‘It may take a few years’: Officials await results of changes to deer hunting rules

The second season of the tagging program and state-wide limits on bucks for whitetail deer is in the books in South Carolina, as the 2018 hunting season wrapped up on New Year’s Day.

The changes, the first of their kind in the Palmetto State, were instituted beginning with the 2017 season, and one primary purpose was for hunters to see an increase in the number of quality bucks available.

The S.C. Department of Natural Resources’ annual series of antler measuring sessions gets rolling in the month of March, and the question is, when will the new laws begin showing in the quality of racks brought in by hunters across the state?

“I think it’s too early to say,” said Charles Ruth, Big Game Program Coordinator for S.C. DNR. “One of the main intents of the tagging program and statewide limit on bucks was to improve age structure in bucks by taking some of the harvest pressure off young bucks. Hunters are having to be more selective and are not able to shoot every buck they see, where previously there was no regulations on bucks daily or seasonal. Now there is.

“It may take a few years for some of these bucks that aren’t harvested under the new system to get a couple years older. It’s pretty common sense a deer increases in antler size and body size as they get older.”

The sessions offer hunters the opportunity to have their prize buck entered into the state records list if they measure up. However, the number of new entries into the list from the measuring sessions was already high a year ago, following the first season of the new regulations.

“We had 230 new entries last year with most of those deer taken in 2017,” said Ruth. “That’s about as many as we’ve had entered in our records program in one cycle. The last three to five years have been really good in our antler program.”

Minimum scores for state record listing are 125 points for typical antlers and 145 points for non-typical antlers. Measurements are based on the Boone and Crockett system.

The state records program has been in effect since 1974, and the numbers are piling up.

“We went over 7,000 records last year, which is kind of a milestone,” said Ruth.

A total of 7,229 sets of white-tailed deer antlers, including 6,936 typical racks and 293 non-typical, are currently ranked on South Carolina’s all-time antler records list.

While Ruth is on record stating the 2018 deer-hunting season overall in the state was a good one, it was marred by epic flooding in much of the Pee Dee region, including Horry, Georgetown, Marion, Florence and Chesterfield counties, thanks to the deluge of rain dumped by Hurricane Florence in September.

“The harvest has fluctuated a good bit in some of those counties,” said Ruth. “When you’ve got flooding for months, it hurts hunter access. At one point we had virtually all of Marion (County) closed. It was about as extensive a closure as we’ve ever seen. The Great Pee Dee is still flooded.”

Each year, a major antler measuring effort takes place at the Palmetto Sportsmen’s Classic, which will be held March 22-24 at the State Fairgrounds in Columbia. The event offers hunters an opportunity to not only get their potential record racks measured, but see others.

“We measure well over 200 (sets of antlers) normally that weekend,” said Ruth. “A lot of times we’ll have 40 or 50 (hunters with antlers) waiting to be measured. They’ll check them in, check out the classic for a while and come back. Annually, our staff will measure 500 sets, plus or minus, during the whole cycle.”

Following are some of the antler measuring options available to South Carolina hunters:

• Wednesday, March 13, 9:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m., Bonneau, Dennis Wildlife Center, 305 Black Oak Road. Please call ahead (843) 825-3387.
  
  
• Friday, March 22, noon to 8:00 p.m., Columbia, Palmetto Sportsmen’s Classic, State Fairgrounds, (803) 734-3886.
  
  
• Saturday, March 23, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Columbia, Palmetto Sportsmen’s Classic, State Fairgrounds, (803) 734-3886.
  
  
• Sunday, March 24, 1:30-6 p.m., Columbia, Palmetto Sportsmen’s Classic, State Fairgrounds, (803) 734-3886.
  
  
• Camden: At SCDNR Office, 632 West Dekalb St. Room 211, by appointment only during March (843) 309-5165.
  
  
• Columbia: At SCDNR office, 1000 Assembly St., by appointment only any time of year, (803) 734-8738.
  
  
• Florence: At SCDNR office, 295 S. Evander Dr., Florence, by appointment only during March, (843) 661-4768.
  
  
• Georgetown: At SCDNR office, 420 Dirleton Road, Georgetown, by appointment only on Fridays during March, (843) 546-8119