"It's too early to tell for certain whether the bonus antlerless harvest report cards had an effect on the numbers of button bucks and does harvested during the 2007-08 hunting season," Stanford said. "We will able to get a better handle on that once the results of our next hunter survey is completed and analyzed next year. We do the surveys every three years, and they give us a better picture about what the game animals are our hunters prefer to harvest, as well as other attitudes."

With more than half of the total harvest consisting of does and button bucks for the first time since the deer restoration began decades ago, it's hard to argue against the fact that something has changed. While there has been an increase in the numbers of hunters who attempt to manage their deer-hunting territories' trophy buck potential, commonly referred to as "quality deer management," this attitude has been going on for quite some time.

Therefore, QDM does not explain the predisposition for so many individual hunters to harvest does in favor of bucks. But it is a main ingredient of the trophy management formula, which requires allowing younger bucks to grow and harvesting a liberal number of does.

Other reasons for the higher doe-to-buck harvest ratio could be economic. By last hunting season, hunters, like all other citizens, were paying higher prices for everything, including corn or sweet potatoes used as deer bait, fertilizer and seed for food plots, and fuel for planting food plots, as well as getting to and from their hunting destinations. Meat prices in the supermarkets were also escalating rapidly.

Most hunters who enjoy eating venison favor eating young deer and adult does to eating adult bucks, especially when the bucks are taken during the rut. The chance to fill the freezer with extra venison may have tempted many hunters into taking the opportunity to harvest more antlerless deer than in the past because antlerless deer are also more readily available than antlered bucks.

Another reason for the higher doe harvest could be simply that with the bonus harvest report cards, hunters may be reporting antlerless deer harvests they were not reporting before. But whatever the reason for the increased either-sex harvest, only time will tell if it is actually a trend, or just a blip on Stanford's deer radar.

"In many areas of the state we would like to see a greater percentage of does in the harvest," Stanford said. "The two ways to accomplish this are shooting a higher number of does and shooting a lower number of bucks. We're glad to see the antlered buck harvest stabilizing because it had really been increasing over the last few years.

Hunters have expressed a lot of interest in quality deer management. But there are still a lot of yearling bucks in the harvest, which is counterproductive to trophy management. Typically, one-third of does harvested are yearlings. But yearling antlered bucks account for 60 to 80 percent of the antlered buck harvest."

A high yearling buck harvest means a lower rate of recruitment of older aged bucks. If the statistics for the 2007-08 harvest hold true for the future seasons, hunters may actually have begun to put their previous propensity for shooting young bucks on the back burner in favor of harvesting does, which is exactly what many individual hunters have expressed an interest in doing but hunters collectively have not accomplished.