KING FERRY - It was a good day for hunters seeking bucks on the first day of gun deer season - if you go by the count at the Cayuga Tompkins Cooperative Hunting Area's check station in King Ferry.

Nine bucks, many of them older ones, were checked at the station Saturday. Two does were also checked.

This area has an “exceptionally healthy” deer population because of the area's rich agriculture, which to the chagrin of farmers provides excellent fodder for the local deer population, said Wayne Masters, a senior fish and wildlife technician with the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

The numbers of deer killed in the area are rising, said Shawn Fox, a DEC fish and wildlife technician who staffs the check station along with Masters and some seasonal hires.

Marty Angelino, of Owasco, had one of those “exceptionally healthy” specimens to weigh at the co-op Saturday afternoon.

Before Angelino went out hunting Saturday morning, he had been checking out the activity of rubs on tree branches from bucks' antlers in a spot off Skaneateles Lake, near New Hope. He had only seen rubs from younger bucks, until a few days ago when he saw a “huge rub” on a day he went to deal with a sagging rung on the ladder to his tree stand.

In the gray of early morning, Angelino saw two does run by so fast there was no way he could get a shot on them.

He heard other bucks calling.

Then he heard the big one grunt.

He grunted back quietly, so the buck wouldn't know the size of the buck Angelino was playing.

Then: “He came out for war,” Angelino said.

It was the first time Angelino has used a grunt horn, but it was a purchase well worth it because he got the buck responsible for the alluring rub he spotted a few days back, he said.

Masters said the 2 1/2 year old's rack was excellent, noting bits of wood were still in the base of its antlers from rubbing.

It smelled like cedar or hemlock, he said, as he brought a bit to his nose.

Bigger bucks like the one Angelino shot Saturday may become more common with the spread of quality deer management (QDM) around the country. QDM aims to facilitate a more natural herd and age structure in the deer population by hunters skipping over younger bucks to let them reach a greater maturity.

The DEC ran a QDM research project for four years before this season on 13,000 acres of co-op participating property and nearby non-co-op property.

Five properties within the co-op are still QDM properties, where hunters are prohibited from shooting button bucks, or antler-less juvenile males, and shooting antlered bucks whose antler beams aren't past the outside of their eartips.

Hunters are also encouraged to shoot adult does.

With QDM in place, they found an increase of 2 1/2- and 3 1/2-year-old bucks, Fox said.

“I think we're going to see the fruits of labor,” Fox said.

While Fox and Masters said it's a leap of faith for hunters to pass on younger bucks within range of their bows or guns, the result is bigger, older bucks, leading to what most hunters want: the monster bucks.

If deer were never hunted, there would be a one-buck-to-one-doe ratio, just like the ratio of female and male fawns who are born, Masters said.

Now he estimates seven to eight bucks are yearlings, but he hopes waiting on the harvesting of younger bucks will get the number of older bucks up to six out of 10.

Adult bucks are 1 1/2-year-olds, older bucks are 2 1/2-year-olds and mature bucks are 3 1/2- to 5-year-olds. Deer can live to be 10 or more, but by the age of the 10 their teeth are gum-lined nubs.

“I always say at that point, they're living on borrowed time,” Masters said.

Mark Jameson, of Auburn, had a healthy specimen to weigh at the co-op.

He shot an eight-point older buck on his property in Locke within two hours of his hunting start.

The 2 1/2 year-old buck followed three does coming out the woods.

Of course, the irony was an even bigger buck with “bright white tines” was close behind the one he shot, Jameson said.

The body cavity of Jameson's recently-dressed buck was still steaming as DEC officials lifted the animal up on a pulley weight system to weigh it.

They also checked the state of the deer's teeth to find out the age of the deer and measured the diameter of the antler beams. The bigger the diameter is, the healthier the deer is.

Donald Worsell celebrated his 67th birthday Saturday with a successful harvest of a 175-pound buck with a shot of his musket.

Keith Welch, of Scipio, was ribbed for the bucket of apples sitting in the bed of his pickup truck along with his six-point, 1 1/2-year-old buck. Those apples are meant for apple pies, Welch said, but he was teased he had used them as bait.

Deer are like children: they eat their favorite food first, Masters said.

After getting a buck this season, Welch said he will shift to his real hunting love: duck hunting.

The co-op is popular with hunters because they are able to reserve parcels that no one else will be allowed to hunt on, and they don't have to ask private land owners if they can hunt on their property.

Around 50 properties participate in the co-op during different hunting seasons. The co-op sits mostly in Cayuga County with some properties on the Lansing side of the Tompkins County border.

For the landowners who participate, they get privacy from hunters asking to hunt on their properties and they don't have the hassle of making sure hunters using their land are parking where they're suppose to and following other property rules.

Owners are also able to stipulate when their land can be in use for the co-op.

The DEC patrols the parcels to make sure hunters are following rules.

They keep records of what hunters are using what parcels, including the vehicles they're driving.

Hunters must check in before the sunset opening of the hunting day, and they must check out one hour after sunset, the time legal shooting ends.

The co-op gets inundated with calls during the reservation time frame.

Hunters call from their tree stands on their cell phones to make reservations. Within 45 minutes on Saturday, all the reservation slots were filled up for Sunday.

In 2004, 2,900 hunters used the co-op during the waterfowl, deer and pheasant hunting seasons. The hunters travel from as far away from Pennsylvania and the Adirondacks to use the co-op.

Despite hailing from the Adirondacks, from a town near Ticonderoga, Ethan Snyder came to hunt at the coop with his father, Herb, and his younger brother, Tyler, Saturday because they have the option to shoot does in this area, which they can't do in the North Country.

They learned about the co-op because Snyder's sister attended Wells College. They have come to hunt at the coop for the last three years.

They are making a four-day trip of it, staying at an Auburn hotel.

“It's beautiful out here,“ Snyder said.

Staff writer Amaris Elliott-Engel can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 282 or at amaris.elliot-engel@lee.net