MOUNT VERNON — Deer hunters are slowly wrapping up the 2008 season with just one opportunity left. The extra two-day gun season concluded on Sunday, and it was a busy one.
Deer kill totals
Following is a list of deer killed by hunters during the deer-gun hunting weekend, Dec. 20 and 21. Numbers in parentheses are 2007 figures.
“Our numbers are down a little bit, but overall, they are not too bad,” said Knox County Wildlife Officer Mike Miller. “There were 16,382 deer killed over the past weekend, Dec. 20 and 21. Last year, there were 17,710 taken, so it is down a little. ... In Knox County, we had 320 checked this year, and I think it was 389 last year. For the year, we are still ahead of the game as far as total kills in the county by about 1,000 or better. That’s a good thing for us.”
Tuscarawas County led the state with 868 deer taken. Harrison County was second (724), Licking County finished third (594), Guernsey County was fourth (534) and Holmes County finished fifth (522). Rounding out the top 10 were Coshocton County (514), Ashtabula and Washington counties (426), Jefferson County (394) and Belmont County (389).
The Licking County total was up 20 from last year, while the Knox County total dropped by 69. Miller said there are many reasons for the decrease.
“Sunday was brutally cold with the wind chill,” said Miller. “I also don’t think that the two-day gun season has ever actually fallen the exact weekend before Christmas. I think there has always been a week separation. The weekend before Christmas, people have a lot of things they have got to do — visit their family, finish up their shopping, all those types of things. When you have a honey-do list, it is hard to find time to get out and go hunting.”
A total of 218,890 deer have been taken so far this season when combining the adult and youth gun seasons, early muzzleloader season and the first nine weeks of the archery season. Hunters took a total of 232,854 deer during all of last year’s hunting seasons.
“These numbers are just preliminary,” Miller said. “We won’t know the exact totals or how many bucks and does were killed until the end of January or the beginning of February. Our research station handles that stuff. They scan it into the computers and they have a program that determines all of it. They will know exactly how many deer were killed per county. Right now, that number represents the number of deer checked per county. You have instances like Oiler’s (Meat Processing in Utica). Half of all of the deer they take in are Knox County deer. Those are not counted in the preliminary totals.”
Hunters have one more opportunity to take a deer with a gun. The statewide muzzleloader season will be held Saturday through Tuesday.
“I think during the muzzleloader season, we will kill another 350 to 400 deer because that is traditionally what we do,” said Miller. “The weather forecast is predicting 50 degrees with a chance of rain, so more people will be out because the weather is much more comfortable. I think we’ll see more people out this weekend.”
INCIDENTS STAY DOWN: A bit of good news during the holiday season. Hunting incidents are on par with last year, according to Miller. There have been a small percentage compared to the numbers of hunters in the woods.
“As far as the total number of hunting incidents, it was a pretty good year because not much happened,” said Miller. “Last year, there were 11 non-fatal and one fatal incident. This year, so far in 2008, we have had a total of 11 incidents. Right now, it looks like there were two fatals over the past weekend and that’s statewide. It is very similar to last year. Quite a few were self-inflicted.
“There were no reports in Knox County, and none of them were in counties even adjacent to Knox County,” added Miller. “They happened mostly in Eastern Ohio and Southeastern Ohio.”
Those totals do not include non-hunting related injuries, such as falling from a tree stand or other related injuries.
“We investigate them if they are directly related to hunting, as far as if they’ve been shot,” Miller said. “If they are actively hunting, like shooting at a deer or they are engaged in hunting. Then we investigate those. If somebody falls out of a treestand, that doesn’t legally meet the definition of hunting, so we don’t investigate those. That falls on the sheriff’s office to do.”
With the extremely low number of accident cases reported statewide, Miller believes hunters should see that as an encouragement.
“Hunting is one of the safest sports you can participate in,” said Miller. “There are more emergency room visits from fishing than from hunting. When you figure you have 500,000 people out hunting and all of the activity that takes place, to have just a handful of injuries is pretty good.”
