
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, December 27, 1993                   TAG: 9312280244
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BY BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

DEER KILL HAS SOME CATCHING UP TO DO

Even with an excellent final week of the deer season - the hunting ends Saturday - wildlife officials and sportsmen alike anticipate that 1993 will be remembered as a time when bucks and does were tough to locate.

``We won't know until the end of January, but the perception among the game department, hunters, everybody is that the kill is down,'' said Matt Knox, deer research biologist for the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. ``The question is, how much?"

Some game-checking stations have reported tallies that are off one-third from last year. The past deer season set a record when hunters checked 200,446 bucks and does. If the kill is less this time, it will be the first season since 1988 when a record wasn't established.

``It can't go up forever,'' said Knox. For one thing, liberal regulations the past several seasons have stopped the growth of the deer populations in a number of areas, something game officials had hoped to accomplish where deer were soaring to the point of getting out of balance with the habitat.

``The one thing that is intriguing me, the average hunters will tell you pressure is down. They aren't seeing as many deer hunters,'' said Knox.

When large numbers of hunters are in the woods, deer tend to move more and are more likely to become targets.

``I checked license sales, and license sales seem to be about the same as last year, with the exception of muzzleloading, which was way up,'' said Knox.

So the decline in hunting pressure could be the result of lengthy seasons and the fact that hunters no longer have to travel far from home to find deer.

One thing for certain, heavy rains kept many hunters home the last day of the two-week gun season west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which traditionally is a big kill day.

``The final Saturday was a washout,'' said Knox.

During the 1992 season, the last day accounted for more than 8,500 deer. Knox expects that figure to be much lower this time.

Mast also is expected to play a role in the season's outcome. The food crop is much better this season than last, so deer don't have to move as much to satisfy their nutritional needs.

Hunters in West Virginia report that they are seeing fewer deer. Officials there say the population could be down or deer may be staying in the woods using an abundant mast crop rather than grazing in open areas.

by CNB