Ice Storm Fails To Put A Big Chill On Antlerless Deer Harvest

[Phil Lilley]

Even with an 8 percent decline in the number of deer taken during the December antlerless hunt, the 2007 firearms deer harvest was the third-largest of all time.

JEFFERSON CITY-Weather, the perennial wild card in the deer-harvest game, dealt a lousy hand to hunters in the Antlerless Portion of Missouri’s firearms deer season. In spite of this tough break, they went on to shoot enough deer during the December antlerless hunt to push the 2007 firearms deer harvest to the third-largest level in history.

Hunters checked 19,472 deer during the Antlerless Portion of Firearms Deer Season Dec. 8 through 16. That is down 8 percent from last year, and the smallest number since the antlerless season went from four to nine days in 2003.

Hunters shot more than 25,000 deer the first year of the nine-day antlerless hunt, a figure that has never been topped in the antlerless season’s 12-year history.

High counties during the Antlerless Portion of Firearms Deer Season were Macon with 608 deer checked, Pike with 601 and Callaway with 593.

Going into the nine-day Antlerless Portion, the 2007 firearms deer harvest was on pace to be the third- or fourth-largest on record. Then a slow-moving winter storm blanketed most of the state in ice. Trees by the thousands collapsed in many areas, bringing down power lines and blocking roads.

Many hunters were more concerned about keeping their homes and families safe than they were in putting venison in the freezer. Those who did hunt, found they could not move through the woods without making so much noise that deer could hear them coming.

On the other hand, the severe weather caused deer to stay close to available food sources, making their behavior more predictable. Snow that fell across much of the state on the last Saturday of the antlerless hunt gave hunters a last-minute break by making deer more visible.

At the end of the first week of the Antlerless Portion, hunters had checked a little more than 10,000 deer. They nearly doubled that figure in the last two days of the antlerless hunt.

When added to the harvests during the Urban Portion of Firearms Deer Season (554), the Youth Portion (12,267), the November Portion (214,494) and the Muzzleloader Portion (13,372), the Antlerless Portion harvest brings the 2007 firearms deer harvest to 260,162.

Missouri’s sole remaining deer hunting season is the archery season, which runs until Jan. 15. Archers have killed between 35,000 and 43,000 deer in recent years.

The Missouri Department of Conservation recorded no firearms-related hunting accidents during the Antlerless Portion of Firearms Deer Season. It recorded four during the preceding segments. Three involved self-inflicted injuries. None was fatal.

-Jim Low-

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