Take a look at the 2006 Harvest Of WMA Bucks table with this article. You'll quickly see that three WMAs stand head and shoulders (and horns) above the rest. When it comes to 7- and 8-point bucks, Fort Campbell was the leader with 187 of these quality bucks harvested last year. Catoosa WMA wasn't far off that mark, with 181 bucks with 7 and 8 points tagged. Land Between The Lakes (LBL) also kept up its reputation for producing quality bucks -- 125 of them last year with 7 and 8 points.

In the 9- and 10-point category, Fort Campbell also led the way with 66 bucks taken. Again, Catoosa WMA was second with 45 bucks with 9 and 10 points harvested. And LBL was third with 40 bucks with 9 and 10 points in the bag. When it comes to 11-or-more-point monsters, Fort Campbell was also tops with 25 trophies taken. In this category, LBL's large and long-standing pool of older deer generated 15 bucks with 11 or more points. Catoosa WMA settled for the third spot for big trophies with 10 quality bucks with 11 points or better.

Other WMA buck harvests are worth noting, too. In the 7- and 8-point category, 117 bucks were killed at Cherokee WMA, 69 at Eagle Creek, and 56 came from Oak Ridge. In the 9- and 10-point bucks category, the Cherokee WMA saw 21 whitetails harvested, while Oak Ridge had 28. There were no other WMA harvests worth mentioning in the 11-points-or-more category with the exception below. This trophy distinction is dominated by Fort Campbell, LBL and Catoosa WMAs.

With all that said, you still can't overlook the state's top trophy destination and most highly sought big-deer hot-deer draw hunt. Presidents Island WMA only produced six bucks with 9 and 10 points and an additional three bucks with 11 or more points, but they were all world-class takings; Presidents Island has a small draw pool compared with most other WMAs.

WORDS OF WISDOM
Daryl Ratajczak, the TWRA's big-game program coordinator, likes our buck prospects in 2007 as much as he likes our odds at setting a new overall harvest record. After two back-to-back seasons of good mast crops, the deer herd is healthy. A healthy deer herd means healthy does and good fawn recruitment over the last couple of years. Ratajczak said the mast crop two years ago was even better than last year, and the deer are in excellent shape. Ratajczak fully expects to break last year's record this season with a harvest somewhere near or at 200,000 deer.

"We're in the glory days of deer hunting now," Ratajczak said. There is a trend toward seeing more Boone and Crockett bucks.

Ratajczak said it would be hard to pick out where the next record buck would come from, but he just as quickly said Williamson County has that kind of potential. He explained that it's a rich county with big sanctuary areas because of the big estates found there. They become havens to big bucks once the season opens. The bigger deer just disappear into these million dollar estates during deer season. Davidson County and its associated Nashville suburbs are a close second choice for Ratajczak.

There are also two easy choices for Ratajczak when it comes to knowing which WMAs may be the ultimate producers of big bucks. He said Presidents Island, of course, is the given. And as he noted last year, Yanahli Refuge WMA is still a sleeper in his book. These areas are so good because of the food found there in rich soils. Both areas are sharecropped through the TWRA's cooperative program. There are hundreds of acres of crops each season in the form of soybeans or corn. They allow big bucks to keep growing when other food isn't available.

A few years ago, Unit L was created to deal with an overabundance of does in Region I and Region II counties. Ratajczak said the problem now is that too many bucks are still being harvested from Unit L. Hunters have an opportunity to take 300 does or three bucks, and bucks are still accounting for 53 percent of the overall harvest in the liberal unit. Plenty of does are still being killed, but Ratajczak said the counties that have been in the unit for a while have a doe harvest now hovering in the mid-40 percent range. Counties that are newly introduced to Unit L usually have around a 57 to 59 percent doe harvest, but the newness quickly wears off. If the trend continues, Ratajczak said the agency might have to consider a new regulation to insure that more does are harvested.