Just over 200,000 licenses or permits that allow the purchaser to hunt deer were sold in Kentucky last season. While some of this group, such as seniors or disabled persons, may have not actually hunted deer though their license included that privilege, that's still a good number of people interested in bagging a whitetail. When license-exempt landowners are added in, the number of active hunters easily makes up for those who get a multi-license package but choose not to hunt deer.

Comparing the 120,000-plus animals reported harvested last season with the statewide herd estimate of more than 900,000 deer, there's little doubt that the resource is sufficient to meet the needs of hunters. At the same time, though, Kentucky's white­tail herd is not neatly distributed in equal proportion across its 120 counties. A study of the harvest of recent seasons is an excellent way to predict where the best odds of success lie, and that's what we're going to give you in this review of top harvest counties in the Bluegrass State.

Before we concentrate on how things panned out during the 2008-09 season, let's practice a little biology without a license, and look at a couple of interesting short-term trends over the past three years.

During each of the past three years, more than 40 counties in Kentucky have produced 1,000 harvested deer. There were 47 counties over the 1,000 mark in 2006, 42 in 2007 and 44 last season. Also, during that period, fewer than 10 counties changed to either join the 1,000 harvest club list, or dropped off the list. In other words, most of the leading counties for deer harvest have remained very stable for the past three seasons. We can conclude that will likely be true this year, and into the future, barring any unforeseen catastrophe.

Here are a couple of other interesting facts about the development of Kentucky's deer herd. Ten years ago, the 1998-99 season marked the first time Kentucky hunters reported over 100,000 animals taken -- 103,907 to be exact. It was the first year the tele-check phone-in harvest system became the only way to report a harvested animal, despite a widespread fear that the system wouldn't work. Bowhunters were permitted to buy a bonus deer permit for an extra doe in Zone 1 counties for the first time. Kentucky's statewide herd was estimated at 700,000 to 750,000 white­tails, and the highest deer density county was Owen County with 10.11 deer per square mile of habitat.

Since the 2000 season, Kentucky hunters have remained above the 100,000-harvest mark for eight straight seasons. That speaks well for the consistency of opportunity. The last three seasons have all given up more than 113,000 whitetails, including last season, which surpassed 120,000. There should be equally good results possible this fall.

"We had a good bounce-back season in 2008, after the reduced take in 2007, which was probably somewhat due to the loss of some animals to hemorrhagic disease," said Dr. Tina Brunjes, big-game program coordinator for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources.

According to Brunjes, Kentucky's whitetail harvest jumped up almost 7,200 deer last season. Blackpowder hunters really turned it up a notch or were seeing more deer last season, bagging more than 3,000 more white­tails than the year before. The bulk of the rest of the increase can be attributed to modern gun hunters, who found about 3,800 in their scopes.