The top county in Maryland for the past few years has been Baltimore County, which currently is undergoing dramatic changes because of urban sprawl. Huge housing developments have replaced most of the county's small to midsized agricultural operations, and fields that once grew corn are now sprouting huge homes.

The woodlands that remain are overrun with massive herds of white-tailed deer, animals that take refuge in 5 to 15 acres of dense woods during the day and prowl residential neighborhoods for food at night. Bowhunters bagged 2,057 whitetails in Baltimore County during all of the last seasons. The majority of these deer were antlerless. Of the total, 782 were bucks, which represents a 13 percent decrease in the number of bucks taken when compared to the previous season.

Washington County, which experienced a 13.4 percent increase in overall harvest, had a total of 1,482 deer taken by bowhunters. Ironically, there were 23.1 percent fewer bucks harvested, which translates to an 82 percent increase in antlerless deer harvest.

Maryland DNR Director Mike Slattery said, "We're to the point now where we've achieved a good, overall whitetail herd balance in the state's western zone, and the harvest ratio seems to be right about where we had hoped. We still have many problem areas in the eastern zone, but we're doing our best to address those by adjusting bag limits and season lengths."

The number of hunters in most western Maryland counties is considerably higher than the number of hunters found in the state's eastern zone. Much of this can be readily attributed to the amount of public lands open to hunting, particularly in many of the mountainous regions where some state parks and WMAs cover thousands of acres.

Frederick County, which is just over an hour's drive from metropolitan Baltimore, provides hunters with vast tracts of hardwood-covered mountains, all of which hold good to excellent populations of deer. Last season, bowhunters bagged 1,301 deer from both private and public lands, which translates into a decrease of 12.6 percent in the overall bow harvest for that county. However, there was a 13.9 percent increase in antlerless harvest to help offset the 30.8 percent decrease in the number of bucks taken. In both Washington and Frederick counties, hunter success ratios during bow season were estimated at 60 to 75 percent on average, and higher in some isolated locations.

NEW JERSEY DEER
New Jersey's overall whitetail harvest fell by more than 10,000 deer during the 2004-05 combined seasons; however, this does reflect a change in the state's deer population. Deer hunters and wildlife biologists alike are confident that the state's deer herds are stable in the western zones, while in central and eastern zones their population continues to rise.

Last year's weather significantly impacted the overall deer harvest, particularly during the permit and winter bow seasons. When it wasn't pouring, temperatures quickly dropped and the passage of cold fronts produced high winds, snow squalls and freezing rain conditions, which are unsuitable for even the most ardent hunter.

Similar to Maryland, the largest number of whitetails was bagged in the state's northwest sector, which is also where the largest tracts of public lands are open to hunters. Zone 8, located partly in Hunterdon, Morris and Warren counties, traditionally provides the high number of deer for bowhunters during the permit bow season. This was again the case last year when nearly 900 whitetails were bagged during the permit season. Yet, when the weather turned nasty later in the year, only 60 deer were taken during the winter bow season.