State's vaunted Electronic Game Check system suffers hours-long crash on Ohio's deer gun season opener

 

“Anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible moment.” “Murphy’s Law,” first written usage attributed the 19^th Century mathematician, Augustus De Morgan.

An unknown number of hunters on the November 28th opening day of Ohio’s firearms deer-hunting season were thwarted by a technical glitch that prevented them from accessing the state’s much vaunted electronic “Game Check” system.

For several hours on the November 28th the system’s vendor – selected through competitive bidding process by the Ohio Division of Wildlife – was unable to process the checking in of deer. This, on the most important and busiest day of Ohio’s various and long combined deer-hunting season.

“Harvest figures are based on date and time of check -automatically generated by our licensing/game check system - rather than the hunter provided date/time of kill. Our game check system went down on Monday (November 28th) evening, obviously an unfortunate time for it to misbehave!,” said Clint McCoy, the Wildlife Division’s chief deer management biologist.

McCoy was in Wyondot County CWD deer-check system on Monday when the system crashed.

“Thankfully, it was restored within a few hours, but there were certainly some hunters that tried to check a deer on Monday evening that ended up checking it on Tuesday,” McCoy said.

Consequently, McCoy said “for this reason, our opening day figure is likely biased a bit low and our Tuesday harvest likely inflated a bit.”

Taking both days together it looks like 32,870 deer were reported in the first two days of the gun season, which is “a bit shy of last year’s 34,748 deer for the two days, but about 18 percent more deer than the three-year average of 27,948 deer,” McCoy said.

“All told so far we’re at 124,368 deer reported through Tuesday of gun season, which is pretty much on pace with last year’s harvest which was sitting at 122,262 through the same time period,” McCoy said.

Thus, overall, “opening day provided pretty solid hunting weather with temperatures in the 40s and little to no precipitation across most of the state,” McCoy said.

Here are the opening day firearms deer-hunting season kills. They are reported as Opening Day 2022/Opening Day 2021/Opening Day, three-year average:

Adams: 226/288/220; Allen: 88/92/75; Ashland: 368/504/357; Ashtabula: 548/725/538; Athens: 318/420/305; Auglaize: 135/135/93; Belmont: 273/335/267; Brown: 210/249/203); Butler: 51/99/75; Carroll: 464/607/421; Champaign: 92/127/99; Clark: 42/53/33; Clermont: 134/162/132; Clinton: 56/57/50; Columbiana: 397/448/330; Coshocton: 591/850/624; Crawford: 175/191/137; Cuyahoga: 7/8/(also 8); Darke: 69/86/67; Defiance: 283/297/241; Delaware: 79/139/104; Erie: 73/91/57; Fairfield: 196/240/164; Fayette: 33/36/26; Franklin: 35/38/32; Fulton: 105/150/108; Gallia: 271/306/225; Geauga: 118/205/128; Greene: 60/70/46; Guernsey: 434/642/448; Hamilton: 24/30/20; Hancock: 165/164/104; Hardin: 112/166/138; Harrison: 310/429/357; Henry: 160/140/113; Highland: 244/309/237; Hocking: 305/308/265; Holmes: 369/650/451; Huron: 347/375/268; Jackson: 273/284/209; Jefferson: 239/232/190; Knox: 474/679/519; Lake: 45/43/29; Lawrence: 153/216/144; Licking: 430/572/427; Logan: 177/241/(also 177); Lorain: 133/193/130; Lucas: 28/27/25; Madison: 36/67/41; Mahoning: 138/200/139; Marion: 78/158/103; Medina: 138/181/119; Meigs: 289/370/259; Mercer: 118/(also 118)/85; Miami: 49/53/38; Monroe: 281/276/230; Montgomery: 43/56/38; Morgan: 330/382/292; Morrow: 162/217/156; Muskingum: 584/677/505; Noble: 294/387/283; Ottawa: 36/56/32; Paulding: 131/203/160; Perry: 299/369/258; Pickaway: 68/(also 68)/58; Pike: 123/173/133; Portage: 148/189/131; Preble: 63/83/55; Putnam: 134/117/85; Richland: 305/414/323; Ross: 205/264/209; Sandusky: 77/72/52; Scioto: 173/159/117; Seneca: 257/310/206; Shelby: 94/112/81; Stark: 246/269/185; Summit: 33/36/22; Trumbull: 301/382/313; Tuscarawas: 584/729/546; Union: 90/119/81; Van Wert: 63/81/59; Vinton: 164/262/189; Warren: 71/81/60; Washington: 373/436/324; Wayne: 179/251/180; Williams: 244/318/231; Wood: 88/89/70; Wyandot: 185/262/193.
2022 Total: 17,193/2021 Total: 21,754/3-Year Average Total:16,057.

By Jeffrey L. Frischkorn

JFrischk@Ameritech.net

JFrischk4@gmail.com

Shortened season didn't stop Ohio's fall wild turkey hunters from hitting the bull's-eye

 

In spite of dealing with a regulatory shortened season, fall wild turkey hunters in Ohio still did better than just okay; they field dressed the final kill results.

Ohio’s fall wild turkey season was open from October 8th to November 13th in 70 of Ohio’s 88 counties. This season was two weeks shorter than has occurred in recent years.

The total reported wild turkey kill for this newly created abbreviated season was 1,003 birds. That figure represents a 44-percent increase from Ohio’s 2021 season – 695 birds – and was within one percent of the 5-year average of 999 birds (the years 2017 through 2021).

