By Jeff Knapp

Joe Adkins' Wayne County buck verifies that the age structure of West Virginia's deer herd is steadily increasing, particularly in the southern portion of the state. On Nov. 25 of last year, Adkins harvested the highest-scoring typical whitetail taken with a gun. The huge, mature 14-point buck has a net score of 167 3/8 inches.

Joe Adkins has been a resident of the Ranger area all of his life. Ranger is located in Lincoln County, east of Wayne County. The young hunter, who was 20 years old when he took his record-book buck, has hunted for many years. Prior to the 14-pointer, an 8-pointer was his personal best buck. It, too, came from Wayne County.

According to West Virginia Division of Natural Resources (DNR) wildlife manager Tom Dotson, Wayne County features a mix of deer habitat.

"The southern part of the county is quite steep," Dotson noted. "It is heavily forested, mostly in oak-hickory forest. The deer density in the southern part of Wayne is less than it is farther up north. As you travel into the northern portion of the county, things open up a bit. There is a bit more diversity, with some farming present. It is still fairly steep, though. Deer numbers are higher in northern Wayne County."

"I've been hunting this area the first two days of the season for about the past five years," Adkins said. The spot - the East Lynn area of Wayne County - has produced deer for him, as well as other family members during that time.

"There's an 8-pointer hanging on my wall that came from the same place," he stated.

Though much of southern West Virginia is made up of rugged, forested mountains, there is a bit of habitat diversity to the area Adkins hunts. According to Adkins, the place contains reverting farmland, overgrown fields that now offer premium deer habitat, particularly in a place where deer rely on mast production for much of their food. Adkins' stand overlooks one of several former oat fields. Permanent tree stands have rotted and become unsafe the past couple of years, so he now hunts on the ground.

The season opener found Adkins, along with his brother and sister-in-law, hunting their familiar haunts. During the course of the day, other members of his hunting party saw a big buck. It was a big buck, but they couldn't say for sure whether or not it was the one Adkins would take the following day. Adkins had a chance to take a spike buck, but he passed on it.

The Adkins buck features extremely long tines, fine mass throughout and good symmetry, despite several sticker points. Photo by Jeff Knapp

The season's second day was rather uneventful for Adkins until about midmorning. It was about 10:30 a.m. when things began to change.

"My brother and sister-in-law were hunting around the hill," Adkins recalls. "I heard one of them shoot. I figured they could use some help dragging the deer if they had gotten one, so I got up and started through the oat field. I got about halfway through it when I saw two does. They weren't spooked, but they kept looking back behind them like something was following them. Then I saw a buck coming up behind them. All I could see were horns. I didn't look any closer. I shot it."

Like the does, Adkins said the buck didn't appear to be spooked. It was just following the does, headed on the same path they had taken.

The .260-caliber slug from the sportsman's Ruger was true. The shot, from a distance of about 75 yards, did its job. Adkins said the buck pretty much fell in its tracks.

As you might expect, Adkins was, as he put it, "pretty shook up" when he realized the size of the deer he had taken.

Not anxious to leave the buck in the field, he decided to handle the chores of moving it by himself. After field dressing the deer, he dragged it to his vehicle. Since his truck was being worked on, Adkins was hunting out of a borrowed four-door SUV. He folded the back seats down and pulled the deer by its antlers up into the passenger compartment. But too much of the deer was left hanging over the tailgate, and it kept sliding out. Finally, he wrapped a seatbelt around the buck's neck, lassoing it into the vehicle.

Taking a record-book buck won't dampen the spirits of Adkins this season. Not only does he love deer hunting, he thoroughly enjoys the meat. It might be his own form of the Adkins diet, you might say!

The Adkins deer has all the features typical of a healthy, mature whitetail buck. According to Adkins, the animal weighed well over 200 pounds field dressed when checked shortly after the hunt. Officials set the deer's age at 5 1/2 years old. Its gross score is 183 2/8.

The huge rack has many distinguishing features. Tine length is impressive throughout. The G-2 point of the right antler measures 15 6/8 inches, while the G-2 on the left side is 13 4/8. The buck's G-3s are equally impressive, measuring 11 5/8 on the right side and 12 2/8 on the left. The total length of the right antler is 25 7/8 with the left side going 24 7/8.

The beams of the rack are also substantial, measuring 4 2/8 inches each at the bases and carrying the mass throughout the antlers. The greatest spread is 21 7/8 inches, with an inside spread measuring 17 5/8 inches.

A mainframe 10-pointer, some abnormal points add to the character of the rack, but unfortunately reduce its net score as a typical whitetail. Sticker points on the base of the rack, on both the right and left side, total 3 6/8 inches. A kicker coming off the G-2 tine on the right angler measures 4 0/8 inches. The tip of the left antler forks create a 2 4/8-inch point. These abnormalities and variations between the left and right antlers total 15 5/8 inches, keeping the net score of the buck below the magical 170-inch mark. While these characteristics may lower the rack's score in the record book, in many observers' eyes they add to its overall impressiveness.

"You need two things to produce trophy bucks. First, the habitat has to be there. Second, it must be possible for a buck to reach the age of a mature deer."

Wayne County borders Mingo County, one of the four bowhunting-only counties, which have been limited to archery hunting for over 20 years. Because of this restriction, deer commonly reach maturity there. Deer densities have been steadily growing in Mingo County for several years. Dotson feels it is quite possible that the Adkins buck may have moved into Wayne from Mingo County.

"With the greater numbers of deer in counties such as Mingo, there is now more competition among bucks for does," Dotson noted. "When the rut begins, it's likely bucks travel some distance looking for receptive does, rather than fighting other bucks for the local does."

While Adkins' buck may have migrated into Wayne County from Mingo - he was hunting the East Lynn area not far from the county border - Wayne County itself possesses features likely to produce older age-class deer as well.

"Bucks in general are getting older in all of West Virginia," Dotson stated. "Twenty years ago, we harvested 90 percent of the bucks each year, most of which were yearlings. The recent emphasis has been on the taking of antlerless deer. We are now killing only about 50 percent of the bucks. There are more 2 1/2-year-old bucks out there. While that's not a mature buck, it's better than yearling bucks. It's a step in the right direction."

The ruggedness of the county also plays into Wayne's ability to produce older age-class bucks. In Dotson's opinion, hunters don't seem to hunt as hard today as they did 20 years ago. Even public lands, of which Wayne County has an abundance, may not be hunted as intensely as some would think.

Interestingly, studies done early this decade in neighboring Pennsylvania indicate public lands, at least ones located in vast, rugged terrain, see little deer hunting pressure. During this study, which took place on Sproul State Forest in the "Big Woods" region of north-central Pennsylvania, hunter movement was tracked by use of Global Positioning System (GPS) units. Little hunting pressure was witnessed more than one-third of a mile off roads, or along steep terrain. This was even more evident as the season progressed.

As Dotson stated, the nutrition the available habitat offers is another factor in the production of trophy bucks. In Wayne County, the southern part especially, the major food source is mast. More big bucks seem to be taken during seasons following good years of mast production. Dotson also noted the mast has been lean the past couple of years.

For the traveling hunter coming in from another area, Wayne County has about 40,000 acres of public land. Cabwaylingo State Forest, East Lynn Wildlife Management Area (WMA) and Beech Fork WMA all feature large tracts of land where a buck may grow to the age needed to sport impressive headgear. Here's a look at these three areas: