Will North Carolina deer hunters experience another record-setting year? The state’s experts give their thoughts.
So what can Tar Heel hunters expect for the 2007 white-tailed deer season — more bucks, more does, better quality deer?
Although nothing can be set in concrete by studying previous years — deer harvests can fluctuate from season to season, depending upon weather and outbreaks of diseases — if conditions remain similar to 2006, hunters can expect another great fall and winter.
The main reason is N.C. deer harvests have been increasing, although logic would seem to dictate if more deer are taken out by hunters during one season, there’d be less animals to hunt the next year. But that ain’t necessarily so in the world of deer (and other wildlife species), and the past two years prove it.
During 2005 Tar Heels put more whitetails on the ground (144,315) than during any previous season, according to N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission records. Then last season (2006) hunters killed even more whitetails (154,273), which means we’ve seen back-to-back record-setting deer harvests.
Does that necessarily mean 2007 will be just as good or better than the previous two seasons? Well, according to the WRC’s white-tail expert, that depends on why hunters have been putting down more does and bucks.
Certainly, the WRC wants to create habitat and management situations wherein deer kills increase yearly.
“We like to keep the harvest high,” said the WRC’s deer project leader, Evin Stanford. “The last two years the harvest has been up.”
What are the reasons?
“Obviously one is probably that we have more deer in the state,” he said. “Another is hunters may be putting forth more efforts to take deer — they’re hunting more.
“Also, in recent years we’ve had good weather; there haven’t been any major late summer or fall hurricanes. The last two years have seen mild weather during hunting seasons, and that’s played a role. In 2002 we had lots of hurricanes that did a lot of damage to the habitat and kept hunters at home. They couldn’t go as much and the woods were so messed up by tangles of downed trees, that hunters — and deer — couldn’t move through them as usual. The result was the lowest harvest in many years.”
Stanford said he discounted more hunters in the woods the last two seasons “because we’ve got about 250,000 deer hunters (out of all hunters in North Carolina) and that number has remained pretty stable. So increased effort and mild weather probably are the main reasons the harvest has jumped the last two years. And we haven’t had any major hemorrhagic (disease) outbreaks”
What’s really interesting is that not only are N.C. white-tail hunters killing more deer, but apparently more quality deer are being stockpiled.
This fall North Carolina celebrates the seventh season of its two-bucks-per-season limit at two-thirds of its 100 counties (instead of the four-bucks-of-a-six-deer seasonal bag limit once used statewide and still prevalent in eastern N.C.).
A quick look at Stanford’s “bucks-per-square-mile” chart indicates the two-bucks-per-hunter-per-season regulation has provided a major boost to trophy hunters.
Each of the top-10 bucks-per-square-mile counties increased their BPSM ratios since 2005.
State-leader Alleghany County increased from 6.97 BPSM to 7.94 (the first county to have seven bucks per square mile) while Vance jumped from sixth place (4.17) in 2006 to second in 2007 at 5.72. Northampton County, at 5.66 in 2007, kept its third-place spot but still increased its BPSM number (4.91 last year). Caswell, second in 2006 at 5.31, fell to fourth but also increased its BPSM ratio to 5.63. Franklin County jumped from ninth (3.79) to fifth (4.75) while Halifax dropped one spot to six at 4.90 but increased its average from 4.52 BPSM in 2005. Granville (4.54 in ‘06) dropped from fourth to seventh but also increased to 4.66. Wake County, which was eighth in ’05 at 3.80, remained at that level but jumped to 4.52 BPSM. Person County fell from seventh in ‘’06 (3.80) to ninth spot but also boosted its BPSM ratio to 4.38. Orange remained 10th (3.68) but increased its bucks per square mile to 4.30,
Creating stock-piled bucks should occur in more counties in the future. The WRC adopted a public-hearings proposal for 2007-08 that expanded two-buck restrictions at seven Central region counties that also have dog hunting (the original four-bucks counties in the Central section included portions of those counties that allowed any dog hunting). Now Caswell, Person, Granville, Moore, Cumberland, Anson and Orange will be totally two-buck counties along with Central counties that don’t permit dog hunting.
“This regulation should improve sex and age structure of the deer herds in those counties,” Stanford said.
