Access is certainly not a problem in Kanawha County, the surprise entry in last year's list of top trophy producers. Kanawha's hunters bagged four bucks that qualified for the Big Buck Club -- not bad for a county that seems too heavily populated and too heavily industrialized to be a major factor in the state's whitetail formula.

In this case, appearances are deceiving. Outside the Kanawha River Valley, the county is as rugged and wild as any in the region. And with 903 square miles of surface area from which to choose, hunters can find surprising expanses of elbowroom.

Another attraction is that the county is open to firearms hunters. Marvin Wolfe took full advantage of that last year when he bagged the state's seventh-largest gun-killed buck. Wolfe's trophy scored 144 5/8 on the Boone and Crockett Club's (B&C) scoring system.

The rest of the county's Big Buck Club honorees were bow kills. Randy Kelly led the way with a bruiser that scored 136 2/8 P&Y. Ricky Amos' buck scored 131 6/8, and Brian Casto's taped out at 126 7/8.

A sizable chunk of the 9,874-acre Morris Creek WMA falls inside Kanawha County's borders east of Clendenin. The county's other major hunting tract is the 9,250-acre Kanawha State Forest, located just southeast of Charleston near Loudendale.

Since Charleston is West Virginia's capital city, it's quite literally the hub of the state's major highway network. U.S. routes 60 and 119 and interstates 64, 77 and 79 spread out from the heart of the city and provide relatively quick and easy access to all of the county's most popular hunting spots.

Whatever Raleigh County might have lacked in trophy-producing quantity last year, it more than made up for in quality. The county yielded four Big Buck Club honorees, and all of them were whoppers. Walter Underwood Jr. of Mount Hope led the way with a 12-pointer that scored 163 3/8 B&C. Not only was Underwood's buck the biggest to come out of Raleigh County, it was the highest scoring typical taken in the entire state.

Close on the heels of Underwood's entry came Robert Workman's fourth-ranked typical at 152 3/8 and Nathan Williams' ninth-ranked typical at 141 1/8. The county's other Big Buck Club entry was a whitetail taken by Mike Keith. It finished eighth among bow-killed typicals with a P&Y score of 147 0/8.

On the surface, Raleigh County doesn't appear to have much land open to public hunting -- no state-owned WMAs, no state or national forests. It does, however, have the sprawling New River Gorge National River running smack through the middle of it. Unlike most lands administered by the National Park Service (NPS), the New River tract is open to hunting.

Access to the area comes primarily by I-64/77, also known as the West Virginia Turnpike. A four-lane portion of U.S. Route 19, also known as Appalachian Highway Corridor L, extends north from the county seat of Beckley into the heart of the New River Gorge recreation complex.

Some 15 years ago, Mason County consistently ranked among the state's best trophy-producing counties. Last year, it celebrated a return to the good old days by yielding three Big Buck Club members.