With the Antlerless Portion of Firearms Deer Season still ahead,
Missouri’s firearms deer harvest already is in the top five of all
time.

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JEFFERSON CITY-Favorable weather and an abundance of tags left over
from the November Portion of Firearms Deer Season enabled Missouri
hunters to check a record 13,372 deer during the Muzzleloader Portion
Nov. 23 through Dec. 2. The strong showing boosts the running tally of
this year’s firearms deer harvest into the top five of all time.

Missouri Department of Conservation Resource Scientist Lonnie Hansen
said unseasonably warm weather during most of the November Portion of
Firearms Deer Season limited deer movement and, therefore, their
visibility to hunters.

“I heard from lots of deer hunters who said they didn’t see as many
deer in November as they usually do,” said Hansen. “When the
muzzleloader portion rolled around, there were more people out there
trying to fill deer tags, simply because they weren’t successful in
November.”

He said deer were more active during the Muzzleloader Portion because
the weather turned colder after Thanksgiving. The change in weather
showed up in a harvest that topped last year’s muzzleloader harvest by
42 percent and bested the muzzleloader harvest record set in 2004 by 12
percent.

The top three muzzleloader harvest counties were Oregon with 405, Osage
with 294 and Jefferson with 292.

Regional harvest figures were: Ozark, 2,405; central, 2,239; northeast,
1,702; southeast, 1,647; northwest, 1,469; southwest, 1,442; St. Louis,
1,411; and Kansas City, 1,057.

The number of deer checked by hunters during the opening weekend of the
November Portion was down by 32,647 – 25 percent – compared to the
record-setting opening weekend of 2004. Hunters picked up the pace in
the following nine days, however, checking 214,494 deer by the end of
that portion. That was the fourth-largest number of deer ever taken
during the November hunt and only 9 percent fewer than the all-time
record of 235,409.

Missouri’s more than 50,000 muzzleloader hunters further closed the
gap between this and previous years’ firearms deer kills. The number
of deer taken by firearms hunters so far this year stands at 240,687,
just 7 percent below last year’s record figure.

With the nine-day Antlerless Portion of Firearms Deer Season still
ahead, this year’s total deer harvest almost certainly will rise at
least one more place in all-time standings.

Since the antlerless hunt was moved from January to December five years
ago, that portion’s harvest has averaged a little more than 21,500
deer. A modest harvest of 13,681 deer during the Antlerless Portion
would be enough to propel this year’s firearms harvest to third
place.

Recent year’s muzzleloader and antlerless harvests have been:
2002 – muzzleloader, 9,364; antlerless, 13,413
2003 – muzzleloader, 11,131; antlerless, 25,151
2004 – muzzleloader, 11,938; antlerless, 24,217
2005 – muzzleloader, 10,115; antlerless, 21,922
2006 – muzzleloader, 9,436;
antlerless, 23,098
2007 – muzzleloader, 13,372; antlerless,

—.
Jim Low

www.missouriconservation.org/news

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