“If we exclude the last two weeks of the previous three fall seasons in Ohio (or the years 2019 through 2021), the average total harvest would be 737 birds per fall season,” said Mark Wiley, the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s chief wild turkey management biologist.

Wiley said, too, that increased permit success rates suggest fall hunters encountered better turkey numbers than in recent years.

“Above average poult indices in 2021 and 2022 also suggest turkey numbers likely improved. We typically see increased fall turkey harvest in years with high poult indices, though 2021 was a rare exception to this pattern,” Wiley said.

Not to be lost, either, noted Wiley, is that unofficially, the Wildlife Division issued 7,100 fall turkey permits, which represented a 5-percent decrease from 2021 when the agency issued 7,47 fall wild turkey-hunting permits.

And from all the 2022 fall permits, 50 percent, 9 percent, and 7 percent were issued to residents, nonresidents, and youth hunters, respectively. Reduced cost or free permits accounted for 33 percent, Wiley said as well.

“The permit success rate (percentage of permits resulting in harvest) was 7.9 percent across all permit types. This is above the 5-year average (again, 2017-2021) of 6.1 percent,” Wiley said.

In terms of where 2022 fall birds were taken, Wiley said that 95 percent reportedly came from private land and the remaining 5 percent came from public lands.

Interestingly, fully 441 turkeys - or 44 percent - were taken by landowners.

Broken down further, the total fall wild turkey kill included 50 percent male turkeys, followed by 48 percent female turkeys, and 2 percent of unknown sex.

Too, says, Wiley, the percentage of turkeys taken by shotgun was down, while the percentage taken by archery tackle was up. Way up, in fact.

Statistics show that during Ohio’s 2021 fall wild turkey-hunting season, 52.2 percent of the birds killed were taken with shotguns. Meanwhile, the just concluded season saw that number tumble to 45.3 percent.

Vertical archery tackle success remained pretty close year-to-year 2021 verses 2022: 16.4 percent and 16.7 percent, respectively.

However, the percentage of birds taken by crossbow soared. For Ohio’s 2021 fall season, 31.4 percent of the birds shot were taken with crossbow archery tackle, a figure that rocketed to 37.9 percent for this past fall season Wiley said.

Here are the preliminary county-by-county harvest figures for Ohio’s 2022 fall wild turkey-hunting season:

County	Female		Male		Unk.	Total		County	Female		Male		Unk.	Total
	Adult	Juv.	Adult	Juv.					Adult	Juv.	Adult	Juv.
Adams	2	3	5	1	1	12		Knox	6	0	9	1	0	16
Allen	3	0	2	0	0	5		Lake	2	0	6	1	0	9
Ashland	5	1	8	2	0	16		Lawrence	5	1	5	0	0	11
Ashtabula	15	3	12	4	0	34		Licking	13	0	9	1	0	23
Athens	6	0	8	1	2	17		Logan	3	0	6	1	0	10
Belmont	13	0	8	0	0	21		Lorain	4	0	4	0	0	8
Brown	4	0	7	1	0	12		Lucas	9	1	4	0	0	14
Butler	4	0	11	0	0	15		Mahoning	7	0	3	1	0	11
Carroll	6	3	8	1	0	18		Medina	2	0	2	0	0	4
Champaign	1	0	3	0	1	5		Meigs	7	3	13	2	0	25
Clermont	5	0	8	2	0	15		Monroe	13	2	14	0	1	30
Columbiana	5	2	17	3	0	27		Morgan	8	2	3	3	0	16
Coshocton	15	5	16	1	1	38		Morrow	1	2	3	0	0	6
Crawford	1	0	1	1	0	3		Muskingum	12	1	13	0	0	26
Cuyahoga	0	0	5	0	0	5		Noble	6	1	5	1	0	13
Defiance	2	0	8	0	0	10		Paulding	2	1	4	0	0	7
Delaware	2	0	7	3	0	12		Perry	8	1	11	2	0	22
Erie	1	0	2	1	0	4		Pike	5	1	10	1	0	17
Fairfield	4	0	2	0	1	7		Portage	6	0	6	2	0	14
Franklin	1	0	0	0	0	1		Preble	5	0	4	0	1	10
Fulton	1	1	0	0	0	2		Putnam	2	0	1	0	0	3
Gallia	8	1	8	2	0	19		Richland	8	3	6	0	0	17
Geauga	14	1	6	2	0	23		Ross	4	0	8	3	0	15
Guernsey	16	1	6	3	0	26		Scioto	6	0	4	1	0	11
Hamilton	3	1	9	1	0	14		Seneca	1	3	1	1	0	6
Hancock	2	0	0	0	1	3		Stark	11	1	6	0	1	19
Hardin	0	3	2	0	0	5		Summit	5	1	0	0	0	6
Harrison	8	3	15	1	0	27		Trumbull	7	6	8	1	2	24
Henry	2	0	2	0	0	4		Tuscarawas	13	4	15	2	0	34
Highland	13	4	9	2	1	29		Vinton	8	1	9	1	0	19
Hocking	10	1	5	1	0	17		Warren	2	0	5	0	0	7
Holmes	3	4	11	1	0	19		Washington	13	3	8	3	1	28
Huron	0	0	0	1	0	1		Wayne	3	1	2	2	1	9
Jackson	6	2	5	0	0	13		Williams	2	1	4	1	0	8
Jefferson	12	2	8	0	1	23		Wyandot	1	0	1	1	0	3
								Grand Total	403	81	436	67	16	1,003

By Jeffrey L. Frischkorn

JFrischk@Ameritech.net

JFrischk4@gmail.com