With more than a month left in Arkansas’s archery deer season, hunters have checked 214,022 deer during the 2020-21 deer hunting season.
That’s more deer than any season since the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission began keeping harvest records in 1938.
The previous record harvest of 213,487 deer was set in the 2012-13 season. With the exception of last year, Arkansas hunters have harvested more than 200,000 deer annually since that season. During the 2019-20 deer hunting season the harvest dipped to 188,151.
“Last year was the result of a perfect storm lined up against harvest,” said Ralph Meeker, AGFC deer program coordinator. “Spring and summer flooding in 2018 and 2019 contributed to lower fawn recruitment in certain parts of the state.
“Then a massive crop of hard mast (primarily acorns) reduced deer movement and made deer feeders much less productive. On top of that, flooding during the peak of the gun season closed hunting in some parts of the state. All three of these factors contributed to what we witnessed in the 2019-20 deer harvest.”
According to license sales numbers from the last five years, this year is the first in many when hunter numbers did not decline. This year’s resident and nonresident hunting license numbers are similar to 2018, but still far below the numbers seen during the record-setting year nearly a decade ago.
COVID-19 also may have influenced hunters toward the number of deer they harvested. The pandemic caused many meat shortages throughout the nation last year, which may have increased people’s view of venison as a healthy and sustainable alternative to beef and pork.
“I know of several people who harvested (or attempted to harvest) more deer than they normally would this season to fill their freezer for the coming year,” Meeker said. “We’ve also likely seen some hunters who had not purchased a license in a few years get reactivated this year, but those are only two factors that went into the high harvest,” Meeker said. “All of the factors that hindered harvest in 2019 were nearly the exact opposite in 2020.”
“What will be interesting to see is if hunters were able to harvest a larger percentage of older age-class bucks, another result of carryover from 2019,” he said. “It also will be interesting to see how the harvest numbers per hunter break down once the season has ended.”
Apply now; Triple Trophy Award rewards successful deer hunters
Only late-season archery archers are now visiting the woods for a last chance to harvest a deer before the season ends Feb. 28. It means there is plenty of time for hunters to apply to be in one of Arkansas’s elite hunting circles, the Game and Fish Commission’s Triple Trophy Award.
Hunters who qualify for the Triple Trophy Award must take, during a single annual deer season, at least one deer by each of the three legal hunting methods: modern firearms, muzzleloading rifle or pistol, and archery/crossbow tackle. Qualifying hunters receive a patch and a certificate suitable for framing.
The program started in the mid-1980s to encourage harvesting antlerless deer and spread hunting pressure through the three seasons, reducing crowding.
At one point in the 1930s, only 500 deer were estimated to still exist in Arkansas. Unregulated market hunting and subsistence hunting nearly caused them to be completely wiped out.
AGFC introduced deer from other states and relocated deer to game refuges, where they were protected and allowed to grow without disturbance. Harvest of female deer was strictly prohibited to enable the deer herds to expand. By the 1980s, deer populations had grown to allow some harvest of does to begin the change in management from growth to maintenance.
Hunters and wildlife enthusiasts interested in learning more about white-tailed deer harvest records and scientific management of the species in Arkansas can find historical deer harvest reports and the AGFC Strategic Deer Management Plan.