TOP COUNTIES
Further breaking down the above data, the early muzzleloading season accounted for 55,689 whitetails checked in (81 percent of the smokepole harvest). The late season accounted for 9,818 (19 percent). So, basically, hunters took more deer during the early season by approximately a rate of 5 to 1.

The top counties (with the late harvest and the percentage of harvest in parentheses) were Bedford (833, 10 percent), Scott (469, 13 percent), Augusta (438, 10 percent), Giles (413, 12 percent), Shenandoah (353, 8 percent), Rockingham (347, 9 percent), Franklin (342, 6 percent), Wythe (304, 11 percent), Bath (304, 10 percent) and Botetourt (281, 7 percent).

Several of these tallies and percentages are noteworthy. It is not surprising that Bedford was the top county, as this Piedmont domain often leads or is at the top in various harvest charts for deer and turkeys. Indeed, Bedford would be a prime destination for this coming season. The county does contain some George Washington and Jefferson National Forest land, but I must emphasize that this public land is not a good place to go for sportsmen looking to punch an antlerless tag now.

The primary deer-hunting virtue of the national forest is that it offers the hinterlands' sanctuaries where bucks can live to older ages and thus produce broad racks. Finding bucks like that during the late season, when food is scarce and when deer are often gathered in small areas (and absent from large swaths) because of that shortage, is a daunting task.

For the late season, the best national forest option is to gain permission to a farm or rural property that borders this public land. Then set up so as to intercept deer leaving the public land to feed on the private land. If you can't gain permission to such a farm, then learn where deer are leaving the national forest to access the agricultural area. Position a stand, say, 50 yards within the public land. I hunt in or near the national forest during the late muzzleloader season but only where it borders private land. And I only target does during the antlerless season.

Other statistics that beg amplification involve Scott and Wythe counties, which finished second and eighth, respectively, in the harvest parade. The positioning was, of course, impressive but what really caught my attention was the fact that the late season accounted for 13 percent of Scott's harvest and 11 percent of Wythe's.

This would seem to indicate that not only are good numbers of deer present in those counties, but also that a dedicated corps of late-season hunters ply the woods. To contrast, Botetourt is my home county, and I do the vast majority of my deer hunting there. I rarely encounter other individuals at this time of year, and among my hunting companions, only one of them goes afield now. Some years, in fact, I never see any other hunters. Therefore, it is not surprising that the late muzzleloader season accounted for only 7 percent of the smokepole harvest in Botetourt.