Cooler temperatures were welcome during first youth hunt of the 2016-17 deer season when young hunters harvested 9,429 deer during the two-day season.
The harvest is lower than last year’s 12,000-deer youth hunt, but similar to the 2014 season when youth hunters took just over 9,700 deer, according to Cory Gray, deer program coordinator.
According to checked numbers, Arkansas’s deer harvest is at about 51,000 deer statewide. Again, this is below last year’s harvest of 64,000, but on track with the year before, which had 53,000 deer checked by this point in the season.
The slow start to this season concerned some hunters but Gray says things should balance out as cooler weather sets in and more hunters enter the woods.
“We often see hunting seasons start off slowly, but quickly catch-up as the season progresses,” Gray said. “The opening weekend of modern gun season and the week of Thanksgiving will be crucial periods for state harvest.”
Biologists as well as the public can see the harvest numbers in real time at https://www.ark.org/agfc/gamecheck/reports.php.