ZONE A
Without a doubt, some of the hottest deer hunting anywhere (literally) takes place in the huge Zone A, which covers an area stretching roughly from northern Los Angeles County to Mendocino County along the western edge of the state.

Zone A is notable because of the timing of its archery and rifle seasons -- the earliest in the state. The archery season opens in July, and the rifle hunt begins in mid-August when the weather is normally toss-your-covers-off hot. (I know from experience.)

The estimated take in Zone A in 2005, with 8,943 bucks harvested, was down significantly from 2004, when 10,224 bucks were tallied. The difference was attributed to cool weather in 2004 and warmer conditions in 2005. However, it was warmer still in 2006, and again the take dropped, to just 7,632 bucks.

There are 65,000 tags available for Zone A, but only 33,160 were sold last year. About 22 percent of hunters in Zone A were successful.

ZONE B
One tag covers all in the six northern B zones, giving hunters plenty of freedom to roam throughout the region where -- with the exception of Zone B4 -- there is a wealth of public land to choose from.

In 2004, harvest in the B zones was 11,705 bucks. In 2005, the figure dropped to 8,489, and the tally in 2006 -- reflecting the weather -- was lower yet, at 8,340.

There are 55,000 tags available, and 39,812 of them were sold in 2006 despite the predominant hot weather. Around 21 percent of hunters tagged their bucks in 2006, compared to 2004 when that figure was 29 percent.

Lets take a quick look at the B zones and see how the harvest numbers differed from 2005 to 2006:

• Zone B1 produced 3,118 bucks in 2005 and dropped to 2,872 bucks in 2006.

• B2 actually improved from 2,386 to 2,429.

• B3 also went up from 603 to 697.

• B4 fell from 445 to 417.

• B5 climbed from 622 to 704.

• B6 dropped from 1,315 to 1,221.

ZONE C
The DFG estimates that in the C zones’ regular season, 1,435 bucks were taken in 2006. In addition, 475 bucks were tagged in the G1 late buck hunt, which takes place in Zone C4. That’s a grand total of 1,910 bucks. By comparison, the regular season tally in 2005 was 1,535, plus 521 bucks from the G1 hunt, for a total of 2,056. So overall numbers were down, but not dramatically.

The figures shake out like this:

• Zone C1 produced 137 bucks in 2005 and jumped to 285 in 2006.

• C2 dropped significantly from 448 to 171.

• C3 climbed from 274 to 341.

• C4 fell from 676 to 637.

Surprisingly, the only so-called “storm” to visit the C zones was hardly noticeable. But it was enough to encourage a few migratory deer to descend from their summer to winter range. A couple guys I know got their bucks by waiting for them to come along on migration trails.

C-zones hunters scored only 16 percent of the time in 2006.