I started in MD a few years after you and remember the low kill totals and the old rules. Things are sure different now!
I stopped counting a while back, but figure it's somewhere between 40 and 50 or so. I started hunting in Charles County, prime territory, but I wasn't a very good hunter and made a lot of mistakes. Too bad really, as the deer there were bigger than in any place I've hunted since. As soon as we were able, my brother and I started hunting in PA so we could use rifles, but it wasn't until the 80s, when a family friend moved to a 18th century farm at Gettysburg that we started taking deer on a regular basis. That farm, just across the road from the Eisenhower farm, was a real packing plant. There were a lot of deer, and as a hobby farm, at least half of it was brush and hardwoods, divided by Marsh Creek. Great stuff.
Our friend had to sell the place in the early 90s, but immediately picked up another place in WV that was all woods, except for a couple acres around the house. Small deer, but lots of them and the place was a funnel for game movement. We really packed them in there, and both my sons killed their first deer there. He sold that place around 2009, but we were allowed to hunt there until 2011. Since then, I've hunted public land near my home in Jefferson County, WV and managed to take 3 does and a spike in 3 seasons. I shoot the first adult deer I see, because I may not see another one due to all the pressure. I see some decent rack bucks before the rifle season, but they beat it to the surrounding farms and residential properties pretty quick once the shootin' starts.
In my county, we can take, with proper tags, as best I can count, 9 deer combined in archery, rifle, ML, and antlerless season. No more than 3 can be antlered bucks. My goal is to take two, but if I do, I'll continue to hunt as long as there's an open season, just for the pleasure of it and to try out different stuff. The pressure lightens up a lot late in the season, and even with the deer making themselves pretty scarce, I enjoy sitting in the woods hoping.
