ZONE D
Moving right along, we find that the state’s 16 D zones produced only 5,776 bucks in 2006, compared with 7,688 in 2005.

Even adding the two highest percentage zones in terms of success -- D15, with 17 percent and D17 with 26 percent -- we find that D-zone hunters averaged success of only 9 percent.

Of course, that sounds considerably worse than it is. The D zones are very good for some hunters who take trophy bucks each and every year.

To prove it, here are a couple of examples from the 2006 season.

One reader who shared his experience with California Game and Fish is Robert McKnight, a truck driver from Chowchilla. He has hunted in Zone D6 for 15 years. But last year McKnight, along with his uncle Gary White and his father-in-law Denny Snyder, decided to try D5 for the first time. The result was rewarding.

McKnight said his uncle did most of the scouting and found a good spot that had lots of sign on national forest land at around 7,000 feet.

They arrived early on opening day and found a place to hole up on along a ridge where they could watch a meadow ringed with timber.

Soon after the sun came up, they heard a few rifle shots. The wind was in McKnight’s face. He knew if a deer came from the direction of the shots, it would never smell him.

“Sure enough,” the hunter said, “a few minutes later a dandy buck stepped out of the timber into the opening about 70 yards away.”

McKnight dropped the deer with a shot from his 7mm. It was a great 3x4 with a rack 23 inches wide.

“I still can’t believe it was all over so quickly,” he said. “But I’m not complaining!”

Meanwhile, 15-year-old Hannah Ramey decided to open the season in the afternoon on her family’s property in Zone D3 near Grass Valley.

Hannah loves to fish and hunt. She completed a sport-shooting class with the 4H Club and passed the hunter safety course last spring.

“I knew where there were some deer on the property,” Hannah said. “So I decided to take a stand under the overhanging branches of a tree, where I could watch some trails unseen.”

She was using a Winchester 30-30 carbine with open sights. It was evening when she saw a big buck coming at her. When he got close enough and turned broadside, she took a shot that hit a little low.

The deer ran off, but he didn’t get very far before he fell over and died.

“Boy, was I ever excited!” she said. “He was a 4x4 with antlers 25 1/2 inches wide. My first-ever deer!”

Obviously, there’s hope in the D zones, even though the percentage of success isn’t terribly high.

With that in mind, here’s how the D zones shaped up last year.

• Zones D3 to D5 (covered by a single tag) produced 2,203 bucks in 2006 and 2,195 in 2005.

• Zone D6 fell from 766 to 673.

• D7 dropped a little, from 594 to 522.

• D8 went from 434 to 576.

• D9 rose from 133 to 237.

• D10 increased from 52 to 64.

• D11 climbed from 332 to 344.

• D12 nearly doubled, from 67 to 112.

• D13 dropped from 284 to 216.

• D14 improved from 212 to 227.

• D15 jumped from 24 to 68.

• D16 went up from 219 to 285.

• D17 went from 67 to 132.

• D19 showed slight improvement, from 111 to 117.