Oklahoma hunters took two truly gigantic typical whitetails last fall. John Ehmer (right) and taxidermist Terry Mayberry pose with the rack from the former's potential state-record buck, shot in Pushmataha County. Photo by Mike Lambeth.

We took 20 percent fewer deer in 2007 than we did in 2006," said Alan Peoples, chief of the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation's Wildlife Division. "Although this statement indicates a decline in the number of deer harvested from 2006 to 2007, and may indicate that the 2008 season expectations also may reflect a decline, remember that often statistics lie -- if you don't know the history of the numbers.

"And in projecting what kind of deer season we can expect in 2008, we have to go all the way back to 2006 and find out why deer hunters in Oklahoma took an all-time high number of deer in the state that year."

Thus began our conversation about the previous year's deer season in Oklahoma. What Peoples had to say about it was enlightening. Part of what I learned from him follows.

WHY THE 2006 GLORY SEASON HAPPENED
Several significant factors contributed to the record deer harvest -- 119,000-plus animals -- reported in the Sooner State in 2006. "We had favorable weather conditions to get the deer up and moving, and our gun season coincided with the rut perfectly," Peoples said.

To understand both Peoples' definition of "favorable weather conditions" and his remark about the coincidence of gun season and rut, we have to dig a bit deeper. "In 2006, Oklahoma had a severe drought pretty much statewide," he explained. "The deer had to travel a lot during daylight hours to find enough food to eat, so they were exposing themselves to hunters more than they would normally."

All the stars lined up, and the weather gods smiled in 2006 to produce optimum conditions for the does to enter estrus exactly during the time of the 16-day gun season. The bucks chased the does in the state heavily during the 2006 gun deer season. That two-week period at the peak of the rut meant that hunters saw bucks traveling for food and searching for sweethearts day and night.

Jerry Shaw, the big-game biologist for Oklahoma, agrees with Peoples. "I believe that the record drought -- where we saw almost all of the state's grass burn up, causing the bucks to really have to search for food -- was the primary reason we had such a phenomenal deer-hunting season in 2006," he said. "But I also believe that what we gained in numbers of deer taken we may have lost in quality. Without much to eat, the body weights couldn't be as high as they should be, and the antler development might not have been what it could have been if the deer had had more food."

The better the weather patterns, the more food the deer will have available, and the less the deer have to travel to eat; they can build up body weight, and are less apt to be taken by hunters. Although Oklahoma hunters had a great year in 2006, the drought created a terrible one for Oklahoma deer. And however much outdoorsmen may have enjoyed the better deer hunting brought about '06's drought, farmers and ranchers certainly wouldn't welcome another dry spell like it. In any case, most biologists and land managers believe that many years will pass before the Sooner State of Oklahoma breaks the deer-harvest number records set in 2006.

WHY 20 PERCENT FEWER DEER LAST YEAR
"We had the opposite weather pattern in 2007 from what we had during the drought of 2006," Peoples noted. "The state had record rainfall, and some 100-year records in the amount of rainfall the state had in a single year were broken."