By Louie Stout

Area Deer Harvest Shows Decline

There is no doubt about it; fewer Hoosier deer were killed in northern Indiana during last fall’s hunt than the year before.

Indiana DNR statistics bear that out.

The 2016 fall harvest stats, based on hunter reports of deer killed, show a slightly diminishing harvest from 2015 to 2016 in St. Joseph, Elkhart, Kosciusko LaPorte and Marshall counties.

Each county was different. In St. Joseph, 57 fewer were killed - 47 fewer does and 10 fewer bucks. Other county breakdowns, with does/bucks in parenthesis, are: Elkhart, -14 (-71/+57); LaPorte -4 (+66/-70); Marshall -92 (-113/+21); and Kosciusko (-41 (-87/+56).

Statewide, the harvest was down 4 percent overall with the buck harvest up 1 percent while the antlerless deer harvest dropped 8 percent.

Despite the drop, the statewide buck harvest ranks fifth all-time while the antlerless harvest ranks 14th.

The drop locally, if not statewide, indicates DNR efforts to lower the herd size with antlerless permits are doing the job. The question remains, will the DNR take its foot off the gas and tighten up antlerless harvest with fewer permits?

That announcement is due soon.

Other factors the DNR takes into consideration are crop damage and deer vehicle collisions per county. In St. Joseph, damage reports remained the same while vehicle collisions dropped by 62. Elkhart and Kosciusko saw a small drop in both categories while LaPorte had one more damage and five more vehicle reports in 2016. Marshall checked in with two more damage reports and 44 fewer vehicle collisions.

St. Joseph’s buck harvest of 446 is considerably lower than it was eight years ago when it was 612. In fact, the county hasn’t seen buck harvest in the 500s since 2011.

Another interesting deer stat provided in the DNR report shows that 4.65 bucks were killed per square mile in St. Joseph County. In Elkhart, it was 4.01 bucks, 10.21 in Marshall, 3.68 in LaPorte and 10.54 in Kosciusko.

The difference? Available habitat and size of urban areas within each county.

Across Indiana, firearms accounted for nearly 78 percent of the harvest while archers took 28 percent and muzzleloaders 8 percent of the deer harvest.

Last year’s new regulation that increased rifle hunting opportunities also had an impact on the statewide results.

In fact, deer harvest with rifles jumped 91 percent last year. Bow hunting dropped 16 percent, shotgun fell 32 percent, handgun was down 34 percent and crossbow off 5 percent from 2016.

Rifles accounted for most of the buck harvest among firearm users. Rifle shooters took 24,202 bucks while shotgun hunters bagged 14,106 and muzzleloader hunters took 15,800.