Vabowman

Do any of you hunt in these states?? I never really here of monster deer coming from these states, do they live there?? Anyone kill one there, see one???

dmen

I live in Maine, we have plenty of big deer, but we also have huge woods and they are very hard to hunt. Their was a thread a while ago about B&C deer by state and maine had pretty good stats. We have real big bodied deer as well. the deer get to be 4 and 5 year old in the central and northern parts of the state.In thesouthern part of the state where a majority of the people live their are probably moe deer but they don't have a chance to live long enough to develope. Maine is a beautiful state to hunt we just don't have the overall deer population like the midwest. You can go a season with only a few sightings.A yearly harvest of deer is usually between 25000 to 35000.

Vabowman

I heard that about Maine and the B&C thing. Only kill 35,000 deer? I thought there were more deer than that. We kill about 250,000 here in Va a year, we can kill as many does as we want, and we get 3 bucks also, I know the body weight is much different and you guys get a whole lot more meat per deer. Thanks for the info!!

buckmaster

Come on vabowman, dont forget about us little eastians, east of the blue ridge....2 bucks

dmen

I believe are herd is estimated at around 400,000. You have to apply for a doe permit and get drawn in the lottery for rifle,archery you are allowed to shoot a buck or doe but not both, but if you take one then you are done for the season. That means no rifle season.we have some areas that have an expanded archeryseason and you can buy as many doe tags as you want and one buck tag. these zones are near arethe biggest cities and are not very big.

Edcyclopedia

I live in Southeastern N.H., just over the MA border.
Here in NH you can harvest a deer with a rifle/muzzleloader/shotgun (area dependant on gun types allowed, populated = shotgun or muzzleloader) (each wma/zone is different regarding buck and doe days).
Also buck or doe with archery and a special archery permit for buck only (one 3" antler min.). WMA M (my area) also has a special tag for doe only, in whatever method is in season @ the time.
Archery is Sept 15-Dec 15.
Muzzleloader is usaully end of Oct starting on a Sat. for 10-days, then rifle starts on a Wed. 1 1/2 weeks later.
The central & top of the state has bigger deer (some/many well over 200lbs. dressed) in general, but all parts of the state record 200++lbs.

S. NH is more populated (obviously), but the deer pocket into areas around houses, which some deer get to be so nocturnal that they do live to ripe old ages. I have a massive 16 pointer and 10 pointer taped by an aquatence in the offseason but know one has tagged either deer and it's just killing me. Once the season starts they disappear. The 16 pointer mentioned has been filmed over 3 miles apart. Try dodging around peoples back yards looking for the ellusive whitetail buck!

oldvt.bowhunter

Our deer herd in Vt. is around 140,000. From what I remember there might be 1 or 2 entries in B&C, I dont think any P&Y. We can only shoot 2 per year. Started a 2 pt. on one side rule several years ago. I think it is helping some, but we just don"t have large deer around here. A 100" buck is pretty darned good. Our yearly harvest is aroung 10,000/ yr. Hunter success rate aroung 12-13 %. Not what you would call great deer hunting.

Bob H in NH

Our NH herd is around 80-85K deer, we kill around 15K a year.

Here in New England folks don't boast about B&C or P&Y scores because, well in general we don't grow big antlered deer, there are some, but a 140 class deer is HUGE here. However we do have big deer, we mostly go by dessed weight. If you ask a NH person how big his deer was you will get a dressed weight, not an antler score. Every year we shoot a bunch over 200 lbs.

PA Bow/Flinter

I just started hunting in Southern NH this fall when I came up to UNH to attend school. Can't speak much for the population or what kind of deer are out there...but I can say the landscape is breath-taking.

Vabowman

I have to remember how relatively small these states are too.. In Va we have over 1 million deer and it's like that throughout the South, but there is much more agriculture and habitat I assume in our region of the country.