Deer Season

When Colleen Ballantine, Cheryl Sanders and Bradley Kennedy size up meat for their freezers, they're thinking three things: free-range, low-fat, clean of antibiotics. The three women are deer hunters, and their market of choice is the woods of Maryland. With consumer demand rapidly growing for animals raised humanely and meat free of things not found in nature, supermarkets are stocking bison and pasture-raised beef at premium prices. But hunters -- especially women -- say white-tailed deer are nearby and plentiful, healthful and economical.

Two days after hundreds of thousands of turkeys were consumed at dinner tables across the state, white-tailed and sika deers are now in the crosshairs for hunters looking to feast on venison. The state's two-week deer firearm season is scheduled to begin Saturday and run through Dec. 8. Brian Eyler, deer project leader for the Maryland Department of Natural of Resources, said Friday that an estimated 40,000 to 50,000 of the state's deer population will likely be harvested during the two-week hunt, including up to 15,000 on Saturday.

For the first time in decades there will be regular waterfowl hunting in Maryland during part of the deer season, but the Department of Natural Resources passed on a proposal to liberalize Canada goose shooting.There will be no honker or duck shooting during the deer season, but other than the Saturday opener on Nov. 30, snow geese can be shot through the remainder of the statewide modern firearms deer hunt.On the Canada goose side, DNR stuck with its original proposal -- after the Wildlife Advisory Commission suggested otherwise -- and will open the shoot on Nov. 12, a Tuesday.

When Colleen Ballantine, Cheryl Sanders and Bradley Kennedy size up meat for their freezers, they're thinking three things: free-range, low-fat, clean of antibiotics. The three women are deer hunters, and their market of choice is the woods of Maryland. With consumer demand rapidly growing for animals raised humanely and meat free of things not found in nature, supermarkets are stocking bison and pasture-raised beef at premium prices. But hunters -- especially women -- say white-tailed deer are nearby and plentiful, healthful and economical.

Deer season starts long before opening day, because hunters realize that preseason preparation goes a long way toward making a successful hunt, whether the weapon of choice is bow, muzzleloader or modern firearm.Hoiles will be at the show from noon to 2 p.m. on July 30.Boating dangerWhat's the most dangerous time of day to be boating? BOAT/U.S., a national association of boat owners, says that more persons are killed in boating accidents between 4:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. than at any other time.

The white-tailed deer season opens Wednesday for bow hunters, and officials from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources expect a record deer harvest before the last legal shot is fired Jan. 31.Because the deer population is up, the seasons for bow, firearms and muzzleloaders have been extended in an effort to stabilize the growth of the deer herd, DNR officials said Friday.The deer bow season runs for 17 weeks; the deer firearms season lasts two weeks, opening Nov. 27. The firearms season was extended from one week to two weeks last year.

The modern firearms deer season got under way yesterday and will continue through Dec. 9. You can expect another record-smashing tally.During last year's rifle season, Carroll hunters bagged 1,091 antlered bucks and 412 does. I look for this year's tally to top 1,600. Whitetails are running all over this county. Last year Carroll County had 169 deer killed by autos, and I understand from Department of Natural Resources authorities, that number probably will be exceeded in 1995.This is always one of the top deer counties because so much land is dedicated to agriculture, yet deer kill numbers are held down because of limited land access to hunters.

A drive-by shooting resulted in the demise of one of Bambi's kin during the recent firearm hunting season.Problem was, the deer was already stuffed.In an effort to catch illegal hunters, Department of Natural Resources Police set up the decoy, a full-body mount, along a Carroll County road on Dec. 11. Twenty-one minutes later, barely enough time for officers to return to their observation posts, the animal was shot."

To paraphrase Laurel and Hardy, "Robert, what a fine mess you've gotten us into this time."Robert, in this instance, is Robert Boyer, who runs Harvey's General Store on the outskirts of Taneytown. This popular establishment has, for a number of years, served as an official deer-checking station for Carroll County.The fine mess concerns a Dec. 14 front-page article in The Sun in which Boyer flatly states that the Department of Natural Resources mismanaged a deer season that smashed all previous deer season figures, both in Carroll County and the state.

This year's deer season began yesterday and continues through Dec. 11. No deer hunting is permitted on Sundays in Maryland.Department of Natural Resources officials predict a total harvest in the vicinity of 38,000 whitetails. Last year's two-week firearms hunt resulted in 35,133 deer bagged in the state.Anne Arundel hunters accounted for 556 whitetails during the 1992 shotgun-only hunt. Of that number, 249 were antlered bucks. Look for a similar total figure for this year's season.Last year, local archers bagged 292 deer, of which 175 were antlered.

