There is also an archery hunt. A22 is an either-sex hunt and has 1,000 tags available. For 2007, the dates are Sept. 1 through Oct. 14, and again from Nov. 17 through Dec. 31.

San Diego once had an archery hunt that extended through the month of January. But that has ceased because the DFG was having a hard time getting together all the data for the court-required documents to be ready in time for the next season.

Local hunter Larry Aney and his son hunt San Diego County almost exclusively each year.

"The first three days of the season, my son got his doe, then I got a doe," said Aney. "Then I got a 2x2 buck, and we went back to a different area."

"We went back in about two miles," he said. "Since California hunters here are by nature are pretty lazy, you can out-hike them."

Three days before the end of the season, his son got his buck.

"Every time we went out, we were seeing deer," said Aney. "The deer really looked good this year. We hunted areas that had burned three or four years ago and had plenty of regrowth."

They also hunted high -- and that's where the deer were. "It helps to be part mountain goat," said Aney.

The father-and-son team uses one of them as a spotter, and the other as the shooter, sniper-school style. The deer were pretty spooky last season, but the two had the area to themselves.

Aney noted that while stealth often gets a hunter within range of a shootable buck, it isn't always the tactic that works.

He described what he terms "whitetail hunting tactics" that can put hunters on deer in brushy areas.

"When I go into San Diego County to hunt, I know the deer see a lot of people," he said.

"There's a lot of pressure, so I use whitetail tactics to hunt."

He and his son hunt the brush and the steep gullies and canyons the deer hide in. Early in the morning, they hunt using spot-and-stalk tactics.

Mid-morning, they switch to making noise and they walk.

"When we bust brush, we see deer every day," he said. "We make noise, roll rocks and try to make them move. I got my buck last year in Love Valley doing that.

"Even with zero preference points, we've been drawn for the G13 hunt each year, and we always fill our tags," said the hunter.

Cliff Dupee is a bowhunter and vice president of San Diego Archers. He has hunted San Diego County for years and has a slightly different take on the art of stalking deer in San Diego's brush country.

"I don't think the fires really affected the deer at all as far as I can tell," he said. "I haven't spent much time in those burn areas. Recently, I hunted the prescribed burn area on Mount Laguna, and the burn didn't affect the animals at all."

Dupee has gotten D16 tags, and an AO tag as well as A22 tags. But lately, he's been sticking with just two A22 tags.

"As a bowhunter, I average one and a half deer a year or better," he said. "The average success rate is about 10 percent, but I always fill at least one tag."

Dupee hunts only public land. He's hunted from McCain Valley to Jacumba in the south edge of the county, to Ranchita, Volcan Mountain and Warner Springs, and both sides of Palomar Mountain, "and some unusual little places I've found where you wouldn't think there would be legal deer hunting."

Most of his deer have been taken from ground blinds. He used to throw them together from brush. But two years ago, a friend bought him a tree stand for his birthday. He's been up a tree ever since.

"My favorite way to hunt, however, is to get a couple of inches of fresh snow on the ground and just stalk, following tracks and sneaking up on them. It's the most thrilling kind of bowhunting I know."

We don't get much snow on the ground in San Diego County -- but it does happen.

PRIVATE LAND
On the big ranches and land holdings in San Diego County, there are also some opportunities for private-land hunting. But it takes a lot of work to run down leads and make new friends.