Arkansas deer hunters didn't let chronic wasting disease spoil their season.
In 2016-2017, hunters killed 202,070 deer in Arkansas. That's the fifth consecutive year that we killed more than 200,000 deer, and the fifth largest season on record.
Of course, that's significantly less than 2012, when we killed a record 213,487 deer. The total was 213,199 in 2013 and 212,910 in 2015. There was a bit of a drop to 208,075 in 2014, but 200,000-plus is still a big number in a state as small as Arkansas. It demonstrates that we have a lot of deer to justify the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission offering so much opportunity.
Frankly, the Game and Fish Commission was worried that the detection of chronic wasting disease in our state in early 2016 would scare a lot of hunters out of the sport.
So far, that fear has been unjustified, said Ralph Meeker, deer program coordinator for the Game and Fish Commission. Even in the CWD "hot zone" of Newton County, deer hunters went about their business as usual. Most declined a free opportunity to have their deer sampled for CWD, which suggests that they were not worried about it.
"Last deer season we set up 25 check stations to take CWD samples in the CWD zone in the first weekend of modern gun season," Meeker said. "We expected to get several thousand samples, but we only received 535 samples. We were surprised not more people were willing get a free CWD sample on that weekend."
Meeker said that nearly 70 percent of the state's 313,000 licensed hunters killed a deer during the 2016-2017 deer seasons, and that he estimates that each hunter killed a statistical average of 1.2 deer.
On the other hand, the discovery of CWD opened a new chapter in Arkansas deer management. The Game and Fish Commission's strategy until last year was for maximum sustained yield while maintaining a consistent population.
In the CWD zone in the Ozarks, the goal is radical herd reduction, with an emphasis on killing young bucks. The Game and Fish Commission suspended the 3-point rule in deer zones 1-2, and portions of Zone 3. The 3-point rule, adopted statewide in 1998, requires a legal buck to have at least three points on at least one antler. The AGFC also allowed hunters in the CWD zone to check button bucks as antlerless deer.
Hunters took advantage of the more liberal regulations on public land, but not on private land, Meeker said.
"That was a real eye opener in that part of the world," Meeker said.
The most significant harvest decreases, Meeker said, were in eastern, southeast and south Arkansas.
The Gulf Coastal Plain -- Deer Management Zone 12 -- harbors the largest number of deer in Arkansas, and it traditionally contributes the largest number of deer to our annual harvests.
Meeker said that the buck harvest decreased slightly, but the doe harvest decreased significantly. That matters in terms of numbers, but it also reversed the recent trend of hunters killing more does than bucks.
Drought and a phenomenal mast crop probably contributed most to lower deer kills in that part of the world.
Heavy rains in late fall often concentrate deer in higher elevations. We had an unusually dry fall last year, so deer remained dispersed.
"And, a lot of food plots failed because water wasn't available," Meeker said.
Lack of supplemental forage in food plots might not have mattered anyway because of all the acorns in the woods last year, Meeker added.
"We had a ton of acorns produced last year, and that reduced the amount of movements that deer had to make to find food," Meeker said. "It also made attractants less effective. Corn wasn't as effective as it normally is."
Presently, Arkansas is experiencing catastrophic, landscape-wide flooding. Floods might kill a lot of fawns, which will depress this year's class of deer.
The same group of counties led the state's deer harvest last year. Union County, as usual, was tops, followed by Clark, Washington, Bradley and Drew counties.
Overall, Arkansas hunters are happy with their deer hunting, Meeker said, even with CWD. It's hard not to be with such a plentiful and exciting resource.
Sports on 05/07/2017