Photo by Ralph Hensley.

While the demographics of deer hunting have been shifting over the seasons, North Carolina hunters continue to show a preference for harvesting antlered bucks over harvesting antlerless deer. In fact, for the last seven years, the buck harvest preference to the doe harvest ratio has remained constant at around 60 to 62 percent.

Many things have happened over the past three decades to make taking antlerless deer more convenient, including a trend toward higher deer populations and herd densities in most parts of the state, liberalized either-sex harvest regulations and seasons that have grown steadily in length. Yet, hunters continue to vote their preference with their modern rifles and shotguns, bows and arrows and muzzleloading firearms.

As we noted in the October issue of North Carolina Game & Fish, the year 2006 set a record season for overall deer harvest in the state. That record total deer harvest also was accompanied by another milestone: a record antlered buck harvest, with a total of 85,458 antlered bucks taken by Tar Heel State hunters.

The previous record was set in 2001, with an antlered buck harvest of 78,805. In 2005, the antlered buck harvest was 78,096; in 2004, it was 76,840; and in 2003, it was 76,459. These were the top five all-time high seasonal antlered buck harvests, with a whopping 11.5 percent difference between the top year and the fifth-place year of 2003 and a 7.8 percent difference between 2006 and the second-place year of 2001.

Antlered bucks comprised 55.4 percent of the total 2006 harvest of 154,273 whitetails, with the remaining harvest consisting of does and button bucks, which are bucks too young at less than one year of age to have grown their first set of visible antlers.

Evin Stanford, the North Carolina Wildlife Commission's deer biologist, weighed in with his opinions and a detailed analysis of what the harvest statistics mean for the majority of the state's hunters, who obviously are more concerned about harvesting an antlered buck than a doe.

'In many areas we would like to see a greater percentage of does in the harvest,' Stanford said. 'One way to do it is to shoot a higher number of does; the other is to shoot fewer antlered bucks. We'd like to see antlered buck harvest stabilize because it's really jumped up over the last two or three years. There's a lot of interest in quality deer management, but we realize there's a high percentage of the bucks still being harvested that are only yearling bucks. Typically, a third of does in the harvest are yearlings, yet the yearling antlered bucks we are seeing in the harvest comprise 60 to 80 percent of the bucks harvested, meaning there's a high turnover rate in the antlered buck segment of the herd. If hunters want to shoot trophy deer, they are going to have to let those younger bucks mature.'

In North Carolina, there are two factors that overwhelmingly control buck harvests. The first is the total number of deer and second is the amount of hunter effort. The ratio of the number of bucks to the number of does is relatively similar across the state, so it is not really a factor in the total number of bucks harvested.

The state's deer herd is stabilizing in many places but is stabilizing at very high densities. In some areas, it continues to increase, especially in parts of the western and northwestern mountain regions. An expanding deer herd translates into an overall higher harvest and therefore a corresponding increase in the antlered buck harvest.

Put simply, the more deer there are, the more antlered bucks there are and that's half the equation leading to the 2006 antlered buck harvest record, with the other half being hunter effort.

To show the effects of hunter effort, let's take a look at the two-buck rule. Stanford said that is tricky because of other trends that have occurred concurrently with the rule.

'A lot of places like the northwestern and western two-buck rule areas have also had increasing season lengths, so that makes analyzing the effect of the two-buck rule difficult,' he said. 'My preliminary evaluation of the harvest trends shows hunters in those areas may have lost any benefit of the two-buck rule by asking for extended hunting seasons. However, my preliminary statewide evaluation of the two-buck area indicated that it had reduced overall antlered buck harvest approximately 10 percent over the entire two-buck area and doe harvest had increased approximately 17 percent in the two-buck area. In four-buck areas, the antlered buck and doe harvests have increased 4 percent and 5 percent, respectively, which keeps the ratio essentially the same. Still, it's difficult to make the comparison because there are other variables like changes in season lengths, so I will have to study the rule in more detail over time.'