Putnam 27th as deer harvest down but still top-10 season

The Hoosier deer harvest for 2013 was down more than 10,000 deer over the previous year but still was among the top-10 hunting seasons ever in Indiana, the Indiana DNR Division of Fish and Wildlife has reported.

Hoosier hunters harvested fewer deer in the 2013 season than in each of the previous five seasons. That might be sobering news to some deer hunters, but it wasn't unexpected.

"Going into the year, I knew it was going to be down," Chad Stewart, deer management biologist with the Indiana DNR Division of Fish and Wildlife, said. "It's what we thought it would be."

The reported Hoosier harvest of 125,635 deer was about 10,600 fewer deer than the record harvest of 136,248 in 2012, a decline of 7.8 percent. It still ranks eighth best since regulated deer hunting began in Indiana in 1951.

The Putnam County harvest ranked 27th among Indiana's 92 counties in highest overall harvest with 1,772 deer taken during 2013. Of those, 787 were antlered deer, ranking Putnam 30th last year in that category.

Hunters took just under 1,000 antlerless specimens in Putnam County during 2013, harvesting 985 deer with antlers.

More deer were taken in 2013 in Putnam County than in all neighboring counties except Parke (2,445, including 907 antlered deer).

The 2014 deer harvests in the other contiguous counties were reported as Owen, 1,712 total deer; Morgan, 1,344; Montgomery, 1,120; Clay, 1,051, and Hendricks, 639.

The full harvest report is available at wildlife.IN.gov, under Featured Topics.

"Down about eight percent is very similar to what we're seeing in a lot of other Midwest states, so we're par for the course," Stewart said. "We're still harvesting a lot of deer. The 125,635 shows we're down but not collapsing."

At least two and possibly three factors contributed to the lower harvest -- carryover from a widespread outbreak of epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD) in 2012 and more in 2013, a record antlerless harvest in 2012, and the second season of new hunting regulations aimed at lowering deer densities in some areas of the state.

EHD, a viral disease transmitted by biting flies, was confirmed or suspected in 67 counties in 2012. It was reported in 23 counties in 2013, with 20 of them taking a hit for the second straight year. EHD is often fatal to deer.

"We had a record antlerless harvest in 2012 on top of a major disease outbreak, which tells us there were a lot less deer going into the season," Stewart said. "It was pretty easy to predict the harvest would be down."

It's less certain how much of a role the new hunting regulations played.

"It really complicates things as far as interpretation," Stewart said. "It's not clear if deer numbers were down because of EHD or our management efforts or a combination of both."

The number of deer harvested in individual counties ranged from 91 in Tipton County to 3,454 in Harrison County. The 2013 harvest exceeded 1,000 deer in 57 counties; 2,000 deer in 19 counties; and 3,000 deer in three counties.

Harrison County had the highest harvest with 3,454 deer. Washington, Switzerland, Franklin, Steuben, Noble, Parke, Jefferson, Lawrence and Orange counties rounded out the top 10.

Harrison County's total made it one of 10 counties with unofficial record harvests, compared to 35 record-setting counties in 2012.

Steuben, which had been the perennial top county until 2012, reported its lowest harvest total (2,652) since 1997 but still ranked fifth in the state.

Tipton had the lowest reported harvest with 91 deer, followed by Benton, Blackford, Hancock, Rush, Clinton, Wells, Howard, Shelby and Marion.

The firearms season accounted for 57 percent of the total, followed by archery at 27 percent. The muzzleloader (8 percent), late antlerless (5 percent), and youth season (2 percent) made up the rest.

Hunters had three options to report their harvest -- traditional in-person check stations, online or by phone. It was nearly an even split between check stations (64,740) and the online/phone method (60,895). Last year, just over 60 percent were reported at check stations.

The antlered buck harvest exceeded 1,000 in three counties, while the antlerless harvest exceeded 1,000 deer in 31 counties compared with 42 in 2011. Antlerless deer composed at least 50 percent of the total harvest in 90 of the state's 92 counties in 2013, similar to 2012.