In the 7- and 8-point buck category, after Hardeman County, you'll find Lincoln County with 931 bucks followed closely by Giles County's 930 bucks sporting 7 and 8 points. Fayette County also had a very respectable harvest of 7- and 8-pointers with 884 of them taken. Also, note that Fayette County was one of the few counties last year that had an increase in all three of these big-buck categories -- if you have hunting land there, it deserves your attention in 2008.

Looking at the statewide map and table of big bucks harvested accompanying this article will show you exactly where the big boys come from in each region.

Just as is the case with the overall deer harvest, the number of big bucks taken drops way off outside of Region II.

In Region I, Fayette led the way in the number of bucks harvested with 11 or more points, followed by Henry and Stewart counties. In Region II, Montgomery was tops in the bucks with 11 or more points, followed by Giles and Lincoln counties.

In Region III, respectable numbers of bucks with 11 or more points harvested are found in the cluster of Cumberland, Fentress and Morgan counties. Cumberland County led the way in the plateau region with 29 big bucks harvested, followed by 27 in Fentress County and 23 in Morgan County.

Totals are lower again in Region IV. Campbell County was best there with eight bucks harvested with 11 or more points, followed Greene County with seven trophies. Johnson, Monroe and Sullivan counties all checked in for the third spot with six bucks each with 11 or more points.

Cumberland County also led the way when it comes to bucks with 7 and 8 points in Region III, with 346 of those quality whitetails harvested. And it's no surprise, Cumberland County was also best in the 9- and 10-point bucks harvested, with 94 of them taken. Hawkins County was far above all of the other Region IV counties with 390 bucks harvested with 7 and 8 points. And yes, Hawkins County also led the way with 42 bucks tagged with 9 and 10 points.

As far as overall number of bucks harvested, Hardeman County, the overall statewide deer harvest leader, had the most number of antlered deer taken in 2007 with 2,804 bucks checked in. Giles County was second best with a total of 2,630 bucks harvested. The top five buck producers statewide was rounded out by Fayette County's 2,475, Henry County's 2,355 and Lincoln County's 2,160 bucks harvested overall. Of the 158,873 deer harvested statewide, Tennessee hunters took 87,596 bucks.

It's also worth mentioning that of our 95 counties statewide, 15 of them posted a buck harvest of over 1,500 antlered deer.

2007'S TOP MANAGEMENT LAND DEER HUNTS
Despite the EHD outbreak, Tennessee hunters did find successes on our public lands. When it comes to numbers, Land Between The Lakes (LBL) retook the top spot among WMAs when last year's public land numbers were tallied. The total harvest in 2007 on WMAs was 5,983 deer, a decent number but well below the 2006 harvest of 7,156 whitetails.