The WMA schedule is set up in such a way that traveling hunter can make a gun hunt on some area almost every weekend of the season. Bowhunters have it

even better, with the WMAs open the full season to the stick-and-string set. "Talk to the biologists who work these areas," Cook suggested.

Getting site-specific data from biologists makes it possible to catch three distinct ruts at Alabama WMAs. A typical hunting schedule for a guy focusing on the rut might be to hunt Black Warrior or Choccolocco in November, Oakmulgee in December and Barbour in January.

BUCK LIMIT'S EFFECTS UNKNOWN
Alabama hunters had a three-buck season limit last year for the first time in years, and Cook doesn't expect it to make a huge difference right off. The idea is that it just might encourage hunters to pass on spikes and 4-pointers and focus instead on bucks with a little more headgear.

"There are a few of these old-time WMA hunters who would kill 10 bucks a season, two or three on each of the three or four WMAs they hunted," Cook said. Obviously, the limit will have affected them a little.

Cook noticed one of them following the rules to the letter in his WMA rounds last year. The hunter "bucked out" by December, but continued to show up to hunt the WMAs. "On those later hunts, he didn't have a gun with him, and he was taking kids and other people hunting," he recalled. "We talked to him about it, and his attitude was that the rules were the rules, and he was going to follow them."

ALABAMA RECORDS PROGRAM
The Division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries is in the process of setting up a state trophy-buck recognition program to be based on Boone and Crockett Club net scores. Minimum entry scores are 140 for typicals and 165 for non-typicals. As it will recognize the deer, and not so much the hunter, no separate categories will be established for bow or muzzleloader kills.

"We're patterning it after the Magnolia Records Program in Mississippi," Cook said.

The hope is to have scoring sessions in each wildlife district at least once a year. Over time, Cook said, the records will help point out trophy hotspots around the state.

Look for more details of the program soon on the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources' Web site, the address for which is www.outdooralabama.com.

REGIONAL RUN-DOWN
All that said, let's look at the various regions of the state to focus on some more areas of Alabama that usually produce good bucks.

North
The northwestern corner of the state, historically a good producer of big bucks, was somewhat quiet last year. An outbreak of epizoötic hemorrhagic disease is thought to have hit the whitetail herd in this portion of the state hard late in the summer of 2007.

Counties in this district are Lauderdale, Limestone, Madison, Colbert, Franklin, Lawrence, Morgan, Cullman, Winston, Marion, Lamar, Fayette and Walker. Its big WMAs and expansive national forests lands open roughly 180,000 acres of public land for deer hunting.

District biologist Ron Eakes still regards Black Warrior WMA, in the Bankhead National Forest, as a place with some excellent trophy potential, but he noted that Freedom Hills WMA is another place coming on strong, with some especially good rutting action in January.