Ohio's deer season ebbs but the to-date antlered kill best in three years

With just 19 days left before Ohio closes the books on the all-inclusive 2015-2016 deer-hunting seasons, Coshocton and Licking counties remain the sole members of the elite Five Thousand Club.

This totally unofficial club is made up of Ohio counties in which at least 5,000 deer each have been killed. In Coshocton County’s case the to-date deer kill totals 5,563 animals and for Licking County the figure stands at 5,128 animals.

Yet with this being the caboose end of the state’s archery deer-hunting season, the gains are measured in inches and not in leaps and bounds.  The January 13^th to-date kill for Coshocton County was 5,504 animals while for Licking County the figure was 5,050. Thus only an 59 additional deer were killed in Coshocton County this past week, and just 78 more deer were killed during that seven-day span in Licking County.

Membership in the Four Thousand Club remains unchanged at six, as well, with gains likewise being seen as incremental rather than as jet-propelled.  The same six counties - with their respective January 13^th to-date numbers in parentheses – are: Adams County – 4,067 (4,033); Ashtabula County – 4,690 (4,638); Guernsey County – 4,311 (4,274); Knox County – 4,362 (4,322); Muskingum County – 4,851 (4,807); and Trumbull County – 4,787 (4,722).

And with just two more reporting weeks left the chances of one of these Four Thousand Club members joining the Five Thousand Club roster appears remote. Perhaps the only two which might squeak in would be Muskingum County and possibly (a long shot, at best) Trumbull County.

Occupying the state’s 88-county cellar are still Van Wert County – 488 (487: yep, an addition of only one animal this past week); Madison County – 479 (473); Ottawa County – 390 (383); and Fayette County – 304 (301).

Also, Henry County holds this reporting week’s dubious honor of failing to note any deer kill increase from the previous January 13^th tally; each reporting period recording an identical deer kill of 675 animals. And there were a bunch of two-, three-, and four-deer kill increase counties, too.

As for where the season stands to-date, the total deer kill as of the January 20^th report (and whose numbers are applicable up to January 19^th) is 182,861 animals.  For comparison purposes, the like 2015 to-date deer kill was 171,189 deer. Meanwhile,  the corresponding 2014 to-date deer kill was 187,739 animals.

Of more than passing interest to Ohio’s bowmen, the state’s current to-date archery deer kill – and as noted in the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s January 20^th weekly report - stands at 38,639 antlered animals and 40,453 antlerless animals

 From an historical standpoint, 2015’s to-date archery antlered deer kill was 34,872 animals and 42,769 antlerless animals. In 2014 the corresponding to-date numbers were 33,838 antlered deer and 48,778 antlerless deer.

Similarly the current to-date “All Harvest” antlered deer kill is leaving its 2014 and 2015 counterparts in the dust.

For the current January 20^th report, the to-date “All Harvest” antlered deer kill stands at 75,314 animals. The corresponding to-date “All Harvest” antlered deer kill figure for 2015 was 64,923 animals and for 2014 the to-date “All Harvest” antlered deer figure was 66,354 animals.

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 100 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.