"Real Adirondacks hunters like the last week of the season best of all," Wayne Masters said. He's a DEC Region 7 fish and wildlife technician who has made many hunting pilgrimages to the rugged woods of Essex and Warren counties.

In the latter part of the Northern Zone season, he notes, does begin to work their way toward lowland wintering areas. Bucks are slower to "yard up," but in December they often leave their ridgetop bedding areas to look for unbred does. The Adirondacks hunter who comes across a single, big track headed down from a hillside thicket is probably looking at the tracks of a nice buck, Masters said.

Because deer densities are low throughout the three-million-acre Adirondack Park, it's not easy to recommend a particular spot. Hunters new to the region can get a good taste of it by following any of the hundreds of well-marked hiking trails from the roadside with map and compass in hand, meanwhile looking for fresh tracks, droppings and other deer sign.

Good hunting opportunities are also available in early December in the lowland fringes of the Northern Zone's Lake Champlain and St. Lawrence River valleys. The latter, especially, is worth serious consideration until the curtain falls on the season, for St. Lawrence and Jefferson counties have become amazingly reliable venison producers in recent seasons. In 2003, for example, St. Lawrence County hunters downed 4,516 bucks and 9,070 total deer. Those were the fourth-largest buck-kill and fifth-biggest total-deer numbers in the state.

Likely spots to catch up with a St. Lawrence deer at this time of year include the flat, heavily wooded Clear Pond wild forest, which takes in 9,000 acres in the town of Parishville, and the upland portions of the Upper and Lower Lakes Wildlife Management Area east of Rensselaer Falls.

Deer hunting areas in Jefferson County include the upland fringes of the Ashland Flats, Perch River and French Creek wildlife management areas. The DEC Region 6 office in Watertown, at (315) 785-2261, has free brochures pinpointing all three.

Another dandy was Erieville resident Jim Brady's Madison County 12-pointer, slain with a shotgun on Dec. 4.

Madison County is a great place to fill a deer tag at the last minute because it has ample public land, including the 3,600-acre Tioughnioga WMA off Damon Road in New Woodstock, the 9,400-acre Charles E. Baker State Forest in the town of Brookfield and the 3,090-acre Muller Hill State Forest in the town of DeRuyter. The precise locations of these public-hunting lands can be gleaned from a book of maps, Region 7 State Forests and Wildlife Management Areas, that's available from the DEC's Cortland office by calling (607) 753-3095.

For trophy buck potential, it's hard to top the Tompkins-Cayuga Cooperative Hunting Area located between Auburn and Ithaca overlooking the eastern shore of Cayuga Lake.

The co-op, consisting of about 5,000 acres of private lands in northern Tompkins and southern Cayuga counties, is administered for hunting purposes by the DEC's Region 7 staff. Hunters must sign in at a check station on Route 90 north of King Ferry and are assigned a specific piece of ground for the day.

What makes the co-op particularly intriguing is the fact that parts of it are included in an experimental Quality Deer Management Area, in which hunters are required to pass on bucks with antlers of a specified minimum. As a result of the new rule, the co-op contains more yearling and 2-year-old bucks in late season than it used to.

Some of New York's highest deer densities occur in the Finger Lakes region, specifically in Schuyler, Ontario and Yates counties.

One of the larger public-hunting areas in the region is the 16,000-acre Finger Lakes National Forest. It's spread checkerboard-fashion across southern Seneca and northern Schuyler counties. Because the national forest land is interspersed with private properties, its deer are not unduly pressured and stand a good chance of surviving the early-season fireworks.

The number at the Finger Lakes forest ranger's office, about four miles north of Watkins Glen on Route 414, is (607) 546-4470.

Hi Tor WMA, with 6,100 acres around the south end of Canandaigua Lake, is part of WMU 8N, where hunters killed a state-leading seven bucks per square mile in 2003. Situated off routes 245 and 21 near Naples in Ontario and Yates counties, Hi Tor has a variety of cover, from steep wooded ridges to a cattail-clogged river bottom. The DEC Region 8 office in Avon, (585) 226-2466, has a free map-brochure.

A few miles east of Hi Tor is the 1,900-acre Italy Hill State Forest in the town of Italy in Yates County. The two spots are so close that an organized group of hunters could carry out productive drives at both prime areas in the same day.

The perennial chart-topper, of course, is Steuben County, which led all the rest in 2003 with 6,242 antlered bucks and 17,768 total deer. While a substantial majority of those deer were downed on private land, Steuben does have about 30,000 acres of public-hunting areas that are worth exploring this month, including the 2,500-acre Erwin WMA five miles west of Corning and Cameron State Forest, which comprises 1,900 acres north of the village of Cameron.

A booklet put out by the DEC's Avon office, State Land of Region 8, includes maps of these and other Steuben County spots.

The other three counties in the Southern Tier quartet fall under the purview of the DEC Region 9 office in Allegany at (716) 372-0645.

Cattaraugus County's 100,000 acres of public-hunting areas include the 65,000-acre Allegany State Park off U.S. Route 86 near Salamanca, the 3,110-acre McCarty Hill and 2,905-acre Rock City state forests, both of which are southwest of Ellicottville in the towns of Little Valley, Great Valley and Mansfield. In 2003, Cattaraugus was right behind Steuben County in the statewide standings with a total kill of 15,606 bucks, does and fawns.

Although New York's record typical and non-typical whitetails were taken within its borders, Allegany County these days is better known for deer numbers than trophy-class animals. Both state-record bucks were shot in 1939, when regulated deer hunting was resumed in the county after a long hiatus.

In 2003, Allegany County's harvest of 14,680 deer was the third highest in the state, and there's no reason not to expect similar productivity this season.

Likely locations to hunt in the county this month include the 4,751-acre Hanging Bog WMA north of Cuba in the town of New Hudson, the 4,744-acre Turnpike State Forest in the town of West Almond and the Bully Hill State Forest, which covers 3,500 acres in the town of Almond.

Last but not least in the Southern Tier foursome is Chautauqua County, which ranked fourth in New York with a 2003 kill of 10,628 deer. Its worthwhile hunting grounds include the 2,181-acre Canadaway Creek WMA in the town of Arkwright and more than 17,000 acres of state forests, the biggest of which is the 2,900-acre Boutwell Hill tract in the town of Charlotte.

All of the public-hunting areas in Chautauqua, Allegany and Cattaraugus counties are clearly identified on a folding map available from the DEC Region 9 office, titled State Forests of Southwestern New York.