Bill Cochran

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If you are the kind of deer hunter interested only in killing bucks, better make room in your freezer for some does.

This week the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries passed a significant new regulation designed to force hunters to kill more female deer for herd management purposes.

The concept is called “earn a buck,” which means next year in some counties hunters will be forced to earn the right to kill a second or third buck by killing a doe.

It was part of a package of regulations designed to rein in the deer herd and provide more hunter recreation while doing it. Others included:

>An extra week on the beginning of the muzzleloading season west of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

>More antlerless deer hunting days in 16 counties, but there is a reverse of that on private land in several western counties.

>An earlier and longer urban archery season, one that begins the first Saturday of September rather than the third.

>A late antlerless deer season that extends all the way to the last Saturday in March for Fairfax, Fauquier, Loudoun and Prince Williams counties.

These regulations will be phased in for the 2008-09 season, not the current season. Details will be available shortly on the DGIF Web site and I will be posting information in columns and field reports over the next several weeks.

Beginning next season, the earn a buck concept will be applied to private property in Bedford, Fairfax, Fauquier, Franklin, Loudoun, Patrick, Prince William and Roanoke counties. These are counties where increasingly liberal deer hunting regulations, including the opportunity to kill a doe every day of every season, have not succeeded in keeping the herd in check.

You may say, “No sweat, I don’t hunt those counties.” Well, hang onto your Mossy Oak cap. Matt Knox, the DGIF deer program leader, told me to expect more counties to be added to the earn a buck concept in the future.

Right now, it is viewed as experimental and educational. Two years ago, officials discussed it, then backed away from it.

“I don’t know if it works or not,” said Knox. “Time will tell. But it sends a message. We have got to start killing some of these does.”

This week, a friend of mine told me about his success killing a nice, mature doe with his bow. He skillfully set his treestand in an ideal spot, patiently waited, got a good shot and was rightfully proud of his success of putting meat on the table. But when he told a hunting friend he had killed a doe, the friend belittled him for not holding out for a buck. That kind of fuzzy thinking is slow to die, and it is harming deer hunting.

“There is nothing to be gained by shooting a poor, little four-point buck,” said Knox. “But there is something to be gained if you shoot a big doe. It is good for the deer hunter, the habitat, the landowner, the deer herd -- everybody.”

Knox said earn a buck is aimed directly at the kind of hunter who chastised my friend over killing a doe. “That mentality just puts us behind the eight ball,” he said.

The earn a buck concept is a bit like a chess game where the player must be careful to think through the moves that will benefit him.

The first deer is hunter’s choice; it can be a buck or doe. But if you tag a buck first your second must be a doe. Here’s where hunters can botch their chances by making the mistake of killing a small buck as their first deer, which forces them to kill an anterless deer for their second deer. What if during the process of looking for a doe they come across a trophy buck?

“You have painted yourself into Purgatory,” Knox said.

In other words, it will be prudent to get the doe killing done first, and lay off the small bucks.

The earn a buck program has worked well to help meet deer management objectives in some states that have tried it, but it is not without its critics who consider it a burden.

The mandate would not be necessary if hunters simply would increase the doe kill.