A subscription to Arkansas Wildlife, the magazine of the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission, is a bargain at $12 per year.
It’s worth the price this month alone to read Cory Gray’s recap of the 2012-13 deer season.
Gray is head of deer management for Game & Fish. His report on the just completed season reveals good news on several fronts. No. 1 is the record-breaking harvest. Hunters killed 213,487 white-tails this past season to break the old record of 194,687 deer set in 1999. More liberal bag limits this past season helped set the record, Gray noted.
There’s more. Hunter success rate is at an all-time high at 70 percent. To determine hunter success, Gray divides the number of hunting licenses sold by the number of deer killed.
This 70 percent figure was unthinkable years ago. Gray notes deer hunter success was about 10 percent in 1980. After that the rate climbed slowly. Success rate was only 3 percent in 1945.
As far as harvest by county, South Arkansas has always led the way. Now, harvest rates are as high in some North Arkansas counties as those down south, Gray reports.
“Washington, Fulton and Sharp counties (of North Arkansas) are comparable to Drew, Ashley, Ouachita and Union counties in the south,” Gray said.
Washington County’s harvest, for example, was six deer per square mile.
That’s the same as some south Arkansas counties.
That wasn’t the case in the 1990s when the harvest in southern counties was eight to nine deer harvested per square mile.
At the same time northern counties recorded one to three deer harvested per square mile.
The buck- to-doe ratio is better. For years Gray has hoped to see the ratio closer to 1-to-1. In 2003, about 2.5 bucks were harvested for every doe, or 2.5 -to-1. This past season the ratio was almost 1-to-1, Gray said. That is, an equal number of bucks and does killed.
Game & Fish now focuses as much management work toward does as bucks, Gray said in his recap. There’s still heavy attention paid to bucks. The three-point rule adopted years ago has been a prime factor in more quality bucks.
Checking the numbers, Gray was surprised to find that the buck harvest increased this past season, even though the bag limit remained the same as season before it.
Switching gears, Gray reminds folks that this is the time of year fawns are born. It’s a delight for a hiker or any woods wanderer to come upon a bedded fawn that is curled up, cute and alone.
First thought may be that the fawn is an orphan. The instinct could be to pick up the fawn and take it home. That’s the last thing a person should do, Gray said.
First, does commonly hide their fawns during their first few weeks while mom goes looking for a bite to eat. The mother is almost always close by and will return to care for the fawn.
Picking up a fawn isn’t only a bad idea, it’s against the law. It has been illegal to hand-capture deer since July 2012.
Deer make poor pets. Gray has seen cases of people getting noses broken or teeth knocked out from petting a white-tail deer. The animals are also vulnerable to E.coli and salmonella, Gray said.
So if a fawn temps thee, leave that little white-tail be.
FLIP PUTTHOFF IS OUTDOORS EDITOR FOR NWA MEDIA.
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Outdoor, Pages 6 on 05/16/2013