Deer hunting proposals made on Feb. 6

An Octo­ber antlerless-only white-tailed deer muz­zle­loader hunt­ing sea­son, extended hunt­ing hours and new bag lim­its were pro­posed to the Ohio Wildlife Coun­cil on Wednes­day, Feb. 6, accord­ing to the Ohio Depart­ment of Nat­ural Resources.

The pro­posed antlerless-only muz­zle­loader hunt­ing sea­son would be Oct. 12–13 and sched­uled for the sec­ond week­end of Octo­ber in sub­se­quent years. The pro­posal includes mak­ing the Octo­ber muz­zle­loader sea­son for antler­less deer only, regard­less of the method of take, and elim­i­nat­ing both the bonus gun week­end in Decem­ber and the early muz­zle­loader sea­son at three pub­lic hunt­ing areas (Salt Fork Wildlife Area, Shawnee State For­est and Wild­cat Hollow).

Hunt­ing hours are pro­posed to be extended 30 min­utes past sun­set for all deer firearms sea­sons, includ­ing the week­long deer-gun sea­son, youth sea­son and muz­zle­loader sea­sons. This will make the hours the same as archery season.

County bag lim­its are pro­posed to replace deer zones. Pro­posed bag lim­its will be two, three or four deer, deter­mined by county. The pro­posed statewide bag limit is nine deer with addi­tional con­trolled hunt oppor­tu­ni­ties, which do not count against the statewide bag limit. The nine deer bag limit is reduced from last season’s 18 deer limit.

It is also pro­posed that antler­less per­mits will only be valid until the Sun­day before the deer-gun sea­son. Urban deer zones would be elim­i­nated. Hunters may har­vest only one buck in Ohio, regard­less of the method of take or location.

Pro­posed deer bag lim­its, from the fol­low­ing coun­ties combined:

•　One either-sex per­mit, one antler­less per­mit (eight coun­ties): Darke, Erie, Fayette, Han­cock, Madi­son, Ottawa, San­dusky and Wood.

•　Two either-sex per­mits, one antler­less per­mit (23 coun­ties): Auglaize, But­ler, Cham­paign, Clark, Gal­lia, Har­ri­son, Henry, Hock­ing, Jack­son, Jef­fer­son, Lawrence, Logan, Meigs, Mer­cer, Miami, Mon­roe, Mont­gomery, Perry, Pre­ble, Ross, Shelby, Van Wert and Washington.

•　Three either-sex per­mits, one antler­less per­mit (57 coun­ties): Adams, Allen, Ash­land, Ashtab­ula, Athens, Bel­mont, Brown, Car­roll, Cler­mont, Clin­ton, Columbiana, Coshoc­ton, Craw­ford, Cuya­hoga, Defi­ance, Delaware, Fair­field, Franklin, Ful­ton, Geauga, Greene, Guernsey, Hamil­ton, Hardin, High­land, Holmes, Huron, Knox, Lake, Lick­ing, Lorain, Lucas, Mahon­ing, Mar­ion, Med­ina, Mor­gan, Mor­row, Musk­ingum, Noble, Pauld­ing, Pick­away, Pike, Portage, Put­nam, Rich­land, Scioto, Seneca, Stark, Sum­mit, Trum­bull, Tus­carawas, Union, Vin­ton, War­ren, Wayne, Williams and Wyandot.

Pro­posed sea­sons for 2013–2014:

•　Deer archery: Sept. 28, 2013 — Feb. 2, 2014.

•　Deer antler­less muz­zle­loader: Oct. 12–13, 2013.

•　Youth deer gun: Nov. 16–17, 2013.

•　Deer gun: Dec. 2–8, 2013.

•　Deer muz­zle­loader: Jan. 4–7, 2014.

The start of fall turkey hunt­ing sea­son is pro­posed to be moved to the Mon­day fol­low­ing the antler­less deer muz­zle­loader sea­son. The pro­posed fall turkey hunt­ing sea­son is Oct. 14 — Dec. 1, 2013. But­ler, Delaware, Fair­field, Franklin, Hamil­ton, Huron, Seneca and War­ren coun­ties are pro­posed to be added to the exist­ing list of coun­ties open for fall turkey hunt­ing, which would bring the total to 56 counties.

Deer and fall wild turkey per­mits would go on sale June 1, instead of March 1.

Changes in hunt­ing reg­u­la­tions are pro­posed by ODNR Divi­sion of Wildlife biol­o­gists and wildlife man­age­ment staff. These pro­posed changes, if approved by the Ohio Wildlife Coun­cil, will take effect for the 2013–2014 hunt­ing sea­sons. Open houses will be held statewide March 2 for pub­lic input on the pro­pos­als, and pub­lic com­ments are wel­come online at wildohio.com. After receiv­ing pub­lic input, the Ohio Wildlife Coun­cil will vote at its April 17 meeting.

If you go to wildohio.com, you can find a very detailed expla­na­tion for each of the pro­posed changes. Obvi­ously, some of the archery hunters will be con­cerned about open­ing a muz­zle­loader sea­son in Octo­ber, but the ODNR points out in their expla­na­tion that only 13 per­cent of deer hunters archery hunt exclu­sively; 23 per­cent only hunt deer with a firearm; while 63% of Ohio’s deer hunters use mul­ti­ple types of imple­ments. They also claim that sup­port of an early antler­less only muz­zle­loader was shown by 63% of all deer hunters and 43% of archery only deer hunters.

The ODNR also explains that on aver­age, only 2,000 deer are har­vested the sec­ond week­end in Octo­ber, which is less than one per­cent of the sea­son total. Of those 2,000, approx­i­mately 75% are does, not bucks. Elim­i­nat­ing the extra gun week­end would give deer a break before the Jan­u­ary muz­zle­loader sea­son and elim­i­nat­ing the extra gun week­end will now give archery hunters the entire month of Decem­ber to hunt with­out inter­rup­tion for a firearms season.

I am con­fi­dent that one of the most pop­u­lar changes will be to extend the legal shoot­ing hours to one-half hour after sun­set dur­ing the firearms sea­sons. That last few moments before dark is typ­i­cally when deer move the most dur­ing that time of the year. Research shows that allow­ing hunters to hunt to dusk does not increase acci­dents and 33 other states allow it with very few problems.

For fur­ther jus­ti­fi­ca­tions to the pro­posed changes, be sure to look for them on the ODNR web­site and take advan­tage of the oppor­tu­nity to voice your opinion.

Until next time, Good Hunt­ing and Good Fishing!

Posted by Rob Hamilton on Feb 13 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.