Raymond Zuspan led the way with a mossyhorn that scored 150 7/8 B&C and finished fifth among gun-killed typicals. T.J. Hesson followed in eighth place with a buck that scored 144 0/8. Randy Searls rounded out the county's list with a bow-killed typical that scored 132 2/8 P&Y.

For a relatively small county, Mason contains an abundance of high-quality public hunting property. The 11,772-acre Chief Cornstalk WMA, located near Southside, heads the list. Its unique combination of wood lots and overgrown farmsteads provides some of the area's best whitetail habitat.

Just north of the county seat of Point Pleasant, 3,655-acre McClintic WMA provides a unique trophy-hunting opportunity. Under special regulations put in place by the DNR, all bucks must have antler spreads at least as wide as their ears before they're legal to shoot. The special regulations, now in their third year, have made McClintic a popular destination among bowhunters and firearms enthusiasts alike.

U.S. Route 35 provides fast and easy access from the Charleston area, and SR 2 brings traffic from Huntington and Parkersburg. Both the roads are two-lane affairs, but are relatively straight, level and easy to drive.

The penultimate stop on last year's list of trophy producers is Logan County, which yielded three Big Buck Club members. As one of the four bow-only counties, Logan has a better doe-to-buck ratio than neighboring Boone and Lincoln counties. It doesn't, however, have much to brag about in the way of public hunting land.

That didn't stop Jerry Morgan Jr. from bagging the second largest bow-killed typical of the 2005 season. Morgan's buck scored 154 7/8 P&Y -- a respectable trophy in anyone's book. Josh Workman's big typical ranked 10th in the state at 144 4/8, and Edward Humprheys' typical tied for 35th at 125 1/8.

Finding a place to hunt can be a tall order. Mountaintop-removal mining dominates Logan County's landscape as thoroughly as it dominates Mingo's. Again, scouting and research are the tickets to finding accessible areas.

Fayette County caught hunters' attention in 2002 when it yielded the second largest gun-killed non-typical in state history. Jess Kelly's magnificent monarch taped out at 220 0/8 B&C and focused attention on the New River Gorge's trophy potential.

No bucks approaching those huge proportions showed up last season, but two bow-killed typicals were more than sizable enough to make the Big Buck Club. Jack Chapman's scored 137 0/8 P&Y, and Paul Payne's scored 127 4/8.

The aforementioned New River Gorge National River's proclamation boundaries encompass more than 50,000 acres in Fayette and Raleigh counties. NPS officials haven't yet purchased all the land they're authorized to, but even so, the amount of accessible land that lies within the gorge dwarfs all the county's other public tracts.

Those include the 3,201-acre Plum Orchard Lake WMA near Mossy and the 3,061-acre Beury Mountain WMA near Lookout. Both are rugged, heavily wooded areas that yield their deer-hunting secrets only to those who earn them.

Bragging-sized bucks don't only live in these counties, however. In fact, several 2005 Big Buck Club honorees hailed from counties not usually thought of as trophy producers.

Randolph County, for example, yielded a magnificent whitetail that scored 159 3/8 B&C and put Marion Henry's name in second place on the list of gun-killed typicals. Close behind Henry's buck came Brian Mabe's, a Mercer County product that scored 156 7/8. Christina Godbey's Roane County trophy scored 145 1/8 to finish sixth, and Charles Williams' Nicholas County buck rounded out the category at 140 6/8.

Among bow-killed typicals, H. Jason Hall's Clay County trophy ranked third at 153 1/8 P&Y. Terry Rowh's Putnam County kill came in fourth at 150 2/8, and Thomas Grant's Boone County bruiser tied for ninth at 145 5/8.

Ironically, last year's relatively poor buck kill could bring even greater fortune to this year's trophy hunters. Biologists say last year's poor hunting left a sizable "unharvested component" of bucks in the population. Those bucks will be a year older, a year's worth of growth larger. For hunters who long after bragging-sized bucks, 2006 could be a fun and productive year.

Find more about West Virginia fishing and hunting at: WVgameandfish.com