Tree stands for deer hunting have led to one death and two serious injuries this year, according to the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, but students who hunt said it is easy for them to be safe while enjoying their hobby.

“If you’re going to go hunting and get in a deer stand, you cannot be stupid,” Stephen Fletcher, a freshman in agriculture, said. “You have to have the common sense to take things slow and not get hurt.”

Kristen Gossett, a junior in agriculture extensions and communication, said it can be “tricky” using stands for hunting.

“You have to know how to put it up, and to be careful once you get up there,” she said.

Deer season lasts from Nov. 10 to Jan. 1 for gun users in central North Carolina, but it varies from region to region, according to the NCWRC.

“Most people that I’ve seen or talked to have hunted before,” Fletcher said.

Fletcher and Adam Winslow, a first-year Agricultural Institute student in field crop technology, said they started hunting at an early age and have gained a lot of experience.

“My family’s always hunted,” Fletcher said. “I probably started when I was four.”

According to Fletcher, his father bought him a hunting license around his first birthday, and Winslow said he has also hunted since about age 4 or 5.

“It’s a pasttime of my family,” Fletcher, whose dad was a hunting guide, said.

Hunting can also be relaxing for some, as Bossett said she “gets to be outside and be with [her] family and friends.”

Winslow said he “likes to listen to the dogs” that help him hunt when he goes out.

But when Fletcher goes home to hunt every weekend, he said it’s for the thrill of the sport.

“I don’t go out and shoot anything,” he said. “When I hunt, I don’t kill anything unless it’s an eight-pointer or bigger.”

Bossett and Winslow also said they, and many students, go home to hunt and keep their equipment there.

And while they said some people do not like the thought of hunting, Fletcher said he thinks people misunderstand the intentions of hunting.

“I think most of the people feel like people just go out and shoot them to shoot them,” he said. “We clean the deer and process the meat, and we eat deer meat year-round.”

According to Fletcher, there are other reasons to hunt on his family’s land as well. The doe-to-buck ratio on the property is 12-to-1, but he said it should be 2-to-1, and the family has had biologists recommend how many deer need to be shot to maintain a more adequate population, he said.

With a doe population much higher than normal, Fletcher said less of these female deer get the chance to be with bucks, and some of the population are restricted to poor food crops.

This can lead to diseases, but he said his family has avoided it thus far.

“That’s the one thing we strive for — to keep their genes good,” he said. “The less deer you have, the better the population is, and the better chance [there is] not to be affected by it.”