What exactly is a trophy deer?

To the youngster, it may be a basket-racked 6-point. To the meat hunter, it could be a freezer full of venison. To the bowhunter, it should be any deer, but especially a buck that scores high enough to make the Pope and Young record book. For the gun hunter, maybe it's a buck large enough to go into the Boone and Crockett Club's all-time record book.

The point is the term trophy means different things to different people. One of the best definitions may have been made by well-known big-buck aficionado David Morris. According to him, a trophy whitetail is "A mature buck, at least 3 1/2 years old, with antlers large enough to rank him among the best bucks harvested in any given area."

That definition holds water here in the Natural State. In the high-deer-density flatlands of southern Arkansas, the average buck probably scores around 110 points. It may be slightly higher in the Ouachitas, and slightly higher still in the Ozarks, but substantially higher in the protein-rich farmlands of the Delta.

But I think most hunters would agree that the bucks listed with the Arkansas Trophy Club are true trophies. This list requires a minimum of 150 B&C points for a typical buck, 175 for a non-typical.

There are 781 deer -- 638 typicals and 143 non-typicals -- listed in the ATC today. Those have been taken during the last 80 years, all the way back to the one killed by George Matthews in Chicot County in 1923.

Of that number, 131 are large enough for inclusion in the all-time B&C record book, which requires a minimum of 170 for typicals, 195 for non-typicals. Of that number, 70 are typicals and 51 non-typicals. For a variety of reasons, not all of them have been entered into the record book, but all have been scored by official B&C scorers.

Arkansas ranks 18th nationwide for B&C book deer production. But among Southern states, Arkansas ranks No. 2; Kentucky is No. 1.

THE ARKANSAS TROPHY TRIANGLE
Draw a lopsided triangle starting at Little Rock, and extend one arm northeast through Jonesboro, the other southeast through Pine Bluff. Within those boundaries have come more than 70 percent of the state's B&C record bucks!

Big bucks have been here for decades; they are here now and they will be here in the future. The reason? Food. Look at the national records and you'll find that a majority of bucks entered now come from agricultural regions, such as Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska and Illinois. Deer are what they eat.

What about the deer outside that triangle? Well, the good news is that trophy deer are showing up in places they never have before. As an example, before 2004, Washington County had never reported a B&C buck. With the area pretty much mountain terrain and relatively poor soil, many thought it unlikely a book buck would be killed there. We know that isn't true. Richard Little took the so-called Barbwire Buck there in 2004; it scored 221 1/8. And then Mike Franks took his 170 0/8 bow buck in 2007.