Archery season almost here

As I talked about in my last col­umn, one of the favorite hunt­ing sea­sons in Ohio is almost here.

Approx­i­mately 205,000 bow hunters, rep­re­sent­ing more than half of all Ohioans who hunt deer, will par­tic­i­pate in the statewide archery deer hunt­ing sea­son open­ing Sept. 29, accord­ing to the ODNR Divi­sion of Wildlife.

Dur­ing last year’s four-month archery sea­son, bow hunters killed 82,732 deer, a decrease of three per­cent from the pre­vi­ous year. Cross­bow hunters took 44,979 of that num­ber and long­bow hunters took 37,753 deer. Over­all, archers accounted for 38 per­cent of the 219,748 deer taken dur­ing Ohio’s com­bined 2011-12 archery, muz­zle­loader and gun seasons.

Lick­ing County was the state leader in both the ver­ti­cal bow and cross­bow har­vest. Coshoc­ton, Tus­carawas, Ashtab­ula and Guernsey rounded out the top five coun­ties in cross­bow har­vest, while Coshoc­ton, Tus­carawas, Musk­ingum and Hamil­ton com­pleted the list of top five coun­ties in ver­ti­cal bow harvest.

Hunters must report their deer har­vest, but are no longer required to take their deer to a check sta­tion for phys­i­cal inspec­tion. Instead, hunters have three options to com­plete the auto­mated game check; On the Inter­net at wildohio.com, by tele­phone at 877-TAG-ITOH (877–824-4864) (this option is only avail­able to those who are required to have a deer per­mit to hunt deer), and at all license agents. A list of these agents can be found at wildohio.com or by call­ing 800-WILDLIFE.

Game-check trans­ac­tions will be avail­able online and by tele­phone seven days a week and dur­ing hol­i­days. Landowner hunters who are not required to pur­chase a deer per­mit must use the Inter­net or any license agent to check their deer. Hunters who tag their deer as a landowner har­vest can­not use the phone-in method. All autho­rized license sales agents will also check in your game. A list of these agents can be found at wildohio.com or by call­ing 800-WILDLIFE.

Ohio hunters are encour­aged to kill more does again this sea­son, using the reduced-priced antler­less deer per­mit to help the needy in their area. The Divi­sion of Wildlife is col­lab­o­rat­ing with Farm­ers and Hunters Feed­ing the Hun­gry (FHFH) to help pay for the pro­cess­ing of donated veni­son. Hunters who donate their deer to a food bank are not required to pay the pro­cess­ing cost as long as fund­ing for the effort lasts. More infor­ma­tion about this pro­gram can be found online at fhfh.org.

All deer hunters are required to have a valid Ohio hunt­ing license and a valid deer per­mit. This year, the $15 antler­less deer per­mit will be valid Sept. 29-Nov. 25 in all Zones, A, B and C. The $15 antler­less per­mit may be pur­chased only until Nov. 25.

This year’s statewide archery sea­son remains open from Sept. 29– Feb. 3, 2013, includ­ing the week of deer-gun sea­son Nov. 26-Dec. 2. Deer-gun hunters will also be able to enjoy an addi­tional week­end of hunt­ing Dec. 15– 16. Archers may hunt one half-hour before sun­rise to one half-hour after sun­set, except dur­ing the statewide gun, youth and muz­zle­loader sea­sons when they are one half-hour before sun­rise to sun­set. Archers hunt­ing dur­ing the statewide gun, youth or muz­zle­loader sea­sons must meet the hunter orange require­ments of those seasons.

To hunt deer in Ohio, hunters must pos­sess a deer per­mit in addi­tion to a valid hunt­ing license. State law allows hunters to take only one antlered buck per year, regard­less of the type of deer sea­son, deer per­mit or weapon used for deer hunt­ing. A detailed list­ing of deer hunt­ing rules is con­tained in the 2012–13 Ohio Hunt­ing Reg­u­la­tions, avail­able where licenses are sold, or may be viewed online at wildohio.com.

• State wildlife and ani­mal health offi­cials have con­firmed local­ized out­breaks of a com­mon white-tailed deer dis­ease in eight Ohio coun­ties includ­ing Ashtab­ula, Columbiana, Geauga, Holmes, Pauld­ing, Portage, Ross and Summit.

