North Dakota Outdoors: The Department

North Dakota's deer gun season doesn't begin until Nov. 7, and applications aren’t even due until June 4. So why I'm a thinking about deer already? 

The reason is because in the last few weeks Game and Fish Department biologists have summarized last fall’s harvest numbers, which provide significant direction toward setting the 2008 season. It's pretty basic math. If hunters were not as successful as in previous years, something contributed to that lower harvest. It's a basic follow up question asked by not only hunters but wildlife managers too. 

The same is true if deer hunter success increased dramatically. What are the factors that may or may not have influenced that trend.

Personally, numbers make my head hurt. However, numbers and statistics, combined with a rational dialog, are needed to set hunting seasons, so let's take a look back at the 2007 deer hunting season by the numbers. 

The Game and Fish Department allocated 148,550 deer gun licenses in 2007, and more than 97 percent were issued to hunters. Deer gun hunters harvested more than 98,100 deer, muzzleloader hunters took more than 1,000, and youth hunters accounted for more than 1,400. 

The overall hunter success rate was 74 percent. Hunter success for antlered white-tailed deer was 79 percent, and antlerless whitetail was 71 percent. Mule deer buck success was 77 percent, while mule deer doe hunters had a success rate of 81 percent. 

The success rate for young hunters during the 9 ½ -day youth season was 45 percent. However, combined with the success rate by youth license holders during the regular season, overall success jumped to 80 percent. Muzzleloader season hunters had a success rate of 44 percent. 

During and after every season, hunter chatter typically relates to weather, land use and other factors that may or may not influence deer gun season results. For instance, last fall's season opener was the second latest day possible in the current range of Nov. 4-10. Hunters saw more corn on the landscape, and in some regions corn harvest didn't appear to finish up at the same rate as some past years. 

Those variables, along with warmer than usual weather or colder than usual weather, depending on the day and region, prompt hunter concerns over whether the state’s deer harvest will meet the Department’s goal.

As a hunter and frequent communicator with wildlife clubs and other hunters, I hear the same questions each year. Land use changes, and so does deer behavior. It all factors into the total deer harvest.

The bottom line is that a 74 percent success rate across North Dakota is about normal. Regardless of the weather or field conditions, North Dakota deer hunters will do what it takes to successfully harvest their deer. Rain, snow, heat, cold, corn or no corn, we buy licenses and use them.

With deer applications coming out in a couple of weeks, remember that the current system of allocating licenses works pretty well. Granted, not everyone gets a preferred license every year, and many hunters have a few personal thoughts on how to improve the system. In all honesty, these are usually a “me-first” or selfish adjustment that may or may not be a good thing for other hunters or overall deer management. 

In the end, thousands of deer hunters will take the field next fall with the same goal in mind, and that’s filling a deer tag. The odds are pretty good – about three in four based on historical averages – that those goals will be accomplished.

Leier is a biologist with the Game and Fish Department. He can be reached by email: dleier@nd.gov