Magnet Cove High School doubles up on archery state championships with win in 3D discipline

The Magnet Cove High School Panthers won the AGFC’s Archery in the Schools IBO Challenge Saturday, doubling up on their archery state championships this year. Photo courtesy Pangburn High School.

PANGBURN — Magnet Cove High School’s archers continued their 2025 domination in the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s Archery in the Schools Program Saturday by winning the Arkansas State International Bowhunting Organization Challenge at Pangburn High School with a total score of 1,678 of a possible 1,800 points, giving them a sweep of the AIS state championships Magnet Cove also won the AIS’ bull’s-eye state championship held in Hot Springs March 8.

The race for second and third place for the IBO Challenge was tightly contested, with Alpena High School nudging out the host team, Pangburn High School, by only 4 points. Alpena scored 1,608 while Pangburn dropped only an arrow or two behind to claim third with a score of 1,604.

Students participating in the IBO Challenge aim at lifelike 3D targets to replicate real-world archery and bridge the gap between field archery and hunting. Photo courtesy Charleston Archery in the Schools. 

Washington Middle School took first place in the Middle School Division with a score of 1,668. Barton Junior High scored 1,616 to claim second place, and Pangburn High School’s middle school team placed third with a score of 1,589.

Charleston Elementary won the Elementary Division IBO Challenge with a team score of 1,472. Washington Middle School came in second place with a score of 1,448, and Columbia Christian School took third place with a total score of 1,336 points.

Unlike the bull’s-eye competition held March 7-8 at the Hot Springs Convention Center, archers in the AIS IBO Challenge shoot at lifelike 3D targets of popular game animals. Instead of focusing on a central bull’s-eye, the archers try to hit the “sweet spot” on the animal targets, which would ensure an ethical harvest in a real hunting scenario. The bow, arrows and allowed equipment, however, are identical to those used during the field archery competition.

“Instead of shooting six rounds (called ends) at a single round target, the archers will shoot at six different animal-shaped targets,” Aimee Swaim, AGFC Archery in the Schools Program coordinator, said. “If they hit the main body of the target, it’s 7 points, then there are scoring rings inside of the animal’s vital area where a hunter would want to hit in the field with a 10 being an excellent shot on the animal in the real world. Any arrow that misses the target or hits an extremity is counted as a zero.”

This year’s State IBO Challenge more than doubled in size, requiring host Pangburn High School to expand the event into its second gymnasium. Photo courtesy Charleston Archery in the Schools.

This is only the second year for the AGFC’s AIS program to host a statewide IBO Challenge, and its popularity has skyrocketed.

“Last year we had about 360 students participate in the IBO challenge,” Swaim said. “This year we had more than 700 archers register for a 102 percent increase in a single year. We even had to expand our state tournament into Pangburn’s additional gymnasium to house all of the students who needed to shoot.”

In its second year, the 3D portion of Arkansas’s Archery in the Schools program already is ranked fourth in the nation in participation.

IBO Vice President Ryan Bass was encouraged by the fast growth of the sport in The Natural State.

“The International Bowhunting Organization was excited to be in Arkansas to assist AGFC with their state-level IBO 3D,” Bass said. “Arkansas [National Archery in the Schools Program] has grown substantially over the last year and it is apparent that the agency can see that 3D archery is a clear step to getting our youth archers into the outdoor lifestyle that we all cherish.”

Maddie Johnson from Charleston High School and Mark Smith from Magnet Cove High School were the top female and male archers in the event, with each earning a $500 scholarship from IBO. Photo courtesy Charleston Archery in the Schools.

Magnet Cove’s Mark Smith led the team in this state championship with an impressive 290 out of a possible 300 points. Smith secured a $500 scholarship from the International Bowhunting Organization for his accomplishment. Fellow Magnet Cove Panther and top overall performer in the bull’s-eye state championship, Cash Hignight, finished in third place, losing the tie-breaker for second with Travis Cook of Lead Hill High School. Both Cook and Hignight scored 288, but Cook prevailed in the tie-breaker.

