Daviess County and the Northwest District did not have as good a luck as the rest of the state
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Missouri deer hunters shot a record number of deer on opening weekend, Nov. 13 and 14, but Daviess County and the Northwest District did not have as good a luck as the rest of the state.
Alan Bradford of the Daviess County Conservation Department says 133,136 deer were killed statewide over Saturday and Sunday. That figure is an increase of 22,141 from last year. The previous record for opening weekend was 127,251 deer in 2002.
Daviess County checked 1,324 deer. This is down 199 from last year. A total of 18,478 deer were checked in the Northwest Region. This is a decrease of 1,262 from last year.
Agent Bradford said he didn’t know for certain why there was a decrease, but it may be that the deer just aren’t cooperating… “Some of the hunters I’ve talked to say the deer aren’t moving. There are a lot of crops still in the fields, plenty of places for the deer to hide.”
Agent Bradford said the size of the deer herd is steady in our region and the number of hunters is down only slightly from the past couple of years so those two factors are probably not at work. Nor does he think a point restriction contributed significantly to the lower deer kill. According to the restriction, antlered bucks had to have four points on one side.
“We do have a point restriction in our county,” he said. “But Caldwell County, which doesn’t have a point restriction, is down a little too.”
He said some hunters expressed concern that deer may have been left behind in the field if they failed to meet the point restriction.
Agent Bradford said he doesn’t think the restriction was a problem.
“Only five or six deer that were turned in didn’t meet the point restriction,” he said. “And we’ve only found five or six deer left laying in the field that didn’t meet the restriction. So it hasn’t been as bad as some hunters thought it may have been.”
The point restriction is part of the 2004 Deer Management Pilot Program carried out in 29 Missouri counties. Staff from the Conservation Department held public meetings last spring and summer regarding deer herd management in the state. The majority of hunters approved the point restriction method to maintain a healthy deer population in the area.
“The idea behind the point restriction is to get quality racks,” said Agent Bradford. “Hopefully, the point restriction will also increase the doe harvest. If hunters will leave the buck with the smaller rack and shoot a doe instead, it would give the little bucks a chance to grow up. It takes about 3 ½ to 4 ½ years for a deer to get a trophy rack.”
Leading deer-kill counties in the northwest region were Chariton with 1,531; Carroll with 1,496; and Linn with 1,462.
The number of deer checked in surrounding counties were Caldwell 1,440; DeKalb 763; Gentry 708; Grundy 1,011; Harrison 1,089; and Livingston 798.
The Northwest region had no accidents.
High counties for the number of deer checked statewide were Callaway with 2,572; Texas with 2,549; and Howell with 2,516.
There were no fatal accidents statewide and two non-fatal accidents.
Missouri has two deer hunting seasons: firearms and archery. The archery season is in two segments, and the firearms season consists of five portions: urban, youth only, November, muzzleloader and antlerless only. The November portion of the firearms deer season ended Tuesday of this week.