Ohio's bonus deer gun season bolsters to-date kill; final harvest estimate revised up

Bolstered by the stunning success of the statewide two-day “bonus” firearms deer-hunting season, Ohio’s to-date deer kill has taken a 6,616 animal leap over its 2016 to-date counterpart.

What’s more, only 20 of Ohio’s 88 counties have recorded to-date (as of December 19^th) declines. A few have shown remarkable increases, too. Among them are Ashtabula County which – as of December 19^th – had recorded a 208 animal increase over its 2016 to-date numbers. Meanwhile, Carroll County had registered a 408 animal increase, and Holmes County, a 393 animal increase.

Regardless, this year’s two-day bonus season numbers were spell-binding to the point of being awesome, says game biologists with the Ohio Division of Wildlife. These scientists were not expecting an avalanche of counties to exceeded their respective 2016 two-day season numbers.

“Staggering is a good term,” said a stunned Mike Tonkovich, the Wildlife Divisions deer management program administrator. “To the best of my knowledge we’ve never seen anything like it before here in Ohio.”

Thus the unexpected stellar success of the bonus season has solidified the to-date deer kill standing, as of December 19^th. In examining the statistics, the details show that one county has a to-date deer kill greater than 5,000 animals – Coshocton with 5,731. Last year Coshocton’s comparable to-date deer kill was 5,042 animals; the only county also to have a then-to-date deer kill exceeding 5,000 animals..

Further, there are six counties with respective kills of 4,000 to 4,999 animals each. These counties (with their 2016 comparable to-date numbers in parentheses) are: Ashtabula 4,514 (4,306); Guernsey – 4,024 (3,892); Knox – 4,108 (3,958); Licking – 4,292 (4,165); Muskingum – 4,584 (4,293); and Tuscarawas – 4,963 (4,260). At this same juncture last year there were four counties with reported to-date deer kills of 4,000 to 4,999 animals.

A notch lower for the 3,000 to 3,999 to-date deer kill, Ohio has six counties also. These counties (with their respective and comparable 2016 to-date numbers) are: Athens – 3,225 (3,038); Carroll – 3,400 (2,992); Harrison – 3,166 (3,121); Holmes – 3,651 (3,258); Richland – 3,119 (2,831); and Trumbull – 3,185 (3,201).

Ohio still has 29 counties with fewer than 1,000 animals killed each to-date. Among these counties are five counties which have yet to top 500 deer killed each. These Bottom Bunch Member counties (with their respective to-date 2016 numbers in parentheses) are: Fayette – 315 (283); Madison – 466 (424); Ottawa – 402 (385); and Van Wert – 466 (426). Note then that like the hunters in the Four Thousand-Plus Club Member counties, the all of the hunters in the Bottom Bunch Club Member counties have enjoyed higher success as well.

It is perhaps telling that though Ohio still has its January 6^th through 9^th muzzle-loading deer-hunting season and while the archery deer-hunting season extends until February 4^th, last year fully 83 percent of the state’s deer had been taken by this point on the calendar.

Projecting out then, Tonkovich says he now believes that Ohio’s deer hunters may end up killing between 187,000 and 190,000 animals when the final arrow is launched February 4^th.

- By Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischk@Ameritech.net