If West Virginia's deer hunters kill as many trophy bucks this year as they did last year, they'll have a very good year, indeed. After all, sportsmen bagged 104 whitetails last season that qualified for the state's Big Buck Club. "It was a good year," said Gene Thorn, of West Virginia's Division of Natural Resources (DNR). Thorn is the state biologist who oversees the club. "Keep in mind that the total of 104 only represents those bucks that were entered in our annual contest. I know for a fact that a lot of bucks never got entered."

Thorn could probably say the same about any given season. Not all Mountain State deer hunters know about the Big Buck Club, and those who do are often hit or miss about registering their trophies. Still, 2007's total was notable because it represented a 68 percent jump from 2006's tally of just 62 trophies.

"We had some things going in our favor," Thorn explained. "First, we were coming off a good mast year. The number of trophy bucks always goes up after a good mast year. Good nutrition contributes to good antler growth. Second, the number of older-aged deer continues to increase in the state. That's because our antlerless deer seasons are encouraging hunters to take does instead of bucks, and the percentage of yearling bucks being killed continues to diminish. Those surviving yearlings are living to 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 years before they're killed, and they're able to develop some really nice antlers."

Some hunters dislike the doe-buck option, but the results speak for themselves. Last year, the Big Buck Club contained entries from 24 of the state's 55 counties -- the highest number ever.

"We're definitely starting to see trophies coming from counties where we don't ordinarily see them," Thorn said. Case in point: the titanic 16-point non-typical taken in Webster County by 68-year-old Dan Miller. The rack scores 190 2/8 on the Boone and Crockett Club's (B&C) scoring scale, and was the biggest gun-killed non-typical taken in the state last year.

Still, the epicenter of West Virginia's big-buck territory remains in four counties closed to firearms hunting since 1979 -- Logan, McDowell, Mingo and Wyoming. Despite their bowhunting-only regulations, or perhaps because of them, these four counties have dominated big-buck statistics since the late 1980s. Last year, they accounted for 60 of the 104 Big Buck Club entries.

Thorn, who lives and works in Wyoming County, believes hunting in the region is actually getting better. "A couple of years ago, I was kind of worried that our best buck hunting was behind us," he said. "But now I think we're back on the right track again."

The reasons? Thorn said one major factor is the area's overall deer population, which continues to grow.

"That makes more big bucks available out there as a percentage of the deer you have in the county," he explains. "When we only had 100 deer in a county and were killing 10 of them, maybe five were P&Y size. The deer herd kept coming up and up. As we got more deer, we got more big bucks."

Also, a couple of years ago, DNR officials began allowing hunters in the bow-only counties to purchase extra deer tags -- with the stipulation that at least one of the deer they killed be antlerless.

"Before that went into effect, 85 percent of the deer being killed were antlered bucks," Thorn explained. "As soon as it went into effect, about 50 percent of the kill became antlerless. With more of the overall harvest tied up in antlerless deer, our buck-to-doe ratio is getting better. More bucks are able to grow to trophy size."