Ohio's bonus gun deer hunt harvest excellent in spite of foul weather

Add an asterisk to the 9,228 total for Ohio’s just-concluded two-day so-named “bonus” firearms deer-hunting kill.

While the final figure for the two-day hunt is almost a mirror image of that for 2015 – which was 9,447animals - it must be remembered that the latter’s two-day hunt was held during the week on a Monday and Tuesday (December 28^th and 29^th) and following a Thursday-honored Christmas and when fewer hunters supposedly would be afield. (Ohio has an estimated 400,000 to 500,000 deer hunters; licensed, youths, senior citizens and landowners).

That was not the case this year, though, as the two-day season ran over a weekend and a full week prior to Christmas; a time frame that theoretically at least would increase opportunities for more deer hunters to be out and about.

Or not.

“Some people think that a post-Christmas weekday hunt provides more opportunity because more people are off work between the two holidays,” said Clint McCoy, the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s deer management biologist.

Even so, expectations were that the poor weather conditions that plagued virtually the entire state December 19^th and 20^th would put a damper on the overall kill. This was particularly true for Northeast Ohio which received up to four feet of snow in some locations.

In any event, the kill numbers ran very similar to one another as a serious drop in the deer harvest did not happen. Indeed, Ashtabula County’s 422 deer kill was way out in front of the two-day season’s second place holder, Guernsey County with 302 animals.

That surprised McCoy as well who said Ashtabula County “cranked out the numbers.”

Then again, the other Northeast Ohio/Snow Belt counties of Lake, Geauga, Cuyahoga, and Trumbull all also recorded gains – in spite of heavy snows that were overlaid with ice on Saturday.

Thus the expectation by Wildlife Division officials that the two-day season would yield between 9,000 and 11,000 deer proved accurate. In spite of the point that the total was on the low end of the estimate and also in spite of the generally very poor weather virtually throughout the state, McCoy said.

Consequently a mid-December, two-day/weekend “bonus” firearms deer-hunting might be taking on something of a fixture status. This is particularly true, says McCoy also, given that an on-line deer hunter survey found at the Wildlife Division’s web site (www.wildohio.com) is showing that about 65 percent of the respondents support a two-day season while 70 percent of those respondents back a weekend – rather than a weekday – hunt.

“We’ll be looking at how this season falls into place with the other seasons when everything is completed and we have all of the harvest data and numbers,” McCoy said.

Here is the unofficial tally of deer checked by hunters using firearms during the 2016 two-day deer-gun hunting season December 19^th and 20^th. The first number following the county’s name shows the harvest numbers for 2016, and the 2015 numbers are in parentheses:

 

Adams: 138 (209); Allen: 60 (21); Ashland: 138 (142); Ashtabula: 422 (305); Athens: 174 (212); Auglaize: 35 (38); Belmont: 226 (216); Brown: 124 (162); Butler: 29 (51); Carroll: 184 (211); Champaign: 39 (41); Clark: 24 (21); Clermont: 85 (95); Clinton: 36 (37); Columbiana: 194 (196); Coshocton: 210 (349); Crawford: 57 (59); Cuyahoga: 3 (1); Darke: 19 (19); Defiance: 118 (74); Delaware: 52 (60); Erie: 44 (21); Fairfield: 89 (85); Fayette: 17 (10); Franklin: 23 (24); Fulton: 56 (16); Gallia: 139 (165); Geauga: 105 (77); Greene: 35 (21); Guernsey: 302 (263); Hamilton: 29 (21); Hancock: 58 (34); Hardin: 53 (53); Harrison: 193 (228); Henry: 41 (25); Highland: 121 (147); Hocking: 153 (203); Holmes: 118 (209); Huron: 162 (107); Jackson: 149 (194); Jefferson: 168 (169); Knox: 146 (236); Lake: 32 (21); Lawrence: 113 (147); Licking: 195 (236); Logan: 60 (86); Lorain: 169 (98); Lucas: 27 (10); Madison: 18 (26); Mahoning: 131 (107); Marion: 43 (55); Medina: 147 (83); Meigs: 188 (229); Mercer: 32 (18); Miami: 26 (37); Monroe: 156 (156); Montgomery: 16 (14); Morgan: 146 (181); Morrow: 70 (71); Muskingum: 256 (284); Noble: 138 (202); Ottawa: 31 (7); Paulding: 64 (34); Perry: 173 (181); Pickaway: 42 (38); Pike: 104 (140); Portage: 136 (88); Preble: 50 (29); Putnam: 45 (19); Richland: 164 (150); Ross: 146 (185); Sandusky: 66 (29); Scioto: 137 (164); Seneca: 100 (84); Shelby: 44 (34); Stark: 153 (124); Summit: 41 (26); Trumbull: 266 (166); Tuscarawas: 260 (296); Union: 28 (32); Van Wert: 24 (15); Vinton: 125 (201); Warren: 42 (44); Washington: 140 (210); Wayne: 92 (109); Williams: 127 (51); Wood: 37 (31); Wyandot: 60 (72); Total: 9,228 (9,447).

 

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn

JFrischk@Ameritech.net