
Deer season looks good, again, for North Carolina hunters
After last season’s record harvest, hunters might expect to tag fewer North Carolina deer this fall. But the take of 188,130 deer in 2013 isn’t necessarily going to cause a decline this year because of the dynamics of deer reproduction, weather, mast production, Sunday archery hunting and expansive either-sex seasons.
Mature doe deer usually give birth to two fawns each spring, but triplets aren’t unusual. Deer hunters routinely observe does with two to three fawns.
“Most of the time hunters pass up half-grown deer, but in some areas of the state, hunters will shoot at small ones,” said Evin Stanford, the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission’s deer, bear and wild turkey biologist.
By the fall, when mating begins, most female deer — except for the fawns — will be old enough to reproduce. Older bucks will find them during the rut, which begins a startling geometric progression. Two deer become four or five whitetails, then the next year, those yearling does will start to drop fawns. And so, the ball really starts rolling.
For example, if a doe gave birth to male and female fawns in May 2011, by November 2012 her yearling doe offspring was probably ready to mate. Her brother will have the ability to breed, but he probably won’t be strong enough to challenge and defeat a dominant buck. By May 2013, the two original deer could have turned into eight. A year later, that number could climb to 26.
Of course, such perfect scenarios rarely occur. Predation from coyotes, accidents involving vehicles, disease and hunters take an annual toll. So while the offspring of the two original deer never actually complete the full geometric progression, they don’t miss it by much.
While habitat change and loss affects many wildlife species, deer will, in many cases, adapt. They thrive in suburban neighborhoods, so much so that some restricted communities have asked for help to thin the local herd, and many municipalities have signed up for the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission’s archery-only Urban Deer Season. The program began with six towns in 2008 — Elkin in Surry County — in 2013, 46 towns and cities were on the list.
So whitetails have expanded across the entirety of North Carolina, even in the face of growing predator numbers that have been proven to affect deer populations. But overall, North Carolina’s deer season should be as good or better than it was in 2013, and last year was excellent for quality bucks.
In a period of two weeks, Tim Watkins and John Tuttle killed the biggest bucks ever taken by a bowhunter in North Carolina with a pair of Boone and Crockett Club qualifiers from Stokes and Rockingham counties, and several other bucks from around the state threatened to join the B&C ranks.
As for last season’s record deer harvest, Stanford said the big number reflected several factors, some which may or may not occur this fall and winter.
He said last season’s record harvest showed that North Carolina’s deer population, estimated at 1.25 million animals, may still be increasing, and guessed that a cool fall last year might have bumped up the harvest a bit.
“I don’t know if (cool weather) makes deer more susceptible to hunters because it makes them more active so hunters have a better chance of seeing them, but I know some hunters believe it,” he said. “I do know we didn’t have a good mast crop last year in some parts of the state. We doesn’t do mast surveys anymore, but I heard some places had poor acorn drops.
“What happens traditionally is when we’ve had poor acorn numbers, deer come out of the woods to agricultural fields to find something to eat — which makes them more susceptible to hunters.
“During years of good mast crops, deer stay in the woods and eat acorns and don’t come out so much. I know every time we have a good mast crop I get calls from people wanting to know ‘What’s happened to all the deer?’”
So here’s a look at the state’s best deer counties by area and what they might hold for hunters this fall.
The East is a beast
Northeastern North Carolina is really the place to be for deer hunters. It includes the “peanut belt” counties along the fertile Roanoke River drainage, which produce the biggest harvests anywhere.
Overall, counties in the four wildlife districts that make up eastern North Carolina killed 92,790 whitetails last year, the largest harvest in any of the state’s four regions.
Northampton County’s 5,723 reported deer kills led the state last fall, while its neighbor, Halifax County, was second with 5,533. Neighboring Bertie County was third with 4,482. Franklin County, at the upper end of the Tar River drainage, was sixth with 3,554, and Wake County was ninth with 3,279.
Hunters in Northampton, Halifax and Bertie killed more antlered bucks last year than any other counties, and they had the highest ratio of does killed; in all three cases, hunters took more does than bucks.
Vance County along the upper end of the Roanoke River draining area, topped the state in bucks killed per square mile at 5.37.
Eastern North Carolina has a few key game lands that are among the most-popular and most-productive, including Croatan, Butner-Falls of Neuse, Jordan and the Roanoke River Wetlands Game Land and National Wildlife Refuge. Hunting on the latter two game lands is by draw-permit only, and permit hunts are among the best offered across North Carolina.
The Piedmont: less = more
The counties that cover central North Carolina from the Virginia line to the South Carolina line occupy a much smaller area than those in the eastern third of the state, and they don’t have the sprawling agricultural acreage, but that’s no problem, as hunters often concentrate more on quality than quantity. Even so, hunters in the region killed a reported 52,533 deer last season, the second-largest harvest in the four regions.
North Carolina’s “Trophy Belt” extends from west to east across many of the counties that border Virginia. Rockingham had the fourth-largest overall harvest in North Carolina last season with 3,567 deer tagged last year, with almost a 50-50 buck-to-doe ratio in the harvest. Obviously, its hunters realize how to move toward a balanced deer herd.
Many Piedmont counties are among the state leaders in archery and muzzleloader harvests, owing to the fact that gun season opens much later than in eastern North Carolina.
Granville County hunters were among the state’s best in archery and muzzleloader harvest. Chatham County bow hunters took the second-largest number of deer in North Carolina last fall. Hunters in Orange and Alamance counties were also among the state’s leaders in archery and blackpowder harvests.
In the southern Piedmont, Anson and Stanly counties continue to produce good numbers of deer and quality bucks. Hunters took 3,843 deer in Anson a year ago, the fifth-highest total statewide. It doesn’t hurt to have the Pee Dee River draining splitting the two counties.
Game lands opportunities are good in the Piedmont, especially in northern counties, with Granville and Durham boasting parts of the Butner-Falls of Neuse Game Lands, and Chatham containing the Jordan Lake and Shearon Harris game lands. The Uwharrie National Forest is the main public-hunting area for hunters in the southern Piedmont, although the Pee Dee National Wildlife Refuge holds a popular permit-only hunt.
Northwest places
Only one or two of the 11 counties in Northwest North Carolina usually crack the top-10 in total harvest numbers, and 2013-14 was no different as Wilkes rated seventh with 3,512 deer killed and Stokes 10th with 3,188.
For the past dozen or so years, Stokes has produced some of North Carolina’s biggest bucks, with Watkins’ 170-inch buck the second Boone and Crockett entry.
Most of the 23,631 deer taken last season in Northwest North Carolina come from private land, with only a few small game lands in the 11 counties.
Again, archery and muzzleloader season are extremely important in the northwestern corner of the state. Wilkes County hunters in particular take plenty of deer during the primitive-weapons seasons.
No best in the west
The 23 counties in western North Carolina produced just 19,176 deer last season, but the good news is that the harvest is growing annually. Most of the increases, however, have come from the Foothills counties in the eastern part of the region; some counties in extreme western North Carolina just don’t have many resident deer.
The one bragging point is that western North Carolina is home to more than a million acres of public-hunting lands in the Pisgah and Nantahala national forests, which ranked fourth and fifth in terms of game lands harvest last year.
Western North Carolina’s deer habitat is not great, and there aren’t as many hunters in the region. Last season, Graham County hunters took 63 deer, the lowest total of any of North Carolina’s 100 counties. Swain County (140), Haywood (161) and Transylvania (187) were marginally better.
Still, the chance to take a bruiser buck exists. Without pressure, male deer survive and racks get bigger. Mountain hunters just have to work a little harder.
Be the first to comment