The units singled out here appear to be the best choices, but others too offer a chance at a trophy. The dynamics behind a given buck's reaching 3 1/2, 4 1/2 or 5 1/2 years of age will vary so much around the state that excluding any unit is a mistake.

SOUTH DAKOTA
When asked whether those searching for mature bucks should keep anything in particular in mind this season, South Dakota's Ted Benzon spoke volumes in a simple request: "Please harvest a doe along with your buck. Generally, we need additional doe harvest statewide."

Like its counterpart to the north, South Dakota doesn't plan any specific management emphasis on trophy whitetails or mule deer. Encouraging doe harvest, however, inherently contributes to the potential for trophies because it helps keep harvest pressure off younger bucks.

And when doe harvest takes place as biologists hope, it also helps keep the overall deer population in check. That leads to a herd with more balanced age and gender ratios, and those are key ingredients to deer populations with higher numbers of mature, trophy-potential bucks.

As evidence, consider that last year's buck-harvest data shows that fully half of all bucks tagged in South Dakota were 2 years old or older. There are plenty of states around the country, especially in the heart of America's whitetail range, where deer managers would be quite happy with numbers like that.

Harding and Perkins counties are again at the top of the list for mule deer, although Benzon also included Pennington, Gregory and Meade counties among the list for hunters after a trophy mulie.

If you're after a mature South Dakota whitetail, the list for 2007 also includes Harding and Perkins counties. It also includes Brown, Spink and Edmund counties in northeastern South Dakota. They're not right on the eastern border, but rather a tier of counties to the west.

From this information, it's tough not to look at Harding and Perkins in the northwest as the overall best bets for a trophy deer of some type. Benzon called overall prospects good for South Dakota trophy deer in 2007. He didn't note any significant change from historical trends because "South Dakota does not manage for trophy deer to a large extent."

As is the case throughout the Great Plains, South Dakota's philosophy appears from here to focus on balance, and on the concept of keeping deer populations at levels that available habitat can support. The goal of such a plan is not the production of mature bucks with trophy potential, but that production will occur when everything comes together.

Hunting pressure in this and most other areas of the Great Plains is not as high as you'll find in other parts of the country. That helps, too, because bucks are having fewer encounters with hunters and, as a result, have a better chance of surviving.

And Benzon noted that another mild winter kept cold-weather stress on South Dakota deer lower than in a "normal" year. Survival undoubtedly was good, then. That's all the more reason to plan on taking a doe with your buck this season because it doesn't take too much for deer densities to get way out of whack without population control.

That being said, South Dakota's herd still appears to be in pretty good shape. If you'll be going out after deer of either species this season, that general health should translate into encounters with trophy bucks for more than a few hunters.

NEBRASKA
The simplest way to look at prospects for trophy deer in the Cornhusker State is as follows: Northwest for mule deer, southeast for whitetails. It's the same as it has been. Nebraska impresses, however, with its percentages.

Biologist Kit Hams reported the following percentages of whitetail bucks harvested that were 2 years old and older: 78 percent in the Sandhills unit, 69 percent in Upper Platte, 68 percent in Pine Ridge, 67 percent in Plains and 65 percent in Platte. The mule deer numbers included 81 percent in the Sandhills, 69 percent in the Upper Platte, and 66 percent in Calamus West, Plains and Pine Ridge. Notably, Hams added, the Frenchman Unit has the highest mulie density, and also contains 58 percent of the bucks at 2 years or older.