Looking at the numbers

So the snow never really came, dangit (say it like Hank Hill). Oh well, lots of winter still to come. I didnt get to go hunting at all this week. Between Christmas shopping and coming down with this horrible cold, it just didnt happen. I decided last night that if I was smart, I would have finished all of my shopping a long time ago.I mean, it is the responsible thing to do right, get it all done early so it doesnt interfere with my hunting. That might eliminate the grouch in me. Sometimes Steffi calls me Oscar, as in Oscar the grouch, when I dont get to go hunting. Any ways, on to what I want to talk about.
According to the North Carolina Wildlife Resource Commission, North Carolina has a White tail deer population of about 1.1 million. I have read some reports that put the number closer to 1.3 million. Either way, that is a lot of deer. Also the NCWRC reports that there are around 250,000 deer hunters in North Carolina. While this number seems small to me, I can't find any other data to dispute it. In 2008 the NCWRC says that 176,297 deer were taken by hunters. According to the 2008 Deer hunters Almanac, North Carolina averaged an annual harvest of just under 140,000 deer between 2000 and 2004. From 2005 through the present the state has seen a steady incline in the harvest numbers. According to both the NCWRC and D&D Hunting, the vast majority of these deer are consistently taken during gun season. This number does not account for deer killed by poachers,vehicles, disease or anything else but hunters. When these other factors are considered, the NCWRC estimates that around 250,000 deer are killed each year in NC. Breaking down the numbers a little further we see that NC hunters are beginning to adopt stricter deer management tactics in an effort to increase the quality of antlered deer taken in our state. In the past, the majority of bucks taken in our state have generally been yearlings.In many cases yearling bucks accounted for as much as 80% of the total annual buck harvest. This article from North Carolina Game and Fish magazine goes into detail about this. http://www.ncgameandfish.com/hunting/whitetail-deer-hunting/NC_1109_01/index3.html
(Once again I cannot get this link to work, so you will have to copy and paste it) It encourages me to know that other NC hunters are beginning to pass up smaller bucks and take more does. As the article above mentions, bucks and does are recruited equally into the herd, so they must also be taken equally to produce a well balanced herd. That is deer management 101, but we will save that discussion for another day. My original thought, when I came across these numbers of hunters and deer was that with such a large herd in North Carolina, it seems there would have to be a very large number of mature bucks that reside in our state. If approximately 250,000 deer are killed annually, and our estimated deer population is around 1.2 million, you do the math. That leaves a heck of a lot of deer to grow one year bigger and wiser. Things that influence antler growth are nutrients, age , and genetics, in that order.I do not believe genetics play nearly as big a role in antler size as most hunters think. According to NC wildlife biologists, the states deer herd is stabalizing, meaning it is healthy. In other words there are enough nutrients and habitat to support the deer.I personally believe we could probably increase our annual harvest by 25% with no harm done. I know that each year many trophy class bucks are taken, but these numbers tell us there are probably many more to be found. I am not saying that 500,000 of the remaining deer each year are trophy bucks, not even 100,000 for that matter. Lets say that in 2009 180,000 deer will be taken by hunters,85,000 bucks, 95,000 does.Of those 85,000 bucks, lets say 1%(850) are trophy class. Another 70,000 deer will die from car accidents, poachers, disease etc... Of the remaining popuation, 1 million. Conservatively, lets say that 1% of these deer are trophy bucks. That means that roughly 10,000 trophy bucks are still around. I am no wildlife biologist, I have no data to back up this theory. I just believe that we may have more great bucks here then people realize. Where are they hiding?