Interestingly, the biologist said that according to some research that noted biologist John Ozoga conducted, Northern whitetails reduced their food intake by about 30 percent and their metabolic rate by about 50 percent during harsh conditions or periods. Both these reductions were how they coped with the rigors of winter and the scarcity of nourishment. Steffen also suggested that Virginia late-season smokepolers ask themselves a few simple questions: Where would you go on the particular property you are hunting if you wanted to be as warm as possible? Could you find a place on that property where you could warm up?

"The bottom line is that deer often will be moving less in February and early March than they are now," Steffen said.

If a hunter can't answer those questions about a certain parcel, perhaps he does not know it well enough. Or he knows it so well that it is likely not a good place to hunt during late December and early January.

"Whitetails survive so well because they are very adaptable," concluded Steffen. "They will consume a large variety of foods, and obviously here in Virginia, they can live in a wide diversity of places. And in North America, they do well from Canada to the Florida Keys."

SEASON DATES AND STATISTICAL OVERVIEW
This year, the late muzzleloader season will run from Dec. 16 through Jan. 6. In many west of the Blue Ridge counties, the antlerless season will run Jan. 1-6, while many east of the Blue Ridge counties, where the season is open, will have antlerless days throughout. Be sure to check the Web site of the VDGIF for more information at www.dgif.virginia.gov.

Matt Knox, deer program supervisor for the VDGIF, said that the top 10 counties were as follows (with harvest in parentheses): Bedford (699), Shenandoah (391), Franklin (326), Augusta (324), Rockingham (318), Scott (304), Giles (285), Rockbridge (255), Grayson (236), and Wythe (219).

Overall, 7,888 whitetails were taken, with 2,360 of them being bucks, 4,681 does and 847 button bucks. The total antlerless harvest was 5,528, which was 70 percent of the total. Interestingly, the last week of the season during which antlerless deer are legal in many places where the season is open, at least 80 percent of the whitetails checked in every day were antlerless.

"To my knowledge, we have only made two changes to this season in the last decade," Knox said. "First, we made it full season either sex in selected counties (private land in Bedford, Amherst, Franklin, Floyd and Roanoke, for example). It has always been the last six days either sex in most areas, and during the last regulation cycle we made a change that will always make the late muzzleloading season three weeks with an opening Saturday.

"In the past, depending on the calendar and the way the regulation was written, the season used to be two weeks every couple of years instead of the 'normal' three weeks. From now on, it will always be the three weeks prior to the first Saturday in January with a Saturday opening."