Page 15 - Sept/Oct 2021 Outdoor Oklahoma

The 2020-21 Oklahoma big-game modern firearm, setting a new har- Figure 2: Success Rates by Method
hunting seasons were an exception- vest record. This figure includes the 2004–Current
al success, providing hunters abun- holiday antlerless season and the
dant opportunities with great habitat youth season.
Gun Archery Muzzleloader
along with healthy and robust herds. Muzzleloader hunters bumped up 45
And Oklahoma hunters took advan- their harvest from the 2019-20 sea- 40
tage of the opportunities, breaking son by almost 1,000, reporting a total
many harvest records across the 17,411 deer taken. 30
25
state, in more ways than one. And it was no surprise that ar- Success Rate Percentage 35
Deer season resulted in re- chery hunters set another season 20
cord-shattering numbers for hunter harvest record with 35,337 deer tak- 15
10
participation and harvest. Elk hunt- en. Archery hunting has been on an
5
ing saw a substantial increase in har- upward trend over the past handful 0
vest. And pronghorn hunting remains of years. Figure 2 shows success 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
a highly sought-after and successful rates among the various hunting Year
quarry to hunt. methods, while Figure 3 represents
These are good times for a big- individual seasons and their respec- Figure 3: 2020-2021 Percent
game hunter in Oklahoma! tive harvests. Harvest by Season Type
Oklahoma deer hunters are able
Deer Hunting Seasons to try their luck across a wide di-
A total of 126,290 deer were har- versity of habitat types. Along with
vested during the 2020-21 seasons, the diversity comes varying levels
the most ever. More importantly, of deer habitat quality. While some
antlerless harvest made up 43 per- counties enjoy large tracts of public
cent of the total harvest, the highest land that is rich with wildlife, others
since 2010 and a 5 percent increase do not. To even the playing field,
from the 2019-20 season. Figure 1 Table 1 shows deer harvest totals
shows the total number of deer har- by county without including the
vested for each year from 2004 to deer taken on public hunting areas
the present. including ODWC’s wildlife manage-
Gun season continued as the most ment areas (WMAs).
Gun
popular deer hunting season. Gun Due to their large size, the top three 58.2% Archery Muzzleloader
28.0%
13.8%
hunters took 73,542 deer with a counties for deer harvest came in as
Figure 1: Total Harvest from 2004 to Current
140
Bucks Does
120

Harvest (in thousands) 80
100

60

40

20

0
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Year

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