• Both before and during the deer season, the unpredictable nature of wildfires can limit access to various locations. Fires often occur in the fall.
• This year, hunters must observe the ban on lead bullets that went into effect in July. The ban covers that portion of the Golden State that’s designated as California condor range and will apply in the southern portion of Zone A and Zones D7, D8, D9, D10, D11 and D13. The ban includes all centerfire, muzzleloader and rimfire projectiles.

For information about what types of ammo are acceptable and other questions you might have, call (916) 445-0411. Or visit the condor page at www.dfg.ca.gov/wildlife/hunting/condor .

ZONE BY ZONE
Now it’s time to review the situation from each zone during last year’s general seasons. We’ll look specifically at estimated kills and hunter success in every zone.

Zone A
The biggest deer zone in the state, Zone A extends from northern Los Angeles County to Mendocino County and inland as far as the Central Valley.

Zone A opens early. The archery season starts in mid-July, and the general rifle season opens in mid-August, so summer weather is always an important factor here.

It’s probably safe to say that there’s no hotter hunting anywhere on the West Coast than in Zone A.

Much of the land here is private. However, there is some public land in several counties. The tag quota for Zone A was 65,000, about half of which were sold in 2007. Throughout the Zone, overall hunter success in 2007 was around 25 percent.

In 2006, by comparison, hunters scored just 21 percent of the time, and that year, the total estimated buck kill was 7,169. In 2007, the numbers jumped to 8,399.

B Zones
The six B Zones in the northwest portion of the state are extremely popular with hunters because they are awash in public land. For example, there are literally millions of acres on the Shasta-Trinity, Klamath, Six Rivers and Mendocino national forests.

The lone exception is Zone B4, which is mostly private.

Because of stormy weather in 2007, there was significant deer movement throughout the B-Zone region. Their movement contributed to a higher estimated buck kill in five of the six B Zones.

How did the take in 2007 compare to 2006?
• Zone B1 produced 2,872 bucks in 2006 and 3,429 in 2007.
• Zone B2 went from 2,429 to 2,988.• Zone B3 improved slightly, from 697 to 724.
• Zone B4 dropped from 417 to 368.
• Zone B5 rose from 704 to 1,003.
• Zone B6 went from 1,221 to 1,371.

Some 55,000 tags are available for the B Zones, and more than 40,000 of them were purchased last year. B-Zone hunters enjoyed a 24 percent success.

C Zones
Most of the deer in the B Zones are Columbian blacktails, while those in the four neighboring C Zones are considered to be blacktail hybrids -- meaning that they sometimes crossbreed with mule deer.

The C Zones, like most of the B zones, were influenced by weather events last fall, and the estimated buck take was better in 2007 than in 2006. In the four C Zones, here’s how things shook out:

• Zone C1 improved from 285 to 401.
• Zone C2 went from 171 to 294.
• Zone C3 went from 341 to 445.
• Zone C4 climbed from 1,112 to 1,471. The latter figures include the take from the nine-day G1 late season buck hunt, which is held in C4.