Photo by Ralph Hensley.

I have two summertime rituals regarding deer hunting. The first is I begin practicing with my compound the week after Independence Day. The second is I spend a half hour or so studying the West Virginia Hunting and Trapping Regulations summary for the upcoming season.

The reason for accomplishing the latter is so that I can begin contacting hunting buddies and landowners in various counties where I would like to go afield for the coming year. As long-time readers of this magazine know, I am not a trophy hunter. I do, however, avidly want to kill four or five whitetails (hopefully mature does, and with luck, maybe a decent buck) for the freezer.

The past several seasons West Virginia sportsmen have had to linger over the regulations pamphlet, as there have been many changes in the regulations. Some of these changes include a decrease in antlerless days during the various antlerless seasons, the buck-only firearm season, and the muzzleloader season in many counties.

Dick Hall, game management supervisor for the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources (DNR), explains the process.

“The state’s deer management program is guided by a comprehensive planning process, which includes both strategic and operational components,” he said. “The deer management program in West Virginia is generally well received, as it provides tremendous recreational opportunities and economic benefits to the state’s citizens.

“The Division of Natural Resources manages the deer herd in individual counties using the buck kill per square mile as a population index and for setting management objectives. These management objectives are not equivalent to the biological carrying capacity of the land. Rather, these management objectives are a compromise between the number of deer wildlife biologists believe the land can support and other sociological factors (for example, the potential for crop damage and deer/vehicle collisions).

“Each county in the state is treated as a unique deer management unit. Therefore, there are 55 county management units located across the state with separate, but sometimes common, deer management objectives. County deer management objectives, expressed as buck kill per square mile are determined by a variety of parameters, such as the percentage of forest land, percentage of agricultural land, human population density, habitat quality, winter severity, physical condition of the deer, and socioeconomic factors.”

Hall gives the situations in Randolph and Greenbrier counties as examples. The county buck harvest objective in Randolph County in 2005 was 3.5 bucks killed per square mile, and in Greenbrier County, it was four. The 2004 harvest was 1.77 bucks killed per square mile in Randolph County and 1.87 in Greenbrier County.

The DNR addresses the portion of Greenbrier County with a higher deer herd by splitting the county. The deer plan clearly shows, Hall said, that the appropriate management strategy in these counties was to close them to antlerless hunting in 2006. Of course, the DNR is aware that it is possible to increase a deer herd and still allow limited antlerless hunting.

When possible, the DNR uses limited antlerless deer permits to accomplish this. However, in West Virginia, landowners do not need an antlerless license to hunt, and in each of the above counties the projected landowner harvest would far exceed the number of antlerless deer that could be taken and still allow the herd to expand. In essence, the DNR liberalizes the antlerless season length and bag limit in counties exceeding the buck harvest objective. It restricts or eliminates the antlerless season length and bag limit in counties that are well below the buck harvest objective based on the two-week buck kill per square mile number.

“The muzzleloader season is a reflection on the type of antlerless deer season in a county,” Hall continued. “If the county is open to antlerless deer hunting, then the muzzleloader season is either sex. If the county is closed to antlerless deer hunting, then the muzzleloader season is restricted to bucks only.

“Future goals for deer densities in these counties are reviewed at least every five years when the deer management plan is revised.”