Austin's Deer Processing is hard by BWI Marshall Airport and a stone's throw from Arundel Mills on a bend in the road that really makes you slow down and pay attention. While folks were winging their way home after a visit with relatives or fighting mall traffic for those must-have holiday gifts, lots of hunters made the turn off Ridge Road and into Austin's the Saturday after Thanksgiving and the first day of Maryland gun season. There was a sense of purpose this year as hunters raced to put deer in the freezer as a way to pinch pennies.

Note: With the exception of the author, this will be a turkey-free column. Tens of thousands of deer hunters took to the field yesterday under the skies we wish for when the Orioles first take the field. The opening day of firearms season started frosty but quickly warmed to shirt-sleeves weather. After years of too hot and too cold (with the occasional snow flurry to give us something to whine about), the weather gods delivered the goods. And hunters delivered, too. At Austin's Deer Processing, a 10-point buck shot in Talbot County was dropped off before the butchers could finish their first cups of coffee.

This deer season is a little different from the past dozen or so. Doug Hotton has left the building. Hotton, the affable, folksy leader of the Department of Natural Resources deer management team, has boxed up his belongings and gone home. "My wife retired two years ago and I want to have some of the fun she's having," said Hotton, 58. "I feel you need to walk away when you can still hit 'em in the gap and get on base." He leaves behind the legacy of having shepherded Maryland's first deer management plan into place 10 years ago and has helped his replacements, biologists Brian Eyler and George Timko, prepare the next edition, which will take effect for the 2008-09 season.

They don't call it wildlife for nothing. Every year, news reports remind us that it's a crazy world out there filled with animals doing weird things. A marlin stabs a fisherman. A coyote takes a ride on a subway car. A squirrel makes a living as a water skier. We don't have to make stuff up here on the outdoors beat; we just have to read the wires and the writings of fellow scribblers. And it's not only the critters that fall into the wildlife category. Two-legged creatures often do the strangest things when fresh air hits them in the kisser.

HAYWARD, WIS. -- They spoke of loneliness, wedding dresses never worn, grandchildren never to be born and family traditions now forever ruined. And they told of watching the life drain slowly from the faces, hands and hearts of those they loved. As he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, Chai Vang, 37, a truck driver and National Guard veteran from St. Paul, Minn., looked straight ahead and showed no emotion as survivors sobbed and spoke of six loved ones gunned down a year ago after a trespassing dispute among deer hunters.

COME NEXT Saturday, there will be more hunters in Maryland's woods than there will be football fans today at M&T Bank Stadium. Count on it. The Department of Natural Resources estimates that close to 75,000 of the state's 123,000 licensed hunters will mark the opening of the two-week deer firearms season with a walk in the woods. And this time next week, a lot of them will be back out there for the second of two Sundays of hunting. Deer skin vs. pigskin? You decide. Stadium capacity: 69,084.

Maryland's deer season started yesterday, and hundreds of Carroll County hunters likely have their whitetails hanging and cooling already. For those who didn't get their venison on the opener, six more hunting days remain.In the modern firearms hunt, chances are good. Statistics indicate that about one in four who participate bag a deer.The Maryland Department of Natural Resources numbers suggest a success rate of about one in three, but some hunters get more than one deer because of different seasons or bonus permits, meaning the totalwho actually bag an animal is somewhat smaller.

like others around Maryland -- will find more and bigger deer with better antler spreads when the modern firearms season opens Saturday.If things were any better, they would be worse.Worse, because in much of Maryland deer populations are nearing or exceeding the saturation point.They feed on the crops of farmers and pose problems for motorists as the highway kill increases. Then, of course, there's the old dilemma of overbrowsing that results when game numbers become too great for available habitat.

Harford County has suspended -- at least for the rest of this season -- a controversial program that allowed hunters to thin the deer herds at county-owned parks near Bel Air and Havre de Grace. "The program was shut down on Oct. 29 because of all the controversy," Joseph E. Pfaff, director of the Department of Parks and Recreation, said Friday. He was referring to a test program that allowed a nonprofit hunting group to take deer at Edgeley Grove Farm and Swan Harbor Farm during the regular hunting season.

We've entered the season when hikers, bikers and birders are sharing the woods with hunters. Now, it's a big world out there, and state statistics show the number of accidents are about as frequent as my Megabucks wins. "We've got plenty of room to spread out," says Mike Slattery, assistant secretary at the Department of Natural Resources. "We've never had a non-hunter injured or killed by a hunter. The vast, vast majority of our hunter-related accidents are self-inflicted and the vast majority of those are related to the misuse of tree stands."