Photo by Kenny Bahr.

During the 2005-2006 season, Virginia hunters tagged 215,082 whitetail deer. Last season, the harvest jumped to 223,198, an increase of almost 4 percent.

While gradually rising harvests tend to be good news for hunters, 2006's increase is essentially within the normal variability of harvests from one season to the next. Harvest levels can change based on a number of factors besides the number of deer. For example, good weather on three Saturdays during the rut will cause a spike in harvest rates -- because hunters are hunting longer, more comfortably, and more efficiently, but not because there are more deer.

Thus, a jump of even 10 percent would not raise the eyebrows of deer program managers Matt Knox or Nelson Lafon at the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (VDGIF).

Antlered bucks accounted for 106,595 of the whitetails bagged. There were 19,652 button bucks harvested for a total of 126,24 bucks taken home. The doe harvest tallied 96,951 or 43.4 percent of the total -- a percentage quite close to the previous season. The total deer harvest was 7 percent above the 10-year average of 208,300 animals tagged. These figures do not include the late special archery season numbers and late firearms season totals.

Preliminary figures do show that crossbow hunters last season took 7,051 deer (nearly 1,600 more than the season before). Though it's up 28 percent, the crossbow harvest is still only 3 percent of the total harvest. Archers harvested 17,100 deer and took 8 percent of the total harvest. Muzzleloader hunters bagged 52,216 whitetail deer -- up 6 percent -- to a total of 23 percent of the harvest.

As we look at the data compiled by VDGIF biologists, it is important that hunters look hard at the density data versus the total harvest data. Biologists use this data to determine the density of the deer herd and, as you may surmise, counties with high deer densities are the better places to bag a deer.

For the 2006 hunting season, out of the top 20 counties by deer harvest per square mile of habitat, 17 had made the top 20 list the year before. The three new counties were Amelia (9.07), York (8.71) and Cumberland (8.10). Dropped from the list were Goochland, Grayson and Culpeper. The rest of the counties shuffled up and down the list.

Last year, Virginia instituted a late special firearms season in several counties, including Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William. This special late season was held from Jan. 8 to Feb. 3. According to assistant Deer Project manager Nelson Lafon, the season was a success and biologists hope that it will continue to be popular and effective in harvesting more does to bring the herd numbers down a little.

This season is in addition to the special urban archery season held from Sept. 16 to Oct. 6 and Jan. 8 to March 31 last year. The VDGIF Hunting and Trapping Regulations and Web site list the participating urban areas. These special seasons are open for antlerless deer only.

Now that we have presented the statewide harvest from last year, let's take a close look at last year's results by region and see what biologists say about the upcoming season.

TIDEWATER
The Tidewater Region saw a 6 percent increase in the harvest, from 51,657 in 2005 to 54,571 whitetails last season. There were 22,607 antlered bucks tagged, 6,151 button bucks and 25,813 does taken. This figure equates to 47.3 percent of the harvest being does.

Half of the top 20 counties in the state came from this region. With a variety of food sources, great cover ranging from swamp bottoms to hardwood thickets, and a healthy population of deer, it's no wonder hunters do so well here. Charles City was the county with the densest deer harvest per square mile at 11.96.

Galon Hall, VDGIF wildlife biologist who works in the region, spoke with us about the deer herd and prospects for this season. Hall noted that the deer population and the harvest are very stable in this region. As the accompanying graphic shows, the top 10 counties in the region are not clumped together at all.

Over the years, the trend has been that the harvest is slowly rising, particularly the doe harvest.

"Hunters are finding that the DMAP program is effective and it is becoming more popular with landowners, hunters and clubs," Hall said.

There is not a large amount of public land for hunters in the Tidewater, but that, too, has been slowly changing over the last 10 years.