THE FLIP SIDE: Antlers Ignored During Hunt

FIVE-DAY SEASON TARGETS DOES

The sounds coming from the woods on Saturday morning were typical of November, not October.

Gunfi re from deer rifles echoed over the land, a noise not usually heard in this month of arts and crafts and Halloween.

However, our little corner of Arkansas has never had a modern gun deer season in October.

November is the month of white-tails, but hunters here got an early start with an October modern gun deer season for antlerless deer.

The hunt opened Saturday morning and closed at dark Wednesday.

An antlerless hunt was held in south Arkansas last year. It went well enough that the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission opened it up to most of the state this year.

The idea is to take some of the does out of the state’s deer herd to get a better balance of bucks and does. That’s the word from Cory Gray, deer program coordinator for Game & Fish.

An ideal herd is half bucks and half does, he said.

The jury is still out on how much impact the antlerless season had around the state.

Gray said Wednesday he’s been out of the office and hasn’t been able to study harvest figures. It’s on his to-do list today.

Capt. Brian McKinzie, wildlife enforcement supervisor for Northwest Arkansas, noted that Washington and Benton counties are No. 1 and No. 2 in the state, respectively, as far as total deer harvest.

That includes archery and the just-completed antlerless modern gun season.

Online harvest figures on Wednesday showed 1,259 deer killed in Washington County and 963 in Benton County.

McKinzie said he’s surprised more hunters didn’t take part in the antlerless modern gun deer season.

Time was when most hunters thought shooting a doe was wrong. Most realize now that taking does is good for the herd, yet some won’t shoot one.

“We still have people who wouldn’t kill a doe if it was breaking into their house and tearing things up,” McKinzie said.

Deer hunters he talked with during the antlerless modern gun season were having success, McKinzie noted.

Violations were minimal during the five-day hunt, he said.

More shots will be heard this Saturday morning.

Muzzle-loader deer season opens Saturday and runs through Oct. 28 in most of Arkansas.

FLIP PUTTHOFF IS OUTDOORS EDITOR FOR NWA MEDIA. FOLLOW HIM ON TWITTER AT TWITTER.COM/NWAFLIP.

Outdoor, Pages 6 on 10/18/2012

Upcoming Events