Jeff Frischkorn

Ohio’s deer hunters didn’t shoot a record number of animals this past season, though they did score the fourth highest-ever tally with 238,137 animals.
And with fewer hunters participating, too. In fact, the 238,137 figure is more than the total number of deer taken from 1943 through 1980. Indeed, for the last day of the 2024-25 season, 834 deer were shot. That figure is more than each of these four seasons: 1943, 1944, 1945, and 1952.

Now that the shooting’s over, Ohio deer hunters can spin tall tales and tell great lies. But for the state’s deer biologists, the work has just begun.
“There is very little time between the end of the deer hunting season and regulation proposals for the following season,” Clint McCoy, the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s deer biologist, recently told Ohio Outdoor News.
However, McCoy says, the wildlife division has enough information by the close of muzzleloader season “to satisfy the harvest data needs that we have for making any regulation changes”

Deer hunters in Ohio are approaching the finish line, and the last baton hand-off saw a seamless transfer.
During the recently concluded four-day statewide muzzleloading deer hunting season (Jan. 4-7), hunters killed 13,476 white-tailed deer. That figure is 712 more animals then were reported during the 2024 statewide muzzleloading season (12,714 animals), and 395 more deer based on the three-year average (13,081 deer).

Deer hunters flocked to Ohio’s fields and forests Dec. 2 through Dec. 8 to help put a dent in most of the state’s 88 counties.
Based on data provided by the Ohio Division of Wildlife, hunters checked in 87,192 deer during the week-long gun season. This is the highest total since 2011 when 90,282 animals were taken. During the 2023 Ohio firearms deer hunting season, hunters reported killing 70,103. Likewise, the the three-year average is 70,806 animals.