I used to do the math every year to figure out how many deer were killed per square mile in most counties. For example, the most recent harvest figures available, those from 2005, show 4,600 deer checked in from Osage County. The state’s largest harvest, that includes archery, muzzleloader and blackpowder bucks and does. It works out to one deer killed for each 320 acres of land, or two deer per square mile. Cherokee County, by contrast, had a harvest of 3,108 deer, which works out to a deer for each 156 acres, or 4.1 deer per square mile.

LOOK AT THE HABITAT
Deer harvest figures can give you valuable data, but they can’t tell you everything you need to know. For example, if you’re a bowhunter you may need a different kind of place than if you hunt with a scoped 7mm Magnum. With the rifle you might easily kill a deer at 300 yards over open prairie, while with the bow you need a spot where the deer are going to come within spitting distance. (Well, maybe you can’t actually spit 25 yards -- but you get the picture.)

If you hunt in Western Oklahoma, you might have access to a ranch with 3,000 acres, but it’s all shortgrass prairie and a couple of wheat fields and has virtually no trees and only one small creek along the border. It may sound impressive to say you’ve got a 3,000-acre lease, but your good bowhunting area may only be the five acres or so of “timber” strung along the creek with its sheltering band of cottonwoods and small trees.

On the other side of the creek is a property that contains only 10 acres, but it has just as many good bowhunting spots as its giant neighbor. Now, in late November or early December, during gun season, those open-land wheat fields on the big property might be a good choice for a rifleman. But when archery season opens in October, a bowhunter might have just as good, maybe better, prospects hunting the little 10-acre tract.

If you know what to look for, you also can evaluate food sources and range quality, but many hunters have no pasture and range judging skills or have limited knowledge of range quality indicators. Plus there is the question of interpreting the data.

I’ll use the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant as an example here. “The McAAP,” as it’s referred to in the controlled hunt applications each year, is a highly sought-after deer hunting spot in our state. Patrolled by guards day and night throughout the year, it has a few thousand acres within a high fence -- security that not only protects the plant from vandals and terrorists but shields the resident deer as well.

The deer herd there is dense. Hordes of deer come out of the woods in the evenings to graze on lawns in the developed areas. There are many places in the woods where, even early in the season, distinct browse lines can be seen on the trees -- an indication that the herds are crowding the capacity of the habitat.

Someone might look at those browse lines and think: I don’t want to hunt here -- too many deer and an unsatisfactory food supply. But lots of big-antlered bucks have been taken from McAAP lands during controlled hunts over the past several decades. Even though bowhunters are restricted to using only longbows or recurve bows, they still manage to kill several darned good bucks there every fall. The last time I drew in for a bowhunt at the McAAP I saw a small-bodied buck carrying a rack that looked like it belonged on an elk. It was so massive on the deer’s head that I wondered if the animal didn’t get weary just carrying it!

Unfortunately that buck never came close enough for me to take a shot at him. But I watched him eagerly through my binoculars as he browsed in a firebreak.