third in this year's best-bet rankings. Lewis' hunters bagged 4,266 deer in 2007, good for seventh in the raw-harvest statistics. The county's average of 11.2 whitetails per square mile ranked eighth.

Like most top deer counties, Lewis is a mixture of woodlands and farmlands. Rolling hills dominate its topography.

Public land is abundant; the sprawling Stonewall Jackson WMA near Roanoke encompasses 18,289 acres, and a portion of the 2,985-acre Stonecoal WMA lies within the county. Both have been dependable whitetail producers.

Even Stonewall Jackson Lake Resort Park, ordinarily closed to hunters, will host a limited, controlled hunt this year. Participants, identified in advance by a lottery, will be allowed to hunt in portions of the park where deer have become badly overpopulated. Most of the available permits will be for antlerless deer, but a few fortunate hunters will be allowed to take bucks.

Access to Lewis County's deer hunting is easy, thanks to I-79 and U.S. Route 33. The two roads intersect at Weston.

Jackson County is the other third-place finisher in this year's ranking. The county placed a stellar fourth in 2007's raw-harvest standings with 5,037 whitetails. Its average of 11.14 deer per square mile finished 11th.