The WRC biologist also said he believes more N.C. white-tail hunters apparently are more dedicated to “quality deer management.”
Stanford said the buck and doe harvests last year increased to the point records were set for both sexes. Hunters used their big-game tags to register 85,458 antlered bucks and 60,662 does — 58 percent bucks and 42 percent does. This figure doesn’t include 8,153 button bucks that hunters probably mistook for does.
“We’re seeing a lot of people who have an interest in quality deer management,” Stanford said.
As more indication of this interest, Stanford said the WRC had just completed a hunter survey that showed 76 percent of deer hunters said they practiced some form of quality deer management.
“Their definition may not fit (the WRC) definition of QDM, but it’s something that obviously a lot of hunters think they’re doing,” he said. “For them it might just mean shooting a doe, letting a small buck walk or shooting a skaggly buck.”
Stanford said from what the WRC survey gathered from hunters, most believe QDM is either harvesting more does or just decreasing the pressure on antlered bucks. Those two management tactics are part of QDM but not the whole ball of wax, as far as the WRC is concerned.
“Sometimes people get wrapped up in antler or ‘spread’ restrictions,” he said. “We don’t discourage it, but it’s most effective at small plots of land — 500 to 1,000 acres that are tightly controlled (only a certain number of the largest bucks can be killed).”
Stanford pointed out the “spread-restriction” approach (a buck’s width of antlers has to be so wide or it has to have so many tines on a certain width of antler before it’s eligible to be shot) often can backfire because hunters who exert heavy pressure on a herd may remove most of the healthy, older-age bucks they want to preserve.
“If a club or group of guys with a lease is really interested in QDM, what they need to do is get a local (WRC ) biologist involved. He’ll make an evaluation of the herd and the habitat, then make recommendations about harvesting a certain number of antlerless deer.”
Why is removing does a key component of QDM?
“Habitat,” Stanford said. “The biggest thing is that at many areas of the state, the (deer) density is such that by removing does you’re freeing up resources for the bucks in that herd and other deer on the property, including for does that are raising fawns. You have less mouths on the landscape that are competing (for food) with the fawns.”
Stanford said at some areas of the state that have large hunt clubs the members “have done nothing but shoot bucks for 20 years so you still have high deer densities on their properties.
“You’ve got a lot of deer but they never see any really good bucks. Typically, if a club wants better bucks, the best advice we can give (members) is to just stop shooting bucks and shoot more does.
“It takes a few years, but when the (buck-to-doe) ratio gets more in balance, you’ll see bigger racks and healthier deer.”
If a hunter is interested in going to counties with the most deer, the northeastern quadrant “Peanut Belt” counties remain the places to choose. They’re the counties that basically follow the course of the Roanoke River drainage, areas with huge expanses of flat, fertile agricultural fields and swamps for hiding and bedding areas. Simply put, it has the best deer habitat in the state and also allows dog hunting.
Halifax, as it did in 2005, led the state in 2006. Local hunters tagged 2,753 antlered deer (up from 2005’s 2,544 bucks). Northampton jumped one spot to second with 2,462 bucks (hunters took 2,138 in ’05), while Bertie changed places (to third) with Northampton, as hunters tagged 2,197 bucks last season as opposed to 2,139 in 2005.
But although the “Big Three” held their stranglehold as top deer-harvest counties, the rest of the top-10 counties were spread out. However almost all had some Piedmont connection with one exception.
Eastern Pender County (1,982) was fourth in harvested bucks in 2006, jumping one spot from fifth last year (1,860). However Pender includes huge (64,700 acres) Holly Shelter Game Land, along with large (24,000 acres) Angola Bay and small (5,200 acres) Cape Fear River Wetlands game lands. And it’s near two growing cities (Wilmington and Jacksonville).
Wilkes, coming in at No. 5 with 1,977 bucks (in 2005 hunters took 2,046 bucks), is in the northwestern corner of the piedmont (it might even be considered a Blue Ridge foothills county). At No. 6 in 2006 was Bladen County (1,870 bucks), at the edge of the eastern Piedmont and western edge of the Eastern section. Bladen is a Cape Fear River drainage county (the river splits the county from northwest to southeast) and has a huge game land (Bladen Lakes State Forest that covers almost one-fourth of its land area). Anson County, a true south-central Piedmont region, borders South Carolina and is a Pee Dee River drainage area (the Pee Dee National Wildlife Refuge also is in Anson) where hunters tagged 1.762 bucks last season for seventh place.