Ohio Depart­ment of Agriculture’s Ani­mal Dis­ease Diag­nos­tic Lab­o­ra­tory con­firmed that of the 20 sam­ples, 13 deer had epi­zootic hem­or­rhagic dis­ease. State ani­mal health offi­cials stress EHD occurs annu­ally in deer herds across North Amer­ica. A sim­i­lar hem­or­rhagic dis­ease called blue­tongue has been known to occur through­out the United States and Canada, but should not be con­fused with EHD. There are no cases of blue­tongue dis­ease con­firmed in Ohio.

White-tailed deer con­tract EHD from the bit­ing midges, which typ­i­cally live near water. White-tailed deer, along with mule deer, elk, bighorn sheep and prong­horn ante­lope are sus­cep­ti­ble to the dis­ease. The dis­ease is not spread from deer to deer or from deer to humans. Once infected, deer show symp­toms within five to 10 days. Infected deer ini­tially lose appetite and fear of man, grow pro­gres­sively weaker, often sali­vate exces­sively and become uncon­scious. Many deer die within 36 hours of the onset of symptoms.

Midges can also spread EHD among cat­tle and sheep. These out­breaks may occur at the same time deer are being impacted. How­ever, this is not a case of the dis­ease spread­ing from deer to live­stock or vice versa, but is an indi­ca­tion that the bit­ing midges are present in large enough num­bers to spread the disease.

State wildlife offi­cials stress to those plan­ning to hunt impacted areas this fall that although this dis­ease does not affect humans nor impact the safety of con­sumed deer, hunters should report deer that appear to be sick or dis­eased to their local wildlife offi­cer. Deer that appear unhealthy should never be taken for human food.

Accord­ing to the Uni­ver­sity of Georgia’s annual South­east­ern Coop­er­a­tive Wildlife Dis­ease Study, EHD is the most com­mon ail­ment affect­ing deer in the East­ern United States. The dis­ease is com­mon in por­tions of the north­ern Great Plains and the south­east­ern United States, and was first iden­ti­fied in 1955 in New Jersey.

• Beaver and river otter trap­ping on pub­lic land requires a spe­cial per­mit, accord­ing to the ODNR Divi­sion of Wildlife. Con­trolled beaver and/or river otter trap­ping oppor­tu­ni­ties on 75 wildlife areas, state parks and other pub­licly man­aged lands statewide will be awarded through a sys­tem of ran­dom draw­ings. Appli­cants may apply online or print an appli­ca­tion and mail it in along with all fees, and appli­ca­tions may also be obtained from dis­trict offices.

The appli­ca­tion period will be Sept. 15-Oct. 15. The appli­ca­tion fee is $3 per event. Trap­pers may apply for each event once annu­ally, and peo­ple who apply more than once per event will be dis­qual­i­fied and for­feit his or her appli­ca­tion fee. Inde­pen­dent draw­ings will be held for each event. Appli­ca­tion fees are non-refundable, and all appli­ca­tions must be sub­mit­ted in the name of an adult that holds a cur­rent hunt­ing license.

Results will be avail­able by mid-November. Appli­cants will be noti­fied by U.S. mail of the results. Addi­tion­ally, each appli­cant can check his or her cus­tomer account online to view lot­tery results for events for which they applied. Trap­pers cho­sen to par­tic­i­pate may print their per­mit online, along with any spe­cial instruc­tions and maps. The per­mit to trap applies to the suc­cess­fully drawn appli­cant and one named assis­tant, but the assis­tant may not be changed once named.

Where river otter trap­ping is allowed, both the per­mit holder and the assis­tant may trap the legal limit within their zone. All per­mit­ted trap­pers and assis­tants must be prop­erly licensed. Beaver trap­ping per­mits are not trans­fer­able. If a suc­cess­ful appli­cant is not able to trap an area for which he or she was cho­sen, the per­mit holder must inform the dis­trict office so an alter­nate can be drawn from the pool of appli­cants. Trap­pers must com­plete and turn in a trap­ping log for each site for which they are permitted.

Until next time, Good Hunt­ing and Good Fishing!

Posted by Rob Hamilton on Sep 26 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.