On the other end of the spectrum, Pocahontas County in north-central Iowa has generated only two entries in the 54-year history of the Trophy Deer Registry. In 2006, no trophies were registered from Pocahontas County, nor from Dickinson, Emmet, Franklin, Ida, O'Brien or Worth counties, though all those counties have submitted trophies to the Registry at some time in the past.

Those entries prove there are/were trophy-caliber bucks in those counties. In addition, it should be noted that just because there were no entries in 2006 doesn't mean no trophy racks were taken from those counties during that time. It just means that nobody from those counties registered any trophy bucks with the voluntary Trophy Deer Registry.

"I'm confident there are trophy bucks in every county, every year," Suchy said. "Wherever there is habitat suitable for deer in Iowa, there are deer. And wherever there are deer, there is the potential for a trophy buck. It's just a matter of whether that buck has enough habitat and luck to escape hunting pressure for the three to five years it takes to develop a trophy rack."

A look at the top 25 trophy-producing counties in Iowa quickly identifies the regions with the best deer habitat. Those 25 counties -- out of Iowa's 99 counties -- produced 54 percent of all the trophies entered in the Registry. If you envision a swath two counties wide running along the Mississippi River on our state's eastern border, and another band of counties three rows deep along our southern side, then throw in the deer-friendly habitat of the Loess Hills Region in Monona, Harrison and Woodbury counties in far western Iowa, you've effectively mapped the origins of nearly 80 percent of all the trophies in the Registry.

CHOOSE YOUR WEAPON
A look at the county-by-county breakdown of trophies entered in the Trophy Deer Registry offers suggestions on where to hunt, based on the type of weapon used. Hunters in Allamakee County, the state's all-time leading trophy producer, used shotguns to take nearly 60 percent of its total of 416 trophy racks. Shotguns also significantly out-produced bows in Madison, Monroe, Ringgold, Mills and Adair, generally taking 50 to 60 percent of the total trophies registered in those counties.

Counties where shotgunners outperformed bowhunters tend to be in the southern part of the state. That region's rolling hills and broken timbered areas allow a healthy percentage of bucks to live three to five years, but are "huntable" by shotgunners who use block-and-drive tactics modified to comb the myriad nooks and crannies where those trophy bucks hide.

Suchy noted that Allamakee County's high percentage of shotgunned trophy bucks is related to the sheer number of deer in that far northeastern county, combined with a strong tradition of deer hunting.

"Allamakee County is always one of the top two deer-producing counties in the state in our total deer harvest statistics," he said. "Plus, they have a long tradition of shotgun hunting up there. The guys know the area and know how to hunt it. It's kind of the perfect combination of lots of deer with lots of good hunters, hunting in habitat that lets enough deer escape every year to maintain a very good trophy base."

Bowhunters claimed the highest percentage of trophies registered from a scattering of counties. Archers entered nearly twice as many racks in the Registry as did shotgunners in Benton, Cedar, Cerro Gordo, Iowa, Johnson, Palo Alto, Pottawatomie, Scott, Sioux, Webster, Winnebago and Woodbury counties.

Several of those counties are in the "tough hunting" regions of north-central or northwest Iowa. The success of bowhunters in tagging the proportionally fewer trophies available in those areas emphasizes the skill of those patient hunters, even under challenging conditions.

Wildlife biologists in northern Iowa note that the open terrain of that region allows shotgun hunters to use block-and-drive tactics to sweep through the limited timbers of that region and get a majority of the bucks before they have time to develop trophy racks. The few bucks that live in hard-to-hunt terrain or on land off-limits to hunters are the ones who grow to trophy standards.