Thursday, November 28, 2013

Ohio's youth gun deer hunt tanks; hunters wonder if same will happen next week



Ohio’s firearms deer hunters no doubt are hoping they’ll fare better starting Monday than their youthful counter parts did this past weekend.

The state’s two-day youth-only firearms deer-hunting season shot 6,645 animals Nov. 23 and 24. That figure is way off the 2012 season tally of 9,178 deer.

Of Ohio’s 88 counties, gains were posted for only six counties with just two counties reporting back-to-back identical harvests by youths.

Officials with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and its offspring - the Ohio Division of Wildlife – are crediting (or blaming being the better word) last weekend’s blustery weather as the main culprit for the serious drop.

Still, others are saying that the success of the two-day antlerless-only, muzzle-loading-only season in October put a serious hurt on does and fawns which often are the target of young hunters during their gun season.

Regardless, on Monday an estimated 420,000 men, women and kids will venture into the woods in search of their own deer. Legal game for the general firearms deer-hunting season will be antlered as well as antlerless deer.

Projections by Wildlife Division biologists and other agency officials suggest a harvest during the seven-day gun season of 80,000 to 90,000 deer.

New for this season will be the allowance of hunting deer until one-half hour after sunset, a radical change from previous gun seasons when hunters had to quit at legal sunset.

A list of all white-tailed deer checked by youth hunters using a shotgun, muzzle-loader or handgun during the 2013 youth deer-gun hunting season is shown. The first number following the county’s name shows the harvest numbers for 2013, and the 2012 numbers are in parentheses:

Adams: 148 (178); Allen: 35 (40); Ashland: 122 (152); Ashtabula: 112 (166); Athens: 127 (161); Auglaize: 40 (56); Belmont: 165 (234); Brown: 91 (133); Butler: 28 (59); Carroll: 161 (188); Champaign: 49 (69); Clark: 18 (30); Clermont: 66 (93); Clinton: 37 (61); Columbiana: 120 (147); Coshocton: 248 (295); Crawford: 37 (55); Cuyahoga: 1 (1); Darke: 23 (65); Defiance: 76 (102); Delaware: 49 (42); Erie: 19 (24); Fairfield: 69 (114); Fayette: 20 (20); Franklin: 7 (18); Fulton: 34 (54); Gallia: 113 (142); Geauga: 38 (65); Greene: 9 (28); Guernsey: 183 (232); Hamilton: 23 (20); Hancock: 46 (71); Hardin: 44 (43); Harrison: 165 (225); Henry: 32 (38); Highland: 114 (168); Hocking: 128 (157); Holmes: 196 (235); Huron: 85 (136); Jackson: 98 (168); Jefferson: 156 (176); Knox: 189 (247); Lake: 8 (19); Lawrence: 95 (148); Licking: 189 (262); Logan: 79 (121); Lorain: 49 (63); Lucas: 11 (14); Madison: 25 (21); Mahoning: 62 (76); Marion: 23 (30); Medina: 42 (74); Meigs: 110 (156); Mercer: 31 (53); Miami: 23 (35); Monroe: 90 (153); Montgomery: 13 (14); Morgan: 118 (165); Morrow: 56 (66); Muskingum: 212 (280); Noble: 105 (161); Ottawa: 10 (21); Paulding: 43 (69); Perry: 101 (143); Pickaway: 28 (47); Pike: 83 (89); Portage: 31 (122); Preble: 36 (46); Putnam: 38 (78); Richland: 110 (141); Ross: 136 (171); Sandusky: 28 (27); Scioto: 116 (103); Seneca: 57 (99); Shelby: 57 (88); Stark: 81 (100); Summit: 11 (19); Trumbull: 72 (109); Tuscarawas: 220 (317); Union: 29 (37); Van Wert: 29 (36); Vinton: 98 (126); Warren: 26 (52); Washington: 140 (196); Wayne: 57 (121); Williams: 66 (83); Wood: 30 (39); Wyandot: 50 (80). Total: 6,645 (9,178).

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischk@Ameritech.net

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