Of the 73 nice bucks that Danny Jordan's taxidermy shop in Guntersville had taken in to mount by the end of last season, well over half came from northern Marshall County.

"I know of several 160-inch deer that have been taken in the Grant area," he said. "It makes it easier to pass up some smaller deer when you know what the area is capable of producing."

Taxidermist Danny Jordan's hunting buddy Junior Dixon is another north Marshall hunter who had great luck last season. He killed a big 10-point buck hunting on Grant Mountain one weekend, then got a big 8-pointer on Merrill Mountain the next weekend.

Jordan held the racks from the two bucks side by side. "It doesn't get a whole lot better than two bucks like this on back-to-back weekends," he mused.

Several of the north Marshall bucks he got in at the shop last season had unusual characteristics that made them special. There was a highly unusual 6-pointer that came from the Conners Island area just north of Guntersville: It had 5 points on one side and an 18-inch spike on the other.

Another buck had essentially a second main beam on its right side. It was a basic 8-pointer, but the extra main beam made it a nine.

Alan Edmonds' big buck was aged at 5 1/2 years old. A lot of the racked bucks killed on any given hunting ground in Alabama are just 2 1/2 or 3 1/2 when they're taken. That extra couple of years no doubt makes the difference in whether a rack is massive like Edmonds' trophy or thin and spindly, Jordan said.

"People pay thousands and thousands of dollars to go to South Alabama and other places to hunt deer and we've got this right in our back door," Jordan pointed out.

If you'd like to hunt northern Marshall County yourself, there are some limited opportunities for doing so on public land.

The Tennessee Valley Authority owns a good deal of land along the shoreline of Guntersville Lake. In many places -- particularly in the Claysville/Bishop Mountain area -- there are wide bands of TVA property next to the shoreline that are open to public hunting.

A good knowledge of back roads is necessary to access some of the TVA tracts; to others, the best access is by boat.

The TVA also has a 475-acre bowhunting only tract along the road leading to Guntersville Dam on the north, or New Hope side of the dam. The tract runs from flat ground in the bottom up onto the side of Bishop Mountain. There have been reports of some bruiser bucks being seen in that area, but few reports of any being harvested.

You can find out more about public hunting opportunities on TVA land in Marshall County by calling TVA's Guntersville Land Management Office at (256) 571-4280.

Steve Kennamer of Kennamer Cove has hunted northern Marshall County for 30-plus years and was one of the first to start hunting this area when there weren't very many deer present.

"The vastness of the area is what makes it so good," he said. "We've still got big woods. It's not patchy with a lot of houses like lots of other areas are in Marshall County." A great deal of logging has been done over the years in the area, he added, so the timber growing back is at a lot of different stages and that just amplifies the cover for the deer.

"We've still got some agriculture in the cove, including corn and bean fields," Kennamer concluded. "More and more people are practicing management, and I would say our deer population is as good as it has ever been."