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PALUXY, Texas – Deer poachers facetiously refer to a spotlight as a "one-eyed dog." Anyone who's done a spotlight deer survey understands the analogy. Sweep a dark hillside with a 500,000-candlepower beam and green eyes wink back through the dark, mesmerized by the glare. Talk about deer in the headlights!

That's why spotlighting deer is illegal unless done without firearms, under the auspices of a Texas Parks and Wildlife deer count. Biologists for the state agency expend a lot of manpower counting deer this time of year. So do private landowners and their agents, who turn in their tallies so biologists can analyze the data and make harvest recommendations.

In a given year, a spotlight count should be run along the same route on at least three nights, said Clayton Wolf, TP&W's big-game program leader. The counts will never reveal the exact number of deer on a given piece of property, but averaging the numbers creates a baseline for comparison with future counts.

Stephenville lawyer Ernie Cannon knows he's on the right track with deer management on his 4,000-acre ranch southwest of Fort Worth, first surveyed by helicopter in October 2003. That initial helicopter survey revealed 78 does and 12 bucks in an area of heavy hunting pressure.

Last Aug. 20, on an unseasonably cool, still night, the spotlight count on the same property turned up 48 bucks, 34 does, 12 fawns and 14 deer of undetermined sex. The undetermined deer were in dense cover or too far from the spotlight for biologists to know for sure if they were fawns, does or small bucks.

Whitetails are notorious for being elusive, and TP&W is doing research at the state's Mason Mountain Wildlife Management Area to determine the most accurate method for counting deer.

"We cleaned the existing deer out of a 600-acre high-fenced pasture, then restocked with a known number of ear-tagged deer," Wolf said. "We're comparing counts done with spotlights, helicopters, remote cameras and a walking census line to see which method is best."

Helicopters are the most fun and expensive survey tools, but deer learn to hunker down and hide from the roar of a helicopter rather than flushing and running so they can be counted and evaluated.

Remote cameras at feed stations often reveal a population heavily skewed toward bucks because the more aggressive male deer tend to dominate feeders. Spotlights work better in open habitat than in a dense forest.

A daytime observation survey performed at first light Aug. 21 on Cannon's ranch totaled 17 bucks, 43 does, 22 fawns and one undetermined deer. What the daytime count indicates is that bucks are much less active and more difficult to count during daylight hours and that it's often tough to differentiate between a fawn and a doe at night.

The daytime count revealed a 51 percent recruitment rate (fawns per doe) compared with the misleading 35 percent recruitment number from the spotlight survey.

Cannon also keeps records for every deer harvested on his ranch, carefully recording the deer's age (as determined by tooth wear) and weight. The result of his efforts is a much higher-quality deer herd than is normal for the area.

Despite the best efforts of deer managers and scientists, white-tailed deer continue to mystify humans, even those equipped with the latest technology.

"When we cleaned out the 600-acre study area at Mason Mountain, there was one doe that we never could kill," Wolf said. "We even used a helicopter with forward-looking infrared capability and still couldn't find her. She eluded us for six years until a hunter just stumbled up on her one day. We kind of hated to see her go. She had us figured out for a long time."