What a lot of South Carolina deer hunters simply don't realize is that there is some exceptionally good hunting during the last month of the season. Much less deer-hunting pressure, however, usually characterizes December. In some areas, for savvy hunters this means a late-season opportunity to score on bucks as well as does.

Let me add one more fact about late-season hunting. It's not hunting for "leftovers." The S.C. Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) data for biggest bucks harvested shows that three of the top 10 all-time bucks were taken in December. The largest typical ever taken was shot on Christmas Eve. Hunters in the know hunt deer during late season.

How do you approach late-season deer hunting? If you get excited about this time of the year and look forward to it, then you're a confirmed late-season deer hunter and already know the score. But most hunters, for various reasons, let the last month slip through their hunting fingers. There are some outstanding places for late-season hunting and we're going to focus on some of them now. Good late-season hunting is close to almost everyone in South Carolina and we'll help you find the right area. Then you can pinpoint the specific places to hang a stand and perhaps get your best buck of the year.

Remember, however, as we look at good areas of the state, that "normal" patterns now will be much different than when the season opened or patterns you experienced during the rut.

While we've looked at the best counties for numbers and the best trophy-producing areas in earlier issues of South Carolina Game & Fish, for this look we're going to mix and match the data. We'll combine that with personal knowledge of local experts to pick the areas that should offer best bets across the state for your late-season consideration.

When studying the data garnered by the SCDNR for the 2003 hunting season, we can see which counties rate very high on both the "numbers harvested" as well as the "trophies harvested" categories. In addition, another very interesting tidbit of deer data produced is the percent of change in terms of overall harvest from one season to the next on a county-by-county basis.

Statewide, there was an 8.1 percent drop in the harvest in 2004 compared with 2003. This is not unexpected as part of the natural ebb and flow for a deer herd the size we have in South Carolina, according to SCDNR Deer Project supervisor Charles Ruth. However, it does give a good baseline from which we can work to identify potential hotspots or areas on the increase. With a statewide drop the second straight year for a decline in harvest, anything near holding even from the previous year would be a positive indicator.

Some of the areas I like are those places where there was a hefty harvest increase in 2004 over 2003. Plus, the areas that ranked high in total harvest and big bucks harvested are areas to key on for late-season success. This will bring in some counties not otherwise discussed in previous outlooks, but that do have excellent potential for late-season success.

The first area we'll look at, however, is one we've heard about before. We're mentioning it again because it's too good to ignore: Aiken County. Aiken County is on a good roll and has to be part of the late-season equation. This was the No. 1 big-buck county in South Carolina for the 2004 hunt year. This data is from the SCDNR's scoring sessions in early 2005. These scoring sessions determined the number of bucks that qualified for the state record book. To meet this criteria, a set of antlers must score at least 125 Boone and Crocket points (typical).