Photo by Ron Sinfelt.

Serious whitetail deer hunters leave very little -- or, as little as humanly possible -- to chance or luck. Preparation is the key to success and that's true throughout the state of South Carolina.

But the Lowcountry deer hunting season opener on Aug. 15 of each year leaves plenty of variables for the deer. The varied and often rough, dense vegetative growth frequently found in Lowcountry deer habitat gives deer many options. The variety of food sources available can mean they will be less predictable in terms of where they travel. The traffic of humans in the woods is another wild card that will influence their behavior.

However, you can stack the odds in your favor.

One Lowcountry hunter, Mike Cox, does exactly that every year. He consistently takes a nice buck on opening day or within the first few days of the season. I remember our discussion regarding one such season. His hunting plan sounded simple. He slipped into the stand about three hours before dark. And he stayed in that stand. Just about five minutes before it was too dark to shoot, a good buck crossed an old logging road about 80 yards from his stand. Presto, dead 8-point buck.

No problem, right?

Actually, it's not really that simple. The final act of taking the trophy buck seemed simple, or even lucky, to his buddies hunting the same large tract of land that evening. However, none of them saw a deer that afternoon. Cox saw several does and two smaller bucks before taking the 8-pointer.

The key to his success had required plenty of prior planning and thought.

He had put up and finished working his stands several weeks before the season began. All limbing had been done. He had four possible stands for opening day/week. He had already decided the wind and weather would determine which one he would sit on any given day. He had learned the bedding and feeding habits of the deer in his specific territory. He had placed his stands accordingly.

He was using corn as an attractant (legal in this area), but he only traveled through the area by 4-wheeler to freshen up the bait and wore rubber boots to reduce any human scent. He parked far from his stand that first day of hunting season and walked in quietly. The deer had no reason to suspect he was in the woods. Thus, per his plan, they reacted in their normal daily manner. As far as the deer were concerned, they'd seen no pressure from humans all year.

Other hunters had not prepared in such a way. They put stands up late; just before the season opened, they were still hanging stands and limbing shooting lanes. A couple of hunters even sat in the just-erected stands armed with binoculars only a few days before the season opening. Moreover, they paid no heed to wind direction. Some had seen deer while observing from their stands before actually hunting.

There's a dramatic difference in the approach, and in the outcome, of the above scenarios.

It's not too late to produce a winning game plan for the opening day and first couple of weeks of the mid-August gun season for deer. However, you have to act now to be able to really stack the odds of success in your favor.

First, let's take a look at where the most deer are located in the Lowcountry. We'll define the Lowcountry for this feature as the 12-county area where there is an Aug. 15 gun session opener for deer. Even though this time is drawing near, there's still opportunity for you to make a good game plan for success.

The 12 counties, in order of total deer harvested in 2005, include: Orangeburg, Hampton, Colleton, Bamberg, Allendale, Berkeley, Charleston, Barnwell, Calhoun, Jasper, Dorchester and Beaufort.

The first six of these counties were in the top 12 counties of the state in terms of total numbers of deer harvested. That's certainly a great starting point to find areas with high populations of deer.

Another way to look at the most productive areas is to consider the counties on a deer harvested per unit area. In this category, five of the top nine counties in the state are in this category. The counties include, in ranking order, Bamberg (No. 1), Hampton (No. 2), Allendale (No. 3), Calhoun (No. 6) and Orangeburg (No. 9). If you have access to top counties in either list, or one that is high in both, you're in the right area for early-season success.

Charles Ruth, deer project supervisors for the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR), said the harvest per unit area is perhaps the best "apples-to-apples" way to compare deer populations in South Carolina.

"Comparisons can be made between deer harvests from the various counties in South Carolina if a harvest per unit area is established," Ruth said. "Harvest per unit area standardizes the harvest among counties regardless of the size of individual counties. One measure of harvest rate is the number of deer taken per square mile.