For the second year in a row, the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission is offering unlimited doe tags to hunters so they can legally kill more than the six deer allowed per season on a big-game license.

The free tags are called “bonus antlerless harvest report cards.” Hunters can obtain as many tags as they want for statewide hunting. The tags can only be used on private lands and not on public lands such as state game lands.

The bonus cards plus moderate weather were major reasons why N.C. hunters last year reported taking a record 171,986 deer, including 77,434 does, according to Evin Stanford, commission deer biologist. By comparison, the doe total for the 2006 season was 60,662.

The tags can be used during archery, muzzleloader and gun seasons in those areas with a maximum either-sex gun season, which covers most of the state.

The major part of deer season is a week away in the Central Piedmont, an area from Charlotte to Durham. Muzzleloader season began Saturday and will run through Friday. Gun season starts next Saturday and runs through Jan. 1.

In the Northwestern region, from Boone to Gastonia to Winston-Salem, the muzzleloader season begins next Saturday and runs through Nov. 21, followed by the Nov. 22-Dec. 20 gun season.

Except in the coastal plain, hunters can take only two bucks as part of their six-deer limit. The rest must be antlerless deer.

Stanford said the commission last year issued 27,273 bonus cards, allowing hunters to kill two antlerless deer per card. He said he immediately didn't have the data to determine the number of hunters that received the cards or how many antlerless deer they took. The state has an estimated 260,000 deer hunters.

He said the tags provide controls on growing herds in areas where deer exceed the “cultural carrying capacity” and thus become a nuisance by eating crops and becoming involved in deer-vehicle collisions. The state's deer herd this year peaked at 1.25 million animals.

Stanford also said wildlife officials will be sampling deer carcasses for chronic wasting disease as they do every five years. Hunters may be asked to voluntarily give up the heads of their deer for testing. No evidence of the fatal disease has been found in N.C. deer.

Also, a new rule requires archery hunters who are hunting during the firearms season for deer to wear a blaze orange cap or garment.