Here I am with a buck I took in my own backyard.

I grew up with relatives who didn't trust anything the state wildlife department said. My relatives truly believed the wildlife agency was the enemy of all hunters. Although this feeling remains prevalent in some states, the friction between biologists and hunters generally can be boiled down to this: biologists want hunters to harvest more deer, and hunters complain about the lack of deer. This paradox arises in many states because of a common scenario: even on private lands overpopulated with deer, landowners won't give hunters permission to hunt.

In some cases, landowners may simply not like hunters, and in others, they might be saving the hunting for themselves and relatives. More and more commonly these days, landowners lease the hunting rights, which severely restricts hunter numbers. On top of all that, the many frivolous lawsuits filed these days have to scare many landowners. It's easier to say "No hunting," than to face possible liability issues.

Although the sole mission of state wildlife agencies is not to help hunters find hunting property, many states offer public hunting lands where anyone is welcome. Granted, even though hunters' dollars buy and maintain most public hunting areas, many hunters shy away from these lands because the competition is too heavy, the deer too few.

So, to enjoy better hunting, hunters want to gain access to prime private lands, and state game departments want them there to eliminate excess deer. But many properties are no longer open to hunting. What is a hunter to do?

To answer that question, you must understand that every state wildlife agency develops an approved deer management plan. The problem is that very few states meet their deer management goals. Data indicate burgeoning deer populations throughout the country are literally costing billions of dollars to the U.S. economy through crop depredation, damage to ornamental shrubs, collisions with vehicles and aircraft, disease outbreaks, and other problems (see sidebar).

The bottom line is that deer cause billions of dollars of damage annually. In an effort to rectify this, state biologists have commonly: (1) increased bag limits, and (2) increased season lengths. Still, deer populations remain at all-time highs. Why?

Although this is not universally true, in most cases, the best tools for controlling burgeoning deer populations are firearms hunters. Unfortunately, nationwide, most hunters take only one deer and then stop hunting. Why? Maybe they are not skillful enough to take more. Maybe they get tired of hunting. Maybe they don't want to pay butchering costs for additional deer. Or maybe they quit hunting because their families can eat only one deer per year.

To encourage hunters to shoot more deer, states must eliminate these excuses, particularly the last two, and Maryland is one state that has done very well in that regard, by getting hunters to harvest two or more deer each year. In fact, 53 percent of all successful hunters in Maryland take two or more deer.

Continued -- click on page link below.