• Whitetail deer harvests in North Carolina are at an all-time high.whitetail buck image by Bruce MacQueen from Fotolia.com
  
  Deer populations in North Carolina are rising rapidly. The 2008-09 hunting season marked the fourth year in a row that the state set a new harvest record, with 176,297 deer being taken. Evin Stanford, wildlife research biologist for the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, said, "There has to be a combination of factors coming into play. Good weather during the deer-hunting season likely plays a big role.” With such impressive numbers, deer hunting in North Carolina is excellent throughout the state, but the counties along the Virginia border typically produce some of the highest harvest figures every year.
  
  

Statewide

• According to Game & Fish magazine, in 2008-09 the top six counties in highest total deer harvest numbers were Halifax with 6,276; Northampton with 6,212; Bertie with 5,777; Pender with 4,152; Wilkes with 4,135 and Anson with 3,339. While most are coastal counties, Wilkes and Anson are inland counties and are generally two of the best places to hunt deer in North Carolina.
  
  

Per Mile

• Because of their smaller size, smaller counties may show a lower overall harvest, but have a higher per-square-mile kill ratio and therefore offer a better chance of killing a deer. The average statewide harvest for 2008-09 was five deer per square mile with the top six counties being, Alleghany with 20.20 deer per square mile; Northampton, with 13.76; Vance, with 13.18; Halifax with 11.01; Alamance with 10.35 and Franklin with 9.94 deer killed per square mile.
  
  

Mountains

• Many of the inland mountain counties that border Virginia have well-balanced habitats of farm and woodlands. The habitat in these counties generates high deer densities and are some of the states top producers, with Ashe and Alleghany being two of the top counties every year.
  
  

Coast

• The northeastern North Carolina-Virginia coastal border along the Roanoke and Chowan river floodplains have rich soil that produces excellent habitat. Some of the better producing counties include Alamance, Granville and Vance. Pender County with vast tracts of undeveloped land is a top producer on the southern coast.
  
  

Access

• With deer population so high, most landowners will welcome you. If you can’t find a place to hunt on private land, you can locate a public hunting area by visiting the Interactive Game Land Map on the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission website.