As productive as the bow-only counties are, one of them stands head and shoulders above the others -- McDowell County. An astounding 30 P&Y-class whitetails were killed within the county's borders last season.

"I had a friend from Tennessee ask me if there was any other county in the nation that would have 30 Pope and Young bucks," Thorn said. "I just scratched my head. If there is one, I sure don't know about it. That's a lot of big bucks."

Of the four bow-only counties, McDowell has the fastest-growing whitetail population. Thorn believes that's a major reason that the county is pulling away from its neighbors in the big-buck statistics.

"Hunters killed nearly 1,000 deer in McDowell last year. That's an unheard-of total for a bow-only county. In the years when McDowell was getting 10 to 15 Big Buck Club entries, the countywide kill was only half the size it is now. With the increase in harvest has come a major leap in trophy production," Thorn said.

And here's the kicker: There's no doubt in Thorn's mind that the 30 trophy-class deer that earned Big Buck honors were only a fraction of those actually killed.

"I don't think 30 scratches the number of big deer that were killed in that county," he said. "I went to a taxidermy shop last year to measure four racks that guys asked me to score. I saw a pile of antlers as big as a sofa, and most of the racks in the pile were every bit as big as the ones I was there to score.

"Also, the cutoff for Big Buck Club scoring is Jan. 31. If the antlers don't get measured by then, they don't go on the list. I've measured a dozen racks since that date that would have qualified."

Perhaps the most remarkable statistics associated with McDowell's phenomenal 2007 trophy production is that only one of the county's 30 Big Buck Club entries placed in the top 10 individually.

Tony Fitzko's buck, which scores 157 1/8 P&Y, ranks second among non-typical bow kills. David Nash's 152 6/8 trophy places 12th in the typical category, followed closely by Jimmie Dillion's 151 7/8 typical and Daniel Cline's 149 5/8 typical in 13th and 14th places, respectively.

One of the reasons McDowell harbors so many trophy bucks is that it has a lot of steep-sided, heavily forested land for them to hide in. According to DNR statistics, the county encompasses 486 square miles of whitetail habitat.

"The terrain is rugged, but there's a lot of access by way of gas-well roads and old strip mines," Thorn said. "With that kind of access, there's a lot of hunting pressure. During the couple of weeks of the rut, a lot of people come here to hunt. We get heavy pressure from out of state, especially North Carolina and Virginia."

Fortunately, for sportsmen, McDowell boasts several sizable tracts of public-hunting land. The 7,810-acre Panther State Forest (SF) near Panther is the largest, followed by the 2,165-acre Tug Fork Wildlife Management Area (WMA) near Welch and the 1,792-acre Anawalt Lake WMA near Anawalt.

McDowell's hunting grounds lie just 25 air miles from Bluefield and 40 miles from Beckley, but those distances are deceptive. Narrow roads and heavy coal-truck traffic can exasperate even patient motorists. U.S. Route 52 provides the easiest access, relatively speaking.

The roads in neighboring Wyoming County are every bit as difficult to negotiate, and that's probably why Wyoming perennially finishes high in the state's trophy-buck standings. Last year was no exception; hunters killed 15 Big Buck Club qualifiers within the county's borders.