South Texas produced one of its best crops of big non-typical bucks in 2004, topped by Mark Sanchez Jr.'s Webb County buck, which nets 211 0/8 B&C.; The Brush Country produced at least 15 more non-typical bucks netting from 180 to 199 B&C.; These are bucks that would be world-shakers in a less productive year.

Bill Glendening's Frio County monster typical buck leads that division in South Texas, with almost unbelievable 189 0/8 net score. But there are many other South Texas typical bucks that score more than the 170 minimum to quality for the Boone and Crockett record book!

HILL COUNTRY
While the Hill Country did not produce as many top-end bucks in 2004, it did produce a huge number of very good deer, which in perspective of the region's norm for small deer, is equally impressive, with dozens of 140 and 150 class bucks entered in the TBGA program.

That said, the western Hill Country did produce some giant bucks, topped by Larry Wright's Kimble County non-typical buck that nets 199 1/8. Alan Rasmussen shot a Menard County monster scoring 195 5/8 B&C.; Kinney and San Saba counties both produced 180-class non-typicals.

Forget the old rule of only small deer coming from the rocky hills of the Edwards Plateau. Today there are whopper bucks coming from every corner of the Hill Country. The real key is finding a ranch with a landowner who is committed to deer management. The good news is that there are more and more of them willing to invest in good habitat and smart management to reap the rewards of bigger bucks.

The most impressive buck of 2004 from the Hill Country, and Texas' third-largest ever, was killed not by a hunter but by a retired U.S. Army NCO who, finding the deer near death on the 28,000-acre Camp Bullis Army Base just northwest of San Antonio, finished it off with a pocketknife. With 36 scorable points, double drop tines and an outside spread of almost 28 inches, it grossed 271 3/8 B&C; and netted 265 1/8!

ROLLING PLAINS/PANHANDLE
Texas' largest-bodied bucks roam the deep canyons, rolling grasslands and wheat fields of the eastern Panhandle from the Red River to the Canadian.

For a second year, the region produced a monster non-typical. Hunt Allred shot a huge buck scoring 235 B&C; on the Mill Iron Ranch in the eastern Panhandle. During at least half of the seasons in the past decade, the biggest buck each season has come from the eastern Panhandle. Cottle and Wheeler counties in that region also produced 190-class non-typical bucks this past season.

A lot of hunters and outfitters come to the Panhandle expecting to see big bucks standing around on the open plains, begging to be shot. For the most part they've left disappointed.

Within this huge landscape are pockets of white-tailed deer, mostly concentrated in creek bottoms and brush adjacent to agriculture. But there are just not that many deer.

In 2004, hunters harvested an estimated 9,466 whitetails in the entire Panhandle, about two-thirds of them bucks. Hunter success was about 54 percent, and it took an average of 13 days to harvest a deer, double that of South Texas and the Hill Country.