Caswell, north-central Piedmont county (1,761 bucks in ’06 vs. 1.663 in ’05), includes a massive game land of the same name that’s a popular deer-hunting venue. It jumped one spot from ninth in buck harvests last year.
Columbus County, another Cape Fear drainage area, dropped one spot to ninth with 1,735 bucks in 2006 vs. 1,673 in ’05. Duplin County, a south-central Eastern region area, was tenth in ‘’06 with 1700 tagged bucks, dropping from sixth in ’05 (1,751 bucks).
For primitive weapons (bow and arrow, muzzleloader) hunters, northwestern Wilkes County once more finished atop those standings with 413 bow kills and 652 smoke-pole victims.
Harnett County made the biggest jump by any county in any category. In the 2005 archery division, Harnett stick-and-stringers only reported 114 bow kills (which didn’t make the top 10), but in 2006 they notched 364, which was second in the state.
Mountainous Alleghany County (northwestern section) jumped from fourth (253 in ’05) to third with 325 bow-killed deer in 2006.
Iredell, a western Piedmont county with Statesville at its center and split by I-40 and I-77, made a leap from eighth in 2005 (218 archery deer) to fifth (283) last season. The county’s whitetail situation is helped by the Yadkin and Catawba river drainages. The Yadkin slices through the northeastern section while the Catawba (Lake Norman) borders Iredell’s southwestern section.
Mountainous Yancey County fell from third in ‘’05 (303 archery kills) to sixth last year (276 deer). Stokes, another northwestern Piedmont county transected by the Dan River drainage, was fifth in 2005 (236 bow-killed deer) but dropped to seventh in ‘’06 (270).
Another northwestern county, Ashe, was eighth with 248 archery kills (it was seventh in 2005 with 221), while Rockingham, in the north-central Piedmont (also part of the Dan River drainage) was ninth in 2006 (236), dropping from sixth in ’05 with 234.
Mountainous Mitchell County, north of Burnsville, bordering Tennessee and part of the Pisgah National Forest, was a newcomer to the top 10 (10th) with 201 registered bow kills.
Muzzle-loader kills in 2006, as already noted, were led by Wilkes with 652, followed by Caswell (572), Montgomery (538), Granville (484), Anson (467), Chatham (458), Ashe (406), Alleghany (380), Iredell (377) and Stokes (376). Note that these 10 counties are spread across the Piedmont and were mostly two-buck areas in 2006 (except Anson, Caswell and Granville still allowed some dog hunting and a four-buck season bag limit last year but have been re-classified this year as two-buck counties).
Game lands harvests last year followed past patterns with Chatham and Wake counties finishing first (384) and second (376), respectively. The Jordan Lake and Butner-Falls of the Neuse GLs are shared by those two, and Wake also has the Shearon Harris GL inside its border.
Montgomery County (with the huge Uwharrie GL inside its periphery) was third with 365 whitetail kills in 2006, followed by Caswell at 271 (the Caswell GL is spread across the north-central portion). Pender with 254 was fifth (Holly Shelter, Angola Bay and Cape Fear Wetlands are inside its border), while Rockingham at 236 was sixth, followed by Durham (193), which also contains portions of Jordan Lake and Butner-Falls GLs. Brunswick and Craven counties tied for eighth at 173 deer. Most of Brunswick’s GL deer were killed at the Green Swamp GL, while Craven has the Neuse River GL.Beaufort County was 10th at 153 game lands kills, mostly around Goose Creek.
The bottom line for deer hunting in North Carolina in 2007 is that it should be good just about anywhere as whitetails have overspread the state from the mountains to sea.
With a herd of 1.1 million animals inhabiting almost every niche and cranny — including farms, suburbs, river drainages and the high mountain counties of the Great Smokies — Tar Heel hunters shouldn’t have to work hard to put venison on the table this year.
Putting a big rack on the wall, however, will depend, as usual, on skill, luck and perhaps some wise herd management.
Be the first to comment