Muzzleloader deer harvest down for second year in a row

Some hunters probably got all the deer they wanted during the record-setting firearms deer season, and heavy snow probably kept others indoors during the closing weekend of the muzzleloader hunt.

JEFFERSON CITY-Weather and an unusually successful November deer season helped keep Missouri's muzzleloader deer harvest down this year, according to the Missouri Department of Conservation.

The agency reported that hunters killed 9,436 deer during the muzzleloader deer season Nov. 24 through Dec. 3. That is down 679 (6.7 percent) from last year's figure of 10,115 and 2,502 (21 percent) from the record of 11,938 set in 2004.

Resource Scientist Lonnie Hansen said he had expected the record-setting November firearms deer harvest of 235,054 to depress the number of deer taken during the antlerless deer season Dec. 9 through 17, but not the muzzleloader season, when hunters are allowed to shoot antlered deer.

"I suppose it is possible that some hunters got all the deer and deer hunting they wanted in November and sat out the muzzleloader season," said Hansen, "but I also think weather might have been a factor."

Deep snow blanketed a wide swath across the middle of the state, and temperatures fell to single digits during the final weekend of the muzzleloader season. Hansen said those conditions kept him from hunting as much as he might have under less extreme conditions, and other hunters might have been similarly affected. He said deer also are less active during severe weather, making them less visible to hunters.

Top muzzleloader deer-harvest counties were Franklin, with 227 deer checked, Osage with 218 and Ste. Genevieve with 212.

The Conservation Department recorded no firearms-related hunting accidents during the muzzleloader season.

-Jim Low-