Following on the heels of a very good general firearms deer-hunting season and an exceptional two-day bonus firearms deer-hunting season a just so-so four-day muzzle-loading season hardly came as a surprise.
In all, 9,708 deer were checked in from Saturday, January 2 to Tuesday, January 5. Over the last three years, an average of 12,695 deer were taken during the same four-day period.
The Ohio Division of Wildlife is now using a three-year average as a more reliable comparison than using a previous year’s figures.
“It was a pretty uneventful season,” said Mike Tonkovich, the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s deer management administrator.
“As we’ve discussed before, the only way the final firearms season would have attracted any attention is if we had snow on the ground again. Instead, most of the state was blanketed in fog, and cold damp weather on the Saturday opener.”
Thus, “it would take much more than” fog and damp cold to motivate many this late in the season, Tonkovich said also.
“Hunter’s love snow and for good reason – its not only fun, but it most certainly makes it easier to see and track wounded deer. Plus, and this is paramount – the cold and snow discourage sedentary behavior; hunters move, and move deer in the process,” Tonkovich said.
However, Tonkovich said, the muzzle-loading harvest did lift the total harvest for our last two firearms seasons of the year to what seems to have become a rather predictable benchmark of 25,000 deer between them.”
The
total number of deer taken in Ohio during all 2020-2021 hunting
seasons is 187,883, with one month remaining to hunt with archery
equipment. That number has already surpassed last season’s final
tally of 184,468.
The Top 10 counties for deer taken during the 2021 muzzle-loader season included: Coshocton (367), Tuscarawas (344), Licking (290), Guernsey (279), Muskingum (263), Meigs (260), Knox (256), Carroll (249), Holmes (243), and Ashtabula (238).
Here is a county-by-county list of all white-tailed deer checked by hunters during the 2021 deer muzzleloader hunting season. The first number following the county’s name shows the harvest numbers for 2020, and the three-year average of deer harvested in 2017, 2018, 2019 is in parentheses.
Adams: 166 (220); Allen: 39 (54); Ashland: 195 (227); Ashtabula: 238 (284); Athens: 201 (326); Auglaize: 34 (54); Belmont: 223 (268); Brown: 178 (189); Butler: 79 (91); Carroll: 249 (325); Champaign: 89 (75); Clark: 32 (47); Clermont: 120 (141); Clinton: 33 (58); Columbiana: 169 (240); Coshocton: 367 (455); Crawford: 46 (68); Cuyahoga: 3 (2); Darke: 26 (42); Defiance: 82 (104); Delaware: 65 (66); Erie: 41 (40); Fairfield: 84 (136); Fayette: 14 (27); Franklin: 21 (37); Fulton: 22 (41); Gallia: 154 (165); Geauga: 91 (89); Greene: 41 (49); Guernsey: 279 (397); Hamilton: 17 (37); Hancock: 52 (64); Hardin: 71 (99); Harrison: 215 (310); Henry: 23 (32); Highland: 179 (192); Hocking: 135 (282); Holmes: 243 (282); Huron: 105 (131); Jackson: 154 (222); Jefferson: 136 (160); Knox: 256 (331); Lake: 27 (25); Lawrence: 100 (97); Licking: 290 (367); Logan: 105 (132); Lorain: 105 (127); Lucas: 10 (21); Madison: 33 (31); Mahoning: 90 (121); Marion: 29 (52); Medina: 132 (130); Meigs: 260 (309); Mercer: 31 (36); Miami: 25 (39); Monroe: 174 (222); Montgomery: 26 (29); Morgan: 201 (292); Morrow: 73 (107); Muskingum: 263 (423); Noble: 171 (247); Ottawa: 22 (28); Paulding: 41 (71); Perry: 149 (222); Pickaway: 37 (59); Pike: 118 (153); Portage: 80 (109); Preble: 50 (68); Putnam: 31 (23); Richland: 187 (238); Ross: 171 (231); Sandusky: 53 (56); Scioto: 103 (149); Seneca: 106 (101); Shelby: 50 (63); Stark: 150 (178); Summit: 24 (34); Trumbull: 122 (178); Tuscarawas: 344 (391); Union: 46 (54); Van Wert: 10 (24); Vinton: 134 (218); Warren: 42 (75); Washington: 226 (317); Wayne: 100 (158); Williams: 86 (93); Wood: 49 (50); Wyandot: 65 (88). 2020 total: 9,708. Three-year average: (12,695).
- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischk@Ameritech.net
JFrischk4@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment