Given the number of deer killed, though, it seems reasonable to assume that private-land access isn’t as tightly controlled as it might be elsewhere. Some pre-season scouting, combined with a little judicious door knocking, could easily gain access to a veritable whitetail hotspot.

Interstate 77 and U.S. Route 50 intersect at Parkersburg, providing easy north-south and east-west access to the county’s hunting. State Route 2 runs southwest-to-northeast through the deer-rich bottomlands along the Ohio River.

Monongalia County took the second spot in our top 10 listing. Monon­galia’s hunters harvested 4,704 deer in 2008, eighth-most in the state. The county’s productivity average of 15.08 whitetails was eighth best.

Tucked up against the Pennsylvania border, Monongalia offers deer just about every kind of habitat available in West Virginia, from the Monongahela River bottoms through rolling coal-mining land to the soaring ridges of the Allegheny Mountains.

Public hunting abounds. Hunters can choose the intimate confines of 766-acre Pedlar WMA or 1,036-acre Little Indian Creek WMA in the county’s western lowlands; or they can opt for the wide-open spaces of 3,092-acre Snake Hill WMA or 12,713-acre Coopers Rock State Forest along the county’s eastern border.

The city of Morgantown is a prime jumping-off spot for the county’s entire top hunting spots. Its many motels and restaurants provide all the amenities a hunter could hope for — except, of course, on weekends when the West Virginia University football team is in town for a home game. Things tend to get a bit crowded then.

Interstates 79 and 68 intersect a couple of miles west of Morgantown, bringing traffic from the Charleston, Pittsburgh and Baltimore areas. U.S. Routes 19, 119 and 250 also converge in Morgantown.

At third in our Top 10 comes Mason County. Tucked in a giant sweeping bend of the Ohio River, Mason’s 407 square miles are a spectacular blend of agricultural bottomlands and rolling oak-hickory woodlands.

Mason’s hunters bagged a whopping 5,464 deer in 2008, the state’s second-highest total. The county’s productivity average of 13.43 white­tails per square mile ranked 11th.

Two major public-hunting areas provide hunters plenty of room to pursue their pastime. The 11,772-acre Chief Cornstalk WMA is the larger of the two. Located on the south side of the Kanawha River near (naturally) the town of Southside, Cornstalk boasts terrain that ranges from gently rolling hills to steep wooded slopes. Roughly 85 percent of it is forested.

The 3,655-acre McClintic WMA is the smaller of the county’s two major public areas, but is arguably more popular than its larger counterpart. One look at its composition tells why: 600 acres of farmland, 1,100 acres of brush land, 180 acres of wetland and 1,775 acres of hardwood forest.

Every one of those acres is managed to grow trophy bucks. All bucks killed on McClintic must have antler spreads of at least 14 inches to be legal. That regulation, instituted in 1999, has proven immensely popular with hunters. Opening day of the archery and firearms seasons almost always finds the parking lot full.

U.S. Route 35 is the major east-west artery, carrying traffic from the Charleston area. State Route 2 brings traffic up the Ohio River from Huntington and down the river from Ravenswood and Parkersburg.

A fixture among West Virginia’s best deer producers, Lewis County didn’t disappoint in 2008. Lewis’ sportsmen bagged 5,088 whitetails, the state’s fifth-best total. Their productivity average of 13.51 deer per square mile ranks 10th.

Interstate 79, known to many in the Mountain State as the “Whitetail Highway,” runs smack through the county’s middle. The easy access, combined with the county’s location near the state’s geographic center, makes Lewis an extremely popular hunting ground.