Ohio's upcoming four-day statewide
muzzle-loading deer-hunting season is now shaping up to be a two day
affair.
With the start of this season now less
than 48 hours away the weather picture is beginning to take on stark
clarity. And what is included in that snapshot is far from pretty
for the estimated 250,000 hunters who are expected to take in this
annual search for deer in Ohio.
From Cincinnati to Conneaut, and Bryan
to Marietta, the weather forecast for the season's hunt days Three
and Four include lots of wind and snow along with sub-zero
temperatures that will induce bone-chilling - and even potentially
dangerous - wind-chill numbers.
Yet a two-day window of opportunity is
in the making. Throughout Ohio the temperatures on Saturday and
Sunday – days One and Two of the season – are forecast to run
from the mid-30s to the low 40s with at least partial sunshine very
well near everywhere.
All hunters will need to do is get past
what likely will feature bitterly cold temperatures and sub-zero wind
chills early on Saturday morning.
If hunters do grit their teeth in the
face of penetrating cold than the season's deer harvest figures may
yet be salvaged, says officials with the Ohio Division of Wildlife.
The reason is simple, too. On average
nearly 70 percent of the muzzle-loading season harvest typically
occurs during the season's first two days.
As a case study, during last year's
muzzle-loading season 34 percent of the harvest came on the Saturday
opener, 30 percent on Sunday, 17 percent on Monday, and 18 percent on
Tuesday, Wildlife Division figures indicate.
And the year before that the daily
percentage breakdown was 40 percent, 27 percent, 17 percent and 16
percent, respectively.
“I believe it was in 2009 when we
went back to a muzzle-loading season in early January that we got hit
with some really cold weather and we still managed to set a new
record harvest,” said also Mike Tonkovich, the Wildlife Division
biologist in charge of the state's deer management program.
Even so, Tonkovich says the weather
will play an extremely important role in this year's harvest.
If Saturday morning rolls around and
the temperatures are gosh-awful cold than would-be participants may
wait until later in the day to venture forth. Or not bother at all,
Tonkovich says as well.
Thowever, Tonkovich says one thing
working in favor of a potentially still good to best-case excellent
deer harvest is the timing of this year's muzzle-loading season.
With the elimination of the previous
two-day so-called bonus firearms deer-hunting season the middle of
December the deer have had roughly six weeks to settle into their old
habits. And that factor alone may light a warming fire underneath
chilled muzzle-loading season participants, Tonkovich says.
Still, whether hunters will duplicate
the deer harvest accomplished during the 2012-2013 muzzle-loading
season (21,555 animals) let alone break the season's all-time harvest
record (25,006 animals and set in 2009), will hinge to a large degree
on how much cold, wind and snow participants are willing to stomach,
admits Tonkovich.
“This will show who the real
muzzle-loading hunters are,” Tonkovich said, chuckling.
Oh, how true, says Tonkovich's boss,
Mike Reynolds, the Wildlife Division's wildlife management section
leader.
“It will be interesting to see how
our hunters are going to respond to what the weather brings,”
Reynolds says.
- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischk@Ameritech.net
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