Year in and year out, Black Warrior and Sam R. Murphy WMAs give up the biggest bucks in the district, so they're Eakes' picks for the top public-land producers of high-grade deer in his district. "January was warm and did us in last year," he said. "We're hoping for some better hunting weather this year."

A lot of habitat work -- pine thinning and prescribed burning -- is ongoing in the district's Bankhead National Forest, which should provide plenty of browse to help the bucks attain their maximum potential.

For private-land hunting, Eakes likes the buck potential in Franklin and Marion counties. The population isn't quite as high there, so bucks have a chance of getting all the groceries they need to reach the pinnacle of their development.

The northeastern corner of the state comprises Jackson, Marshall, DeKalb, Cherokee, Etowah, Blount, St. Clair, Calhoun, Cleburne, Randolph, Clay and Talladega counties. Keith McCutcheon, the biologist for the area, noted that improvements in deer quality are slowly being seen in his part of the state, too. "It's not leaps and bounds," he said, "but we're seeing small, incremental changes over time."

More either-sex hunting days have been added in portions of this district this season, which should make it easier for private-land managers to harvest the necessary number of does.

McCutcheon reported that Jackson County continues to be a solid buck producer in his district. Martin-Skyline WMA is one of his selections as a top public buck-hunting ground; also, he speaks well of Little River WMA.

"There's some talk," he offered, "of going to quality deer management" -- under which a legal buck is defined as one having 3 points on one side -- "on Little River, but we're still in the very early stages of taking a look at it."

Central
The counties in the west-central portion of the state are Pickens, Sumter, Greene, Marengo, Tuscaloosa, Hale, Jefferson, Bibb, Perry, Shelby, Dallas and Chilton counties. Chris Cook works in this area.

A significant factor here is the timing of the peak of the rut in much of Pickens County -- around Christmas, a little earlier than other regions of the state. Pickens, Greene and Sumter are historically big-buck counties, and still yield trophies today, but the whole region is a worthwhile one.

"I measured a 152-inch buck last season that came from Dallas County," Cook reported. "So you just never know."

East-central Alabama is another region that boasts outstanding hunting for bucks of quality. The counties constituting this region are Coosa, Tallapoosa, Chambers, Autauga, Elmore, Macon, Lee, Russell, Bullock, Montgomery and Lowndes. Rick Claybrook is the biologist.

"Montgomery and Macon have the Black Belt soils," Claybrook said. "They're our better counties for both numbers and quality. Bullock is always one of our better counties for quality trophy-class deer, too."

Lowndes WMA, not too far south of Montgomery, is Claybrook's pick as a top public deer destination; it operates under QDM guidelines. "It's a small area," he stated, "only 10,000-plus acres. But it's been a pretty good area. Going to QDM has led to a shift in the harvest. Instead of yearling bucks making up the bulk of the buck harvest, it's a lot more 2-year-olds, and that feeds over to some 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds being taken." Instead of taking 110-pound spikes, he added, hunters harvest 140-pound bucks wearing multiple-point racks.

South
The southwestern corner of the state's large deer population is evidenced by the 70 days of either-sex hunting that it affords in its constituent counties: Choctaw, Washington, Mobile, Clarke, Baldwin, Wilcox, Monroe, Conecuh and Escambia. Steve Barnett is the biologist.