Nearly 20 counties in the Green River Region could near or eclipse the 1,000 benchmark for deer harvested. All but four are already above 800, which with another increase like was experienced last season would knock hard on the door to hit "elite" status.

PURCHASE REGION
If you are near the far western end of Kentucky, you do not have to make a long trip to the interior of the state to find quality whitetail hunting. Several counties in the Purchase Region, or the area west of the line of Crittenden, Caldwell and Christian counties, have blossomed into excellent deer harvest counties in recent years.

Top honors in the Purchase Region for last year and a good bet for this season again is Crittenden County, and next-door neighbor Livingston County will not be far behind. Crittenden was at the top of the statewide harvest, only the second county in Kentucky to surpass 3,000 animals last season, and ranks second in density in the Commonwealth with 12.63 deer per square mile.

Christian County cracked the list of top five harvest counties in Kentucky last season with 2,600 animals taken. The four other counties that topped the 1,000 benchmark in the Purchase Region were Graves at 2091, Calloway with 1,255, Trigg claiming 1,315 and Caldwell at 1,237. These seven counties make up half of the Purchase and are primarily located to the eastern side of the region, where row cropping occurs and a good deal of woodlands is also found.

Counties in the Purchase Region enjoyed a 2,000 animal harvest increase this season over the last, which equates to about 9 percent more deer. All 14 counties except Fulton County, which reported only four deer less this season than last, increased in harvest over last year. The Purchase has slowly caught up with the Northeast and Southeast regions, both of which have more counties, and last season produced 17,784 deer. This compares to 17,416 in the Northeast Region and 17,660 in the Southeast Region.

KENTUCKY'S TOP 20 HARVEST COUNTIES/SQUARE MILE*
Rank	County	2004 Harvest Total	Deer/ Sq. Mi.
1	Owen	3,997	14.36
2	Crittenden	3,032	12.63
3	Shelby	2,476	12.50
4	Anderson	2,078	12.04
5	Boone	1,672	11.80
6	Henry	2,331	11.68
7	Gallatin	899	11.61
8	Spencer	1,737	11.24
9	Grant	2,121	10.56
10	Franklin	1,708	10.52
11	Kenton	722	10.17
12	Pendleton	2,275	9.62
13	Oldham	1,268	9.31
14	Campbell	834	8.92
15	Livingston	1,840	8.66
16	Trimble	1,111	8.42
17	Jefferson	917	8.17
18	Bracken	1,544	8.16
19	Carroll	905	8.05
20	Washington	1,321	7.65
The most recent data available from the KDFWR

Many of the counties in the Purchase Region are large in terms of available habitat, so they do not score high on the deer per square mile list. Yet, the Purchase is really coming on as a deer-producing region, and no doubt will continue the upward trend into the foreseeable future. The top three counties have all increased in harvest by an average of 480 deer in the last five seasons -- nearly 100 per year!

NORTHEAST REGION
The Bracken County deer herd continues to grow and now shows a little over eight deer per square mile in this smallest county in Kentucky. It was no small feat, though, to yield 1,544 deer last season, and see a 183-deer jump in harvest over 2003 numbers.

Other hotspots in the Northeast Region posting very good harvest numbers are Lawrence, Carter, Greenup, Boyd and Morgan counties. All five topped the 1,000 mark in 2004-05. Robertson and Boyd counties fell just short of the top 20 list for deer density, both counties registering more than seven deer per square mile. That is good for the type habitat found in the Northeast Region.

The Northeast Region as a whole saw a slight decline in harvest in 2004 of about 500 whitetails. Five of the seven counties with harvests over 1,000 last year had a lower kill than during the 2003 season. Using one year of information alone does not usually give a solid picture of why numbers are up or down, but it is possible that the season structure in these counties did what it was designed to do and slowed herd growth last year.