Top Georgia Counties For Big Bucks 2021

When it comes to a county’s ability to grow a trophy buck, not all counties are created equal. It’s just a fact—some counties have more of the ingredients required for a buck to grow a huge set of antlers—natural food sources, genetics and circumstances that allow a buck to get old and mature.

Having said that, a hunter really never knows what might come out of that thicket. That might be a factor in why we get addicted to sitting in a tree for hours upon hours. And that’s why we included two pictures here of trophy bucks from counties with very low big-buck production scores. There’s always hope!

There’s always hope… you just never know! That’s a take-away with this Richmond County 10-point buck killed Nov. 11, 2018 by Dennis West, of Augusta. Richmond County is in the bottom “Not Likely” category with its big-buck production rating, but it grew this one!

After lots of number-crunching and math, GON has compiled the scores. The Top-3 counties in Georgia for big-buck production remain Worth, Lee and Dougherty, and it’s not even close. These counties continue to produce more high-scoring bucks. The No. 4 and 5 counties swapped spots again, with Macon edging past Fulton County as the No. 4 ranked county in Georgia for big bucks recorded in  the past 10 years. 

There are now 17 counties in the top tier with scores above 100, up from 12 last year. These top-tier counties are shown in red on the statewide map below. New to the red zone this year are Tift, Pulaski, Putnam, Turner and Dooly counties. 

Since GON began this system of rating every Georgia county, Dooly County had always been a top-tier county until just barely dropping out last year with a score of 96.

Here’s another buck from a low-scoring county. This 10-point buck from Liberty County netted 135 even. Josh Guyett, of Hinesville, killed the buck Oct. 23, 2018.

Take a look at the charts below—there are some interesting movers, both up and down, on the lists of the Top-10 counties with scores moving up and scores moving down.

Our system only looks at certified scores by official measures during the past 10 years. A county’s big-buck score will drop from one year to the next if there are more bucks from 11 years ago falling out of the equation than new bucks being added in the past year. 

Our system also factors in the size of a county into the equation. We get the raw score based on officially scored bucks in the past 10 years. Then a county’s score goes up or down based on a county’s size in comparison to the average size of Georgia’s 159 counties.

All of this data and number crunching is possible because GON has long kept and compiled a huge database of Georgia bucks that have been measured by certified scorers. This database is now available online in full at gon.com.

Ever wonder what the No. 500 buck from Worth County scored, or what your grandpa’s buck from decades ago ranks today? 

If you kill a good buck this season, please contact GON. Call 800.438.4663, or email [email protected]. And if you are a GON subscriber, enter it in the Truck-Buck contest.