Photo by Ralph Hensley.

Georgia produces a lot of big bucks each year. Your chance of killing a trophy is better in Georgia than in any surrounding state. But not all areas of the state are equal. Pick the right place to hunt, and you'll improve your odds of taking a buck to put on the wall.

The idea of a trophy buck may differ from person to person. When I shot a small-basket 8-point buck with a 12-inch spread in 1968, I thought it was a great trophy and had it mounted. It was the biggest deer I had ever seen, and none of my teenage friends had ever killed one nearly that big. I was very proud of it.

Nowadays, that buck would not even be legal in two Georgia counties. But for an 18-year-old back then, it was a bragging-size buck -- and still might be a nice first deer for a kid. But few would consider that whitetail a trophy deer now.

Two organizations keep track of true record deer. Each list records bucks with antlers measuring over a set minimum size. The Boone and Crockett Club lists deer killed with guns, while the Pope and Young Club lists ones killed with a bow. Each organization keeps records for both typical and non-typical racks.

A score of 170 points is required to make the B&C typical all-time record list, and 195 points to make the non- typical list. For P&Y, it takes 125 points on the typical list and 155 for non-typicals.

Georgia hunters have some of the best trophy-deer hunting in the Southeast based on those records. The Peach State has more B&C deer on the all-time record list than the five adjoining states combined. On the P&Y all-time record list, Georgia has almost twice as many bucks recorded than any of its neighbor states.

Each year, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Georgia Sportsman and Georgia Outdoor Writers Association sponsor a Big Deer Contest. There are four categories just like in the record books, for bow-killed typical and non-typical and gun-killed typical and non-typical racks. Bucks killed with a crossbow go into the same category as those killed with a gun.

Deer entered into this contest -- as well as those in the record books of the B&C and P&Y the clubs -- can help you determine where to hunt.

Many factors impact our ability to grow trophy deer, and so some parts of the state grow bigger deer than others. Georgia is a big, diverse state, and some areas have types of soil and terrain that help grow big deer.

The Georgia DNR, Wildlife Resources Division, has practices and procedures that impact the ability to grow big deer. And Georgia hunters are adopting those attitudes to help produce bigger bucks.

It may seem strange, but urban areas also tend to produce trophy deer. Those deer are not hunted as much, since there are some areas where hunting is not allowed. Some counties allow archery hunting only, which also restricts hunting pressure. And, since deer love to eat the plants that homeowners use for landscaping, there's plenty of forage available for the animals in those areas.

Regarding Georgia's deer herd, John Bowers, Assistant Chief of the WRD's Game Management Section, summed it up:

"Counties in the southwestern and upper coastal plain areas of the state, where traditional agriculture is generally the dominant land use, are historically known for quality deer," he said. "However, voluntary adoption and practice of the quality deer-management philosophy by many hunters and hunting clubs is expanding the opportunity for harvesting quality deer across much of the Piedmont.

"With statewide deer estimates centered around 1 million, 97 percent of the forestland base in private ownership and a wide-range of deer harvest philosophies being used, deer densities can be quite dynamic within a single county. However, traditionally, the Piedmont region of the state is considered the deer-production engine and regarded as the area with the highest deer densities."

So the best areas of the state for trophy deer run across the middle of Georgia, from just north of Atlanta to Dublin and somewhat southwest of that area. That section of the state has rich soil, producing quality food for deer, and the region's farmland also offers them a lot of good food for growing antlers.