Timing your major hunting effort also appears to be important to taking a trophy buck in South Carolina. If you hunt all the time and whenever you want to, it's no big deal. If you have only limited time to spend in the stand, this should be a strong consideration for your planning.

When looking at bucks harvested during the 2006 hunting season, the above-noted bucks scored in 2007 that were harvested in 2006, of course make the list. In addition, there are two others that make the top 10 2006 list. One is the 142.7-inch buck taken by Gayle Shuler. Shuler's buck was taken in November in Orangeburg County. The final buck in this category is a 142.5-inch buck taken by Bruce A. Mallick Jr. in October of 2006. This buck was also taken in Orangeburg County.

In the non-typical category, there were only four bucks scored in 2007 that scored 145 B&C points, the minimum score required to make the state records list. The No. 1 and No. 2 bucks (Simmons' and Sharpe's) have been discussed earlier.

The third non-typical to make the list was a 159-point buck taken by Randy T. McDaniel II. This buck was taken in October 2006 in York County. The remaining non-typical to make the book was taken by Jay Geddings in September 2006 in Sumter County. The Geddings buck scored 154.6.

To continue the analysis of looking at individual bucks harvested, we'll examine where the top 10 bucks of all time were taken from each of the typical and non-typical categories.

In the typical category, including the bucks taken in the 2007 scoring session, no single county produced more than one top 10 all-time buck. Beginning with the No. 1 buck through No. 10 of all time, the counties producing the monster bucks, in order, are Pickens, Calhoun, Williamsburg, Marion, Hampton, Laurens, Sumter, Saluda, Newberry and Greenwood.

For the non-typical list, we do have repeats. This can be a significant tidbit of information for trophy hunters. The counties that have produced non-typicals that rank in South Carolina's all-time top 10 are Beaufort, Edgefield, McCormick, Lexington, Anderson, Orangeburg, Chesterfield and Marlboro. Both McCormick and Anderson counties account for two each in this list.

Now we'll look at the top counties for score year 2007 in terms of producing the most trophy bucks for the scoring sessions. This data combines both typical and non-typical bucks scored. Ruth has some specific comments about top-producing counties.

"For score year 2007, Greenville County was the year's top producer of state record entries with 13," Ruth said. "Other top counties included Aiken, Anderson and Colleton, each with nine entries. Barnwell and Kershaw counties both had eight entries each. These results come as no surprise, particularly with Aiken and Anderson counties. These counties have historically produced good numbers of record entries."

In addition, the data shows that Richland County had a total of seven entries and Spartanburg, Orangeburg and Lancaster counties all had six entries to round out the top 10 counties.

Another highly useful way of studying the data Ruth has collected is to consider the all-time historical rankings of the counties. For the 2007 information, Ruth has data on the total number of deer harvested in each county.

The No. 1 trophy-producing county in terms of numbers of deer since the data has been compiled is Orangeburg County, with 341 bucks that have made the state record book. There were 330 typical and 11 non-typical included in this listing. In a distant second place is Aiken County with a total of 279 racks, 273 of which were typical and six non-typical. In third was Fairfield County with a total of 229 bucks on the record list. Of these, 223 were typical and six non-typical.