From the mountains to the sandy sea shore, North Carolina offers a bounty of game for the hunter. Here are some of the top spots for hunting in the Tar Heel State.
1. Deer
Game and Fish magazine reported the best North Carolina deer hunts in 2014 were in the north central and northwestern parts of the state, along the Virginia border, followed by southern edge of the panhandle at the northernmost point of the border with South Carolina. These areas showed population rebounds after a serious outbreak of hemorrhagic disease in 2012, which decimated the deer population.
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2. Bears
The black bear once ranged through much of eastern North America including all of what would one day be North Carolina. However, an influx of European settlers and overhunting cut the population drastically until the bear was found in only the remotest parts of the state.
The bear population has been rebounding, though, in recent decades. In the last half of the 20th century, the bear was typically found at the eastern and western edges of the state, and a state
Wildlife Resources Commission map shows the bears' range extending even farther inland since 1971.
3. Wild Turkeys
Like the black bear, the wild turkey was plentiful in North Carolina when European settlers arrived but declined rapidly, with few turkeys remaining by the turn of the 20th century. Unregulated market hunting and loss of forest and habitat contributed to the rapid decline.
As of 2015, four counties clumped along the northern border with Virginia have the most turkeys per square mile, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission says, although parts of the northern and western regions of the state offer good chances of bagging a bird.
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