Liles is the biologist in charge of Choccolocco WMA, but said he would still have to pick Martin/Skyline WMA in Jackson County as the public ground with the best potential in his district.

"The state owns the land, and they can do so much more habitat work," Liles noted in explaining his pick.

Skyline offers virtually any kind of habitat a hunter could want. There are bottomland farms on the Jacobs tract, rolling plateaus at the Poplar Springs section, and steep wooded mountains on the Walls of Jericho and the Stevenson segments.

"The only thing it has against it is, the soil is fairly poor quality," Liles said. "Still, some nice deer are taken here every year."

The biologist also noted that Little River WMA in DeKalb County is coming on strong as a good place for finding bigger bucks.

CENTRAL
The state's west-central portion is comprised of Pickens, Sumter, Greene, Marengo, Tuscaloosa, Hale, Jefferson, Bibb, Perry, Shelby, Dallas and Chilton counties.

Chris Cook works in this part of the state. The biologist said that some of the best counties for big deer are Green, Dallas, Pickens and Tuscaloosa. "They have good deer populations and they're also the places where we're seeing better-quality deer," he stated.

For quality deer, the better public hunting areas are Cahaba River and Mulberry Fork WMAs, both of which are easily accessible from the Birmingham area.

Cahaba River has a Christmas rut, while Mulberry Fork is more of the traditional Alabama January rut.

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

Rick Claybrook is the biologist, and Macon is his pick as the county with the best buck potential. It's one of the Black Belt counties, with highly fertile soils.

"It just seems like a lot of our better quality bucks come from Macon," Claybrook suggested and added that "Montgomery, Bullock and Lowndes aren't bad either."

Lowndes WMA is one of the better-quality public hunting areas. "We see some 140-inch bucks coming out of this area every year," he said.

The only drawback is that the area is comprised of only about 11,000 acres. Some of the rut hunts in January draw around 300 hunters, and they basically fill up the area.

Claybrook noted that big bucks could come from other areas of the district too, including the more northerly areas with Piedmont-type soils.

"One of the best bucks I've ever seen was a 150-incher that came off Hollins," he said, referencing the WMA located in the Talladega National Forest.

SOUTH
The southwestern corner of the state has a heavy deer population, as evidenced by the need for 70 days of either-sex hunting. And that overpopulation makes quality forage scarce in the area. Thus big bucks and racks are not as common. The counties in this region are Choctaw, Washington, Wilcox, Mobile, Clarke, Baldwin, Conecuh, Escambia and Monroe.

Steve Barnett is the biologist. For quality bucks on public land, he likes the Scotch WMA in Clarke County. The soil is better there, and there are good deer numbers.

For private-land buck hunting, he likes Clarke County, northern Mobile County and Wilcox County. "These are the three best areas we've got for bucks," he confirmed.