Photo by Mark Werner.

If you are reading this article, you love to hunt deer.

Sure, you enjoy the cool, crisp Wisconsin woods and fields on a fall morning, and you enjoy seeing a passing doe or fawn. But while that can be fun and rewarding in its own right, some deer hunts are better than others, just like some whitetails are bigger than others. While most of us will say we like ice cream, there is something special about a double scoop of vanilla topped with hot fudge, whipped cream and a cherry. Now that's ice cream!

The same is true of trophy bucks. Sure, most deer hunting experiences are satisfying, but nothing compares with seeing the buck of a lifetime nose his way cautiously toward you while your heart pounds like it's going to jump out of your chest until he finally steps into your shooting lane for a clear shot. Now that's trophy-buck hunting!

Last year was a good one for Wisconsin's deer hunters. The total harvest for the 2006 season was 506,947 whitetails. That's a great number of deer, but some were bigger than others.

The Wisconsin Buck & Bear Club (WBBC) spent many months after the hunting season measuring and cataloging the trophy antlers submitted by hunters. The WBBC can only record those deer that they know about, so the list is not absolute. Some hunters don't care that they may have killed a record-book buck, so they don't enter the deer with WBBC. Some folks don't want to reveal their prime hunting spot or be profiled in the press, and others don't want the hassle. However, for the rest of us who have taken trophy bucks, the WBBC can tell us where the rack ranks in the record book.

As of this writing, the WBBC had recorded 485 trophy bucks for the 2006 gun and bowhunting seasons. That figure is up from the number of 2005 entries, but less than the 2003 tally of 500 wallhanger whitetails. Nearly 75 percent of the WBBC-qualifying racks were taken by bowhunters, while most of the rest were taken with a firearm, but a few were road kills, and a few died of old age.

When analyzing the following 2006 data, keep in mind that this is Wisconsin, and a trophy buck can show up anywhere and anytime. But generally, our top-producing counties tend to be good year after year, so it is very likely that where there were trophy bucks killed last year, there will be trophy bucks taken there again this season.

WEST-CENTRAL REGION
This region consists of 18 counties in the west-central part of Wisconsin. Some of these counties are by far our best places to kill a trophy buck, but especially so those along the Mississippi River. In 2006, West-Central Region hunters registered a whopping 174 trophy bucks with the WBBC.

Once again, Buffalo County was No. 1 in both the region and the state with 48 trophy bucks registered with the WBBC. Forty of them were taken by bow, and eight by gun. This county also continued to produce deer in good numbers. In 2006, 3,320 whitetails were taken by bow, and 9,072 by gun. Of those totals, 3,350 were antlered deer.

Waukesha County hunters tallied 17 trophy bucks to make it the No. 1 county in the region and the No. 4 county statewide. All but one of these trophy deer were taken with a bow.

The neighboring county of Trempealeau came in second in the region and the state with 24 trophies in 2006. Archers arrowed 19 wallhangers, while gun hunters shot four, and one was "purchased or found." In total, bowhunters took 611 antlered deer last year, while gun hunters dropped 2,582 bucks. This represents a little less than one-fourth of the total harvest of 12,146 for the county.

Dunn and Vernon counties came in third and fourth, respectively. Dunn County had 15 registered trophies, and 14 of them were taken by bow, leaving only one taken by gun. Dunn County saw a total of 1,840 deer taken by archers and 7,505 shot by gun. Of these totals, 2,688 deer had horns. Vernon County had 12 trophies registered with WBBC in 2006, seven by bow and five by gun. Some 2,989 antlered deer were harvested out of the countywide kill of 8,551.

NORTHERN REGION
Hunters in the Northern Region, which consists of 18 counties, saw a slight decrease in the number of trophy bucks registered with the WBBC last year. In 2005, 77 trophies were recorded, but last year, there were only 71. The top three counties were Polk, Barron and Douglas. Polk has been the top county for the last three years in the Northern Region.

Last year, 13 trophy racks were recorded from Polk, an increase of two from the year before. Eleven of them were taken by bow, and two by gun. Archers killed 1,107 antlered deer in 2006 out of a total bow kill of 2,675 animals. Gun hunters were successful on antlered deer as well. Of the 11,052 deer registered during the firearms season, 3,660 were bucks.