Maddie Johnson of Charleston High School took the top individual archer spot on the female side of the High School Division. Johnson, who came in second during the state bull’s-eye competition, tied her score of 285 out of a possible 300, which was more than enough to stand alone atop the leaderboard at the end of Saturday’s shoot. Johnson also received a $500 scholarship courtesy of IBO for her effort. Ella Curry of Alpena High School took second place with a total score of 281, and Holly Chandler from Magnet Cove High School held the third-place trophy with a score of 279.

Visit www.agfc.com/AIS for more information on the AGFC’s Archery in the Schools Program.

Arkansas deer harvest increases, just short of 200,000

BY Randy Zellers

LITTLE ROCK – The last arrow has been launched for the 2024-25 Arkansas deer hunting season, and the tally of checked deer stands at 199,863. Although the raw data still needs to be analyzed, the preliminary results indicate an increase of nearly 4 percent over last year’s final harvest of 192,392.

Although 200,000 is a nice round number, it doesn’t make or break a deer season. AGFC Deer Program Coordinator Ralph Meeker says it is quite close to where Arkansas needs to be in terms of sustainable harvest given the state’s available habitat, hunting effort and reproductive capability of the deer herd

Anna Mooreland of Ferndale shot this mature buck during the second week of Arkansas’s 2024-25 modern gun deer season. Photo courtesy Clint Mooreland. 

“It’s a good rough measure, but we really look more closely at the harvest by deer zone to determine trends, and we still have to do some analysis there before we make any formal presentation,” Meeker said. “A lot of factors play into that statewide harvest number. Mast crop production, flooding and the closing of flood prone zones, inclement weather on the opening weekends of alternative firearm or modern gun deer season, and hunter effort can all affect regional harvest numbers which in turn affect the overall statewide harvest figure.”

The statewide harvest continues a steady climb, indicating that Arkansas’s deer population continues to recover after an unusually high spike in harvest following the COVID-19 epidemic.

“The deer population actually saw a bit of a double-whammy then,” Meeker said. “The deer season  prior to COVID (2019-20), we saw a small drop in the harvest, likely indicating a slight population decline. But in the 2020-21 season, we saw many more hunters go to the woods and many of those were more inclined to harvest an additional deer for the freezer with some of the talks of food shortages circulating. That’s likely why we saw a dramatic decline from our record-high 216,835 in 2020 to 181,379 the next year.”

Deer are resilient, and Meeker says the population is showing signs of recovery . In 2022-23, deer hunters harvested 185,579 deer, followed by a harvest of 192,392 deer in 2023-24.

“We also have a lot of reports of fawns seen this year by hunters, so we’re cautiously optimistic that reproduction is picking up to continue filling that void.”

AGFC Chief of Enforcement Col. Brad Young with a healthy buck in velvet. Photo courtesy Brad Young. 

This season marked the introduction of two new seasons: an early archery buck-only season and an alternative firearms season that allowed firearms shooting straight-walled cartridges to replace the muzzleloader season. The AGFC deer team watched numbers closely to determine any effects these changes may have had on overall harvest.

“So far, it doesn’t look like the new seasons had a dramatic effect on overall harvest,” Meeker said. “Successful deer hunters still harvested an average of 1.2 deer per hunter, so it was more of a shift in harvest to different methods.”

Meeker said the adoption of straight-walled rifles definitely boosted the overall muzzleloader harvest.

“During the last decade, we’ve seen a slow decline in muzzleloader harvest,” Meeker said. “This year, we had pretty close to the same muzzleloader harvest as last year, but the addition of straight-walled firearms more than doubled the total for that season. We’re pretty close to the same harvest numbers for alternative firearms combined that we saw for muzzleloaders in 2017, when it peaked.”

The alternative firearms increase came at the same time as a slight decrease in the modern gun harvest, again likely indicating a shift in season instead of an additive overall harvest.

“It’s possible that hunters who took a deer in alternative firearms season were more selective during modern gun, or it could have been a result of weather patterns during the seasons.”

