Photo by Tim Black.

The last day of West Virginia's muzzleloader season had quickly arrived, but I had my agenda already planned. I would meet my contacts at a Monroe County farmhouse, where we would divvy up the property for a morning hunt. By midmorning, if no deer had been taken, I would head for my Monroe County property that borders the Jefferson National Forest.

Nearly right away, the plan unraveled. I couldn't find the correct meeting spot until just before sunrise, thus causing the four other hunters who had been waiting for me to be late arriving at their respective stands. Then when I trekked to my stand location, it was totally devoid of fresh tracks and droppings. There weren't any acorns remaining on the ground, either.

After shivering against the base of a chestnut oak for what seemed like hours (and without glimpsing any whitetails or hearing any shots from my compatriots), I abandoned the lowland farm and headed to my mountain wood lot. The wind was howling there, making the 20-degree temperature in the vale seem balmy. Just when I was about to give up for the morning, I saw a doe making her way across the frozen mountainside of my land along the national forest border. I mounted my in-line, found the doe in the scope and trained it on her, and then noted that she had crossed over onto public land. Last year during the muzzleloader season, antlerless deer were not legal game on national forest land in Monroe, so I had to let the doe slink away into a mountain laurel thicket.

Several more hours elapsed before the cold, as it had done earlier in the lowlands, drove me away from the highlands. Once again, the daunting challenges of West Virginia's December muzzleloader season had defeated me. Moreover, my tardiness had hurt the chances of four West Virginia hunters -- not exactly a memorable performance on the part of this writer.

My ineptitude aside, last year was not a good one for Mountain State smokepolers as a whole. Sportsmen checked in 6,890 whitetails, a decline of 24 percent from the 2005 season and a steep drop of 52 percent below the five-year average harvest of 14,417. Indeed, the harvest has been in freefall the past five years, as the tally from 2002 through 2006 has been 17,458, 16,272, 15,104, 9,064 and 6,890, respectively.

West Virginia Division of Natural Resources (DNR) biologist Jim Crumb reports that part of the reason for the decline was new licensing requirements in order for hunters to tote a smokepole afield. Other factors were three counties no longer allowing antlerless-only hunting, and four other counties allowing only one antlerless deer during the season. Usually, antlerless deer contribute to about 80 percent of the overall muzzleloader harvest.

Because of the more conservative regulations among other factors, the DNR anticipated the harvest decline, as the past few years the state has been trying to increase the antlerless population after a period when the DNR was trying to reduce the herd. The periods of decreasing and increasing the herd are all part of a sound strategy by the DNR to help local deer numbers to be in better harmony with their environment.

A primary way to accomplish this objective is through the harvest of antlerless deer. Eventually, the deer and their habitat will reap the benefits, and hunters will ideally have healthier animals to pursue. Dick Hall, game management supervisor out of the Elkins DNR office, comments further.

"The 2006 muzzleloader season harvest was reflected in the number of counties which had an either-sex muzzleloader season," he explained. "In 2005, 41 counties were open as compared with 29 in 2006. Furthermore, in 2006, we changed the license structure whereby the RG/RRG license could no longer be rolled over and used in the muzzleloader season. In order to take a second deer in 2006, a hunter had to buy the RM/RRM license. A reduction in the deer population in many counties also contributed to a lower muzzleloader kill."

For enthusiasts like myself, the next question that comes to mind is: Will there be more counties open to antlerless hunting this coming season? In southern West Virginia where I do most of my hunting, I had to read the regulations carefully in order to find a county where antlerless hunting was permitted. Fortunately, the answer is "yes" regarding whether or not more counties will be open.