Modern gun season for deer opens this Saturday and it’s a good bet hunters will post the third overall record deer harvest in the past four years.
“Everything indicates we could have a record harvest,” said Gabe Jenkins, deer and elk program coordinator for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. “The deer harvest so far has been exceptional.”
Good numbers of deer across the state, a cool and wet summer and sub-par mast production, are thought to be major factors for the robust deer harvest so far this season.
Some 2015 Deer Season Highlights
* Archery hunters established a harvest record in September, checking in 6,649 deer. It was the fifth record harvest by archers in the past six Septembers.
* A record 5,558 deer were checked in during the youth-only firearms season, which is open to boys and girls under age 16. The season dates this year were Oct. 10-11.
* During the early muzzleloader season, Oct. 17-18, hunters checked in 8,262 deer, the second highest total ever for the season.
* The archery, youth and early muzzleloader season totals combined for a record deer harvest of 20,509 deer in October. It was the first time since 2001 there was a record deer harvest for the months of September and October, in the same season.
“We’re not just barely breaking records, we’re smashing them,” said Jenkins.
Kentucky’s cool, wet summer created lots of cover for fawns, ensuring a high survival rate, and plenty of lush browse for deer to eat during the normally hot and dry late summer. A sub-par mast (acorn) crop has deer on the move, and that will benefit hunters.
The annual statewide mast survey rates white oak acorn production as poor with 26 percent of white oak trees bearing mast, while acorn production from red oaks rates average.
With fewer acorns available, deer must search harder to find food. Thick cover adjacent to forage fields should be productive this season. Hunters should find some deer near green food sources, remaining fields of clover and alfalfa, and food plots.
Overall Harvest Trending Up
Let’s take a look at the overall deer harvest since 2000, and some of the contributing factors.
After 1999, the first year that all 120 counties were open to hunting, the overall deer harvest inched up past 100,000 to a record 124,752 by 2004.
“In 2004 we changed to the current zone structure,” said Jenkins. “2004 was the first year there was no limit on the number of does (antlerless deer) that could be taken by hunters in the Zone 1 counties.”
All Kentucky counties are designated as Zone 1, 2, 3 or 4, based on deer densities. Zone statues determines gun season length and season bag limits.
As anticipated, after the 2004 season the overall deer harvest declined, then began to slowly rebound.
But during the seven-year period that followed, between 2005 and 2011, the overall deer harvest was relatively “flat,” trending in a range between 112,462 and 119,663.
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The reason for the lower numbers, well below the record, was a significant die-off of deer in 2007 caused by Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease (EHD), and compounded by a less severe outbreak in 2010. The acute, infectious, often fatal viral disease killed deer statewide, but especially hard hit were counties in west central Kentucky.
It took several years for herds to recover. During that period, the deer season regulations were more conservative, to allow herds to grow back.
By 2012, the overall deer harvest was back in record territory, for the first time ever surpassing 130,000 (131,395). Then another milestone was achieved the following year, in 2013, when the harvest climbed above 140,000 for the first time (144,409).
Gun Season Harvest
Driving the overall deer harvest is the large number of deer taken during the statewide gun season. By regulation, gun season starts on the second Saturday in November and runs for 16 consecutive days in Zones 1 and 2 and for 10 consecutive days in Zones 3 and 4.
During the past five seasons the firearms deer harvest rose from 79,026 in 2010 to 102,893 in 2014. The record deer harvest by firearms hunters occurred in 2013 (104,621). Last year the harvest during modern gun season represented 74 percent of the 138,899 deer taken during the entire season.
Jenkins said weather is always a key to the harvest during gun season. “If it’s rainy and wet, or very windy, hunters don’t go (afield). That impacts the number of deer taken.”
The timing of the rut may also be a factor.
Due to calendar shift, Kentucky’s modern gun season for deer opens as late as it can (November 14) this year. By the time gun hunting starts, breeding will be underway, with some bucks already paired up with does.
This will mean the peak of buck movement, when the first does come into estrus, will be passed.
“Gun hunters are going to be at that later end of the rut and should expect rut activity to be less than in previous years,” Jenkins said.
Art Lander Jr. is outdoors editor for KyForward. He is a native Kentuckian, a graduate of Western Kentucky University and a life-long hunter, angler, gardener and nature enthusiast. He has worked as a newspaper columnist, magazine journalist and author and is a former staff writer for Kentucky Afield Magazine, editor of the annual Kentucky Hunting & Trapping Guide and Kentucky Spring Hunting Guide, and co-writer of the Kentucky Afield Outdoors newspaper column.