Ohio's first 11 days of archery season tracking like those of 2013 and 2014

With another several days of deer hunting in their tree stands and ground blinds, Ohio’s archers have - as of October 6th - shot 9,473 animals.

The “as of” September 30^th statewide count was 4,587 deer being killed; or a more than doubling of the kill (an additional 4,886 animals, to be exact) over the next six days.

Where the raw numbers get some meat on them is to compare this year’s October 6^th (11 days of hunting) to-date numbers with the comparable 11 days of hunting during each of the 2013-2014 and the 2014-2015 seasons.

Here we see that during the 2013-2014 season’s first 11 days, archery hunters killed 9,601 deer. For the 2014-2015 season’s first 11 days, archery hunters killed 10,033 deer.

Thus for the first 11 days of Ohio’s deer-hunting season the comparable 2013 and 2015 figures very closely mirror each other; off by only a statistically insignificant 128 animals.

In checking out some of Ohio’s 88 counties, the raw numbers shows that Adams County’s deer kill has declined over the past three seasons. Based on only the first 11 days worth of numbers, of course.

For Adams County the first 11 days saw a kill of 229 deer; a figure that fell to 198 deer but a slight bump up to 203 deer for this season’s first 11 days.

Other examples include Guernsey County where the first 11 days of this on-going season saw 219 deer being killed. Its comparable 2013 figure was 227 deer killed while its 2014 comparable figure was 246 deer killed.

This year’s do-date big kids on the deer-killing block include Trumbull County (337 deer), Licking County (301 deer), Ashtabula County (300 deer).

In making an apples-to-apples to-date comparison – if using raw numbers is a proper way to harvest such data – the 2013 kill for Trumbull County was 319 while its matching 2014 deer kill number was 344 animals.

Licking County’s 2013 comparable to-date figure was 329 and its 2014 to-date figure was 373 deer.

In looking at Ashtabula County we see that in the first days of the 2013 season the deer kill was 288 while its 2014 sibling was 311 deer killed.

The Ohio Division of Wildlife is providing only this year’s to-date raw figures, noting that a host of variables can contribute to shifts in deer kills.

Be that as it may, you dance with the one that brought you and if these figures are all that’s available than they become the measuring stick.

By Jeffrey L. Frischkorn

JFrischk@Ameritech.net

Jeff is the retired News-Herald reporter who  covered the earth sciences, the area's three county park systems and the outdoors for the newspaper. During his 30 years with The News-Herald Jeff was the recipient of more than 125 state, regional and national journalism awards. He also is a columnist and features writer for the Ohio Outdoor News, which is published every other week and details the outdoors happenings in the state.