Tewnty-four year old Alex Clark of West Union with a nice 8-pointer taken with a crossbow on November 23. Alex went on to tag two does fulfilling the three- deer limit for Adams County. (Photo courtesy of Lizabeth Lafferty)
The deer biologists at ODNR are going to be crunching the numbers as this past deer season yielded the fourth highest number of deer harvested on record. Deer hunters in Ohio tagged in a total of 238,137 deer this past season. That is the combined total from archery, youth season, gun and muzzleloader seasons and controlled firearms hunts. That is up over 11 percent from the 2023-24 deer season when 213,927 deer were checked.
Although the numbers may bring a satisfactory smile to deer hunters, the agriculture and auto insurance industry are probably not smiling as these numbers mean a growing, robust deer population throughout Ohio. I’ve already heard through the grapevine that some changes are in store for next year’s deer season. Look for more generous bag limits and perhaps even a shakeup in season lengths as the Division of Wildlife attempts to put a lid on the deer population.
Across the state, archery hunters tagged 106,269 deer, gun hunters bagged 104,565 deer, muzzleloaders contributed 13,476 deer checked, youth hunters added 10,449 deer, and the controlled firearms hunts yielded an additional 3,378 deer to the total. Here’s an interesting stat, a total of 115,683 does were harvested, while bucks, including button bucks and bucks with shed antlers and antlers under three inches made up almost 52 percent of the total harvest numbers standing at 122,454. Next season you can bet the deer biologists will look for ways to increase the doe harvest.
From my personal observation here io Adams County, yes, the numbers are up, but not significantly. And the fact that my wife has hit two deer with the same car, perhaps it’s time to look at restructuring deer season. Lengthening gun season by a weekend, move the archery season opener up a few weeks, maybe a weeklong muzzleloader season? Perhaps, but with so much land leasing in the state, those that control the property control the population to an extent.
Liberalizing deer seasons will certainly affect deer numbers in Tranquility and Shawnee State Forest but might have little effect on property closed to only a few hunters. There are some instances of those leasing hunting property paying neighboring farms to not allow hunting to increase deer numbers. I guess with enough money you can buy your own deer herd.
Locally, Adams County hunters checked 3,637 deer for the 2024-25 season. Of that number 1,777 were taken by archery, gun hunters accounted for 1,860 deer.
The largest number of deer ever harvested in Ohio was 16 years ago during the 2009-10 season when 260,442 deer were checked. Other interesting stats the state provided are Coshocton County led the state in total number of deer checked with 8,196. No surprises here, Coshocton is pretty much the deer capital of Ohio.
The state’s most popular hunting implement is of course the crossbow, followed by straight-walled cartridge rifles. Last is handguns, used by less than 1 percent of hunters. Non-resident hunters from Pennsylvania, Michigan, West Virigina, North Carolina and New York lead the state in non-resident license sales.
