Photo by Mark Werner

While the 2004-05 deer season will not go down in the record books as a banner year for either the total number of deer or the number of trophy deer harvested, it was not a complete washout either. Talk with any of the winners of the Department of Natural Resources/Georgia Sportsman Big Deer Contest. Take a look at the racks of their deer they proudly displayed at the awards presentation, and you will see there were some really big deer in the woods during last season. When the dust finally settled, there were several more entries to the Boone and Crocket Club All Time Records list from the Peach State. But, overall, the 2004-05 season was not an exceptional year for big bucks.

All things being equal, the past season was pretty tough for hunters all over the state. A huge acorn crop coupled with lots of warm weather and rain depressed deer movement around the state and made it difficult for hunters to locate any deer, let alone big ones, according to Kent Kammermeyer, senior wildlife biologist with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Wildlife Resources Division and a member of Georgia's White-Tailed Deer Management Committee.

Nonetheless, there was good antler development, Kammermeyer said, and some good bucks were harvested last year, but not in the record-setting quantities of the 2003-04 season.

A tremendous mast crop was one of the factors that aided antler development last season.

"It was a banner year for mast," Kammermeyer agreed. "We get a bumper year about one out of every five or six years and this was the one."

The annual mast survey conducted by WRD measures the number of acorns and other mast that are available to deer throughout the state. Good mast years generally translate into good deer hunting the following year because of the high-quality food available. Last year's mast crop bodes well for the prospects of the 2005-06 season. The deer came through the winter in good condition and will be in better shape coming into this year's hunting season.

When the season ended, there were 46 names added to the Georgia White-Tailed Deer Registry. While this does not come close to the 72 entries from the record-setting 2003-04 season, it is certainly a respectable number. For example, the 2002-03 season added 47 names to the list, though this was down from the previous season's 76 record bucks.

Georgia's White-Tailed Deer Registry includes all of the people who entered the Big Deer Contest, which is sponsored annually by Georgia Sportsman, the Georgia DNR, and the Georgia Outdoor Writers Association. The statewide-competition recognizes the top gun- and bow-killed bucks taken during the previous season. In order to qualify for the contest, entrants must have their deer measured by an official WRD scorer, using Pope and Young Club standards for archery kills and Boone and Crockett Club rules for deer harvested with a firearm. The minimums are 120 P&Y for typical archery and 145 P&Y for non-typicals. The firearms standards are 145 B&C for typical bucks and 170 B&C points for non-typicals. Any deer harvested with a crossbow must meet firearms standards in order to be eligible.