SUPER SATURDAY

OUTLOOK GOOD FOR MODERN GUN DEER SEASON

Deer hunters may take bucks and does in Northwest Arkansas during the modern gun deer season, which opens Saturday.
Deer hunters may take bucks and does in Northwest Arkansas during the modern gun deer season, which opens Saturday.

If deer hunting had a Super Bowl, kickoff would be Saturday morning when the modern gun deer season opens across Arkansas.

Deer hunters will sport their team colors - blaze orange with a little camo thrown in. It’s gameon when a buck or doe is on the playing fi eld.

Seats for the spectacle might be a lofty tree stand or a folding stool on the ground against the trunk of a thick oak tree.

Attendance is measured in six fi gures.

“Arkansas has about 280,000 deer hunters,” said Cory Gray, deer program coordinator for the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission.

“This is their Saturday. It’s Super Saturday,” Gray said Tuesday, looking ahead to opening day.

There’s no better time to be a deer hunter in Arkansas. Whitetails roam the entire state in good numbers.

Arkansas’ deer herd numbers about 1 million. A hunter in any county has a chance to tag a trophy buck if antlers are the goal. Does are legal throughout the season in most deer zones.

The only other wish a hunter might have for opening day is cooler weather. Temperatures are forecast for the mid-50s on Saturday morning, not the frost that legions of hunters prefer.

GAME’S THE SAME

These are the good old days for deer hunting. The quest is the same - bring home the venison.

Maybe hunt the biggest antlersyou can fi nd.

One thing is diff erent. Deer hunting isn’t just for bucks anymore.

Hunters are killing more does, and that’s good for the state’s deer herd, Gray said. The best ratio is a herd that’s half bucks, half does, he noted. We’re getting there.

“We’re ahead on our doeharvest this year. We’re harvesting more does than bucks,” Gray said.

That could change on Saturday, opening day, when Gray expects hunters to kill about 20,000 deer statewide. Odds are most will be bucks.

October saw the first antlerless-only modern gun deer season in north Arkansas. Does used to be off limits. In that hunt, held Oct. 13-17, bucks were protected.

Gray said the antlerless season had the desired eff ect - to thin some does and get the state’s herd closer to the one buck to one doe ratio.

The harvest was 11,000 does statewide during the antlerless season. Compare that with 5,200 does during last year’s antlerless hunt limited to south Arkansas.

During all seasons combined - archery, muzzleloader and modern gun - hunters checked 192,512 deer in 2011-12.

FAVORED FOOD

Where should a hunter look for deer come Saturday morning? Stands of oaks with acorns scattered on the ground are usually good, but acorns are scarce this fall, said Brian McKinzie, Northwest Arkansas’ chief of enforcement with the commission.

“It’s spotty at best. In most places it’s bad,” he said. “Where there are acorns, they’re small.”

Persimmon trees are loaded with fruit that is dropping to the ground, McKinzie said. Locating a grove of persimmon trees could put a hunter in business.

“Grass is greener now than it was in July and deer are feeding on that,” McKinziesaid. “A lot of deer we’ve been seeing have been in open fi elds.”

A lack of acorns, a whitetail’s preferred food, is a good thing for hunters. Deer roam more looking for food,McKinzie said. That makes it more likely they’ll wander within range of hunters during deer season.

Lucky is the hunter who has permission to hunt on private property. Some publicland, such as McIlroy Madison County Wildlife Management Area and Hobbs State Park-Conservation Area, has gone to limited permit hunts. Permits were awarded months ago.

The lion’s share of deer hunting is on private land.

SAFETY KEY

This deer season could be a hunter’s last if he or she is involved in a hunting accident. If a mishap happens, it’ll most likely be a fall from a tree stand, said Joe Huggins, hunter education coordinator with the Game & Fish Commission.

“We had 22 total hunting accidents last year. Of those, 14 were falls from tree stands. Two falls were fatal,” Huggins said.

The number of hunters mistaking someone for game or shooting themselves, has decreased. Huggins credits this in part with hunter education courses the commission has offered for years.

Hunter education is required of hunters born on or after Jan. 1, 1969. These hunters must complete a hunter education course and carry a hunter education card while hunting.

Tree stand falls are preventable, Huggins said. The technology of tree-stand safety harnesses has improved.

“A lot of them are like wearing a comfortable hunting vest,” Huggins said.

Like seatbelts in a car or life jackets in a boat, a safety harness is worthless if it’s tucked away in a deer hunter’s pack.

Take some time before Saturday to check the condition of any tree stand, Huggins said. Be especially leery of home-built stands.

The welds, nuts and bolts on factory stands can weaken, so check them over, he said.

Get ready. Saturday and the Super Bowl of hunting are almost here.

Outdoor, Pages 6 on 11/08/2012

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