Like its neighbors, Mason and Wood, Jackson has a varied landscape. Along the Ohio River, it's mostly farmland. Inland, its topography varies from gently rolling hills in the north to leg-burning, lung-busting hills in the south.

Hunters who visit the county can choose between two public areas. The 2,587-acre Frozen Camp WMA, located just off U.S. Route 33 near the Roane County border, incorporates a little bit of bottomland with wooded hills and a few open ridgetops. Two small lakes lie among the hills.

The 1,696-acre Woodrum Lake WMA, off I-77 near Kentuck, surrounds a 240-acre flood-control lake. With oak-hickory and oak-pine timber interspersed with abandoned farms, the tract is a magnet for whitetails. The steep terrain, however, can punish hunters who aren't physically fit.

Hunters who like to hunt in terrain that is even more mountainous might want to venture afield in Monroe County. Monroe ranks fifth on this season's best-bet list by dint of its third-place finish in last year's raw-harvest rankings (5,037 whitetails) and 13th-place finish in deer per square mile (10.81).

The county's eastern margins straddle one of the state's highest ridges, the soaring escarpment known as Peters Mountain. The remainder rolls away toward the west, with features that vary from pastoral meadowlands to densely wooded hillsides.

Though most of its lands are private, Monroe contains two sizable state-run hunting areas and one enormous chunk of federally managed national forest. At 775 and 650 acres, respectively, the Moncove Lake and Andrew Rowan Farm WMAs can handle a fair amount of hunting pressure -- but not nearly as much as the Potts Creek WMA, an 18,526-acre section of the Jefferson National Forest (NF). Moncove and Rowan are, for the most part, oak-hickory forest. Potts Creek is mainly high-altitude oak-pine habitat.

U.S. Route 219 traverses the county from southwest to northeast. Lewisburg and White Sulphur Springs, located just a few miles up the road in Greenbrier County, make good jumping-off spots for visiting sportsmen.

Counties with large surface areas have to produce awfully large numbers of deer to place high in the rankings, and Preston County did just that. Preston's hunters bagged a state-best 5,979 whitetails in 2007. The county's average of 9.77 deer per square mile ranked 18th.

Preston's rugged landscape can -- and does -- support enormous numbers of deer. Its soaring ridges and deep, steep-sided watersheds provide wary whitetails the isolation they crave and plague unprepared hunters with the exertion they loathe.

The county's southeastern corner contains a sizable chunk of the 58,978-acre Blackwater WMA. Its mountainous terrain varies among oak-hickory, northern hardwood, spruce-fir and white pine habitats, with 2,743 acres of wildlife openings scattered throughout.

Other public opportunities include about 40 percent of the 12,713-acre Coopers Rock State Forest, a small corner of the 3,092-acre Snake Hill WMA, and all of the 1,162-acre Briery Mountain WMA. Interstate 68 provides easy east-west access from Morgantown or from Oakland, Maryland.