Photo by Billkenney.com

When all was said and done but the taxidermy work after last year's deer season, 37 bucks taken in the Bluegrass and reported to the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources (KDFWR) qualified as Boone and Crockett Club (B&C) record-book whitetails.

Given the fact that some bucks haven't been reported or officially scored as this went to press, Kentucky hunters had another tremendous trophy harvest season in 2004-05. The previous season stands as the best ever for trophy bucks in the Commonwealth, with a single season take of nearly 60 B&C qualifiers. No matter how you look at last season, it is impressive.

Why is it that Kentucky has continued to produce so many high-quality bucks in recent years? These are often bucks that have taken over top slots on the state's all-time record lists. Is it management? Or is it good doe-to- buck ratios? Or maybe it's the improved skill levels of hunters?

KDFWR deer biologist David Yancy said all these factors play a part.

"In a roundabout way, the Kentucky buck limit of one antlered deer per hunter, per season has served a lot like a quality deer management approach for Kentucky," Yancy said.

"We have special antler size (width) restrictions in place on some of our public hunting areas, specifically aimed at growing higher quality bucks, and we label those WMAs as Quality Deer Management (QDM) areas.

"Although there's no statewide antler spread limit, the limit on the number of bucks being harvested, and the definition of what is considered a legally antlered buck for check-in purposes, has certainly affected the general, open-county production of big whitetails in Kentucky.

"We have a whole lot of record-book deer as evidence," the biologist said. Lots of record-book bucks, indeed. Right at 100 the past two seasons alone.

"We thought maybe our trophy production or the number of B&C-class bucks we'd see this past season would be abnormally low after such an incredible season in 2003," Yancy said.

"That wasn't the case, though, as we received reports of 35 qualifying bucks from 2004 at the time we compiled our official list from the previous season," Yancy said.

"We've averaged 25 or more (qualifying bucks) for several seasons in a row, and came in well above that last year again; so we were surprisingly pleased with those results.

"I really don't see any reason why the potential for this season would be any different," Yancy said.

Although we'll take an in-depth look at where trophies came from last season by region, one thing immediately jumps out from the 2004 season list. A significant majority of the trophy bucks killed last year came from counties in the heart of Kentucky's traditionally, most consistent, big- deer producing region. Many of these counties are also high-harvest counties with higher deer densities per square mile.

This suggests two things. One, hunters are knocking down lots of deer in the mid-Kentucky region, which is helping to keep the herd in balance and reduce overall habitat competition. That helps trophy production. Two, perhaps counties with big deer populations are the ones most likely benefiting from the one-buck management approach, in that the number of bucks left over from one season to the next is higher than in counties with fewer deer. That increases the probability that a hunter will come across a larger number of older bucks in subsequent seasons, just because there were more deer available in the first place.