Two does trotted out of the high grass, then bolted across the cut field. I fired at the lead deer and shot again as she entered the next expanse of chest-high weeds. She dropped out of sight. I was sure I'd killed her until I approached and watched two white tails bobbing away through the brush.

The most interesting part of that story is that it happened Monday evening in Westmoreland County during a perfectly legal hunt 13 weeks before the opening day of deer season.

The Agricultural Deer Control Program, commonly referred to as "Red Tag," is one of the Pennsylvania Game Commission's responses to pleas for relief from farmers whose bottom line disappears down the throats of ravenous white-tail deer.

While the more popular Deer Management Assistance Program (DMAP) helps landowners to control deer density during the regular hunting season, Red Tag allows farmers to welcome licensed deer hunters onto their properties Feb. 1-May 16 and June 30-September 28. Red plastic ear tags are distributed to enrolled farmers based on acreage. Each hunter can take one doe per year. Successful Red Tag hunters don't sacrifice their doe tags; harvest reports are filed by the farmers.

In 2006, 1,013 does were killed through the Red Tag program. The harvest dropped to 982 last year, with 20 taken in Wildlife Management Unit 2B, which includes Allegheny and parts of surrounding counties.

"We consider Red Tag separate from the hunting seasons," said Game Commission spokesman Jerry Feaser. "It's allowing hunters to help landowners address deer impact problems beyond the hunting seasons."

The impact can be devastating.

Vince (last name withheld by request) farms 150 contiguous acres in Westmoreland County. He enrolled in the Red Tag program when nearby landowners started banning hunting on their properties.

"My dad used to be able to grown corn here," he said. "We never had deer damage. About 15 or 20 years ago, we started seeing damage at the edge of the woods. In 2002 we tried to grow corn and we got none. Those things come in and eat it all. We tried to grow rye. They mill back and forth all night eating it back to the ground. ... You can't do anything when you have 80 deer coming in and eating everything."

Vince says it would be "awkward" to ask his neighbors to open their properties to hunters to help ease his deer problem.

Hunting on Red Tag properties presents seasonal conditions not confronted by autumn hunters.

"This is more similar to groundhog hunting," said West Newton's Brian Stewart, who hunts several Red Tag farms. "It's a lot of long shooting. Mostly all open fields -- not very much woodland property. I take a lawn chair and sit, and we have a few fixed tree stands."

Stewart says he's taken Red Tag deer from as far as 600 yards.

By late summer, does are weaning their fawns, the fawns are beginning to browse and bucks in velvet are still traveling in groups.

"You have to be really careful [to avoid shooting bucks in velvet]," he said. "It's hard to see the racks."

Summer weather and full leaf growth can present additional considerations. Apples are falling, presenting prime feeding sites, but the summer heat can be stifling.

"When it's hot, you're only hunting the last two hours of the evening, maybe in the morning," said Stewart. "You need a place where you can find cover -- a pile of weeds or a cluster of brush. The farmers, they can't grow anything [because of the deer]. They're happy if you kill them."