For more than 70 years, Virginia’s record-book entries have consisted of black bears and whitetail deer. That’s not uncommon for a mid-Atlantic state with as many as one million deer. Annual deer harvest typically totals around 200,000 deer, with a few bears and bucks entered into the records each year. In 2022, Virginia made history with a new record-breaker. Elk were reintroduced in 2012, and the herds are thriving. The state took just a decade to hold its first regulated elk hunt in modern times, and the results were impressive. A 15-year-old hunter entered his non-typical elk that scored 413-7/8, making it Virginia’s first-ever elk entry. Rest assured that it won’t be the last.