"As a rule, probably the farther east you go in the national forest, the higher the deer numbers should be," Hayes said, pointing out that some of the forest service land is actually close to the western edge of North Carolina's Piedmont, where habitat for deer is generally excellent -- better than in the mountains proper.

"I'd look at the Burke and McDowell (counties) side of the forest, the eastern edge, because the farther east you move, the better the numbers should be."

Potts said that he breaks down prospective areas by finding big blocks of land that appear to have the kind of habitat deer prefer, then really concentrating on specific areas.

"What I do is take a topographic map and find saddles in between higher ridges or flats in lower elevations because those are good places to find deer," he said. "I'll take on any chunk of 4,000 or 5,000 acres that has good habitat, then I'll go out in the woods and really study it. I try to go after a rain and walk old logging roads looking for tracks and trails.

"If you find a cutover, you can sit on it for a week, and you'd probably get a look at a buck that will score pretty good."

Joe Scarborough of Clyde is a former state wildlife enforcement officer who has hunted from one end of the Pisgah to the other. He agrees with both Potts and Hayes, first, that there's some awfully fine hunting to be had if a person puts in his time and effort, both before and during the season, and second, that declining timber cutting has hurt deer populations in the national forest.

"There are thousands and thousands and thousands of acres -- some of them hunted hard, some not at all," Scarborough said. "There are hotspots and cold spots -- it's big country. There are places where, when I leave at the end of the season, nobody goes there until I come back the next year. My favorite place is 1 1/2 hours from where I leave my vehicle.

"But if you do your homework with a topo map and aerial photo, you can find areas that are hard to reach, or places that are close to a road that for some reason, people won't hunt there -- either a rock cliff or a huge laurel thicket or a creek that's a little too wide to cross.

"It takes dedication, perseverance and desire. Without any one of those things, you might as well go somewhere else."

Scarborough has a handful of factors he keys on. First, it's food.

"Up here, mast is primary; you've got to go by it. It's the only way you can concentrate them. If there aren't any acorns, they'll be scattered here and yon. I can talk with people and know when the red oaks are in and the white oaks are hot, and I know where to go. The same thing with grapes," he said. "

"If you can find an eight- to 10-year-old clearcut, that's big-buck country. And the best places are tremendous rhododendron thickets because somewhere in the middle there will be some open little oak ridges. Those are like slaughter pens for deer -- and you can find them by looking at aerial photos.