Meeker says excellent hunting weather accompanied the alternative firearms season, but the opening weekend of modern gun season this year offered horribly wet and windy conditions.

“A little warm , a little wind or a little rain doesn’t hurt harvest much, but it was unseasonably warm, pouring down rain and very windy in most of the state during the modern gun opener this year,” Meeker said.

Favorable weather during the early archery buck hunt also prompted a pretty successful opening hunt, with about 1,200 bucks taken.

Hunters harvested nearly 200,000 deer during the 2024-25 Arkansas deer hunting season. AGFC photo by Mike Wintroath. 

“Participation was pretty high for this new season as well, especially considering that it fell on the same weekend as the dove opener,” Meeker said. “Participation in that season may fluctuate in the future, depending on the heat and season schedules.”

Meeker says a few hunters have asked if the alternative firearms and early antlerless seasons will become regular fixtures in Arkansas’s deer hunting, noting many questions before purchasing a new straight-walled cartridge firearm.

“You never know exactly what the future holds, but there have been no conversations about changing from this season’s format,” Meeker said. “As of now, we’re looking at harvest numbers and management strategies to continue to accommodate these new seasons.”

Learn more about deer and deer hunting in Arkansas at www.agfc.com/deer.

Hunters check 1,231 deer during inaugural early buck hunt

BY Randy Zellers

LITTLE ROCK — Arkansas bowhunters harvested 1,231 deer during the state’s first statewide early buck hunt earlier this month. The jump-start to deer season was added during the biannual regulations-setting process this spring to offer hunters the opportunity to pursue a buck still “in velvet.”

Ralph Meeker, deer program coordinator for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, said the hunt’s harvest was within the range expected by biologists when the hunt was announced.

“When we look at historical harvest for the first three days of archery season, hunters typically check between 2,000 and 4,000 deer, depending on the weather,” Meeker said. “But a lot of those deer are does, so when you look at only the buck component of that harvest, it’s around 800 to 1,500 antlered deer.”

Arkansas’s regular archery season has traditionally begun on the fourth Saturday in September.

Meeker says the results of Arkansas’s first statewide early deer hunt also fall fairly close to those found in Tennessee and Mississippi, two neighboring states with similar hunts.

“We had great weather during the hunt, and a lot of hunters were able to enjoy a cooler morning in the stand than anticipated,” Meeker said.

While many hunters enjoyed harvesting an early deer, the timing of this year’s hunt did fall slightly outside the peak time for the deers’ antlers to be shrouded in velvet.

“After talking to meat processors and hunters I know, I’d estimate that only about 10 to 15 percent of the bucks were still in velvet and I’d lean closer to that 10 percent side,” Meeker said. “The hunt is set for the first full weekend in September, and this year it happened to land on the latest possible calendar date for that criteria. As the calendar rotates, we’ll begin to see earlier hunts in future years. We see several bucks “in velvet” harvested in the first few days of the urban hunts, which typically open Sept. 1.”

The hunt also shouldn’t take much of the excitement out of the opening weekend of regular archery deer season, as many hunters still have tags and freezers to fill.

“I think a lot of hunters had to choose between early bucks and doves this year, so they’ll still be out there for the statewide archery opener,” Meeker said. “There are still a good number of people who archery hunt to just harvest a deer. The early hunt mainly attracts those die-hard bowhunters, so I think we’ll still see a lot of people in the woods for archery season. It also was a great opportunity for hunters who wanted to get out in the woods a little when they made their first trip to deer camp to clean up, plant food plots and get ready for the rest of the season. It was nice to give those folks a choice.”

Regular archery season in Arkansas is Sept. 28-Feb. 28. Visit www.agfc.com/deer for more information.

GOOD DEER
Andrew Mizell checked this impressive 8-point velvet buck in Desha County on the opening day of Arkansas’s first early buck hunt. 

U of O, AGFC join forces to build shooting sports facility

CLARKSVILLE — A recent agreement between University of the Ozarks and the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission has launched the public phase of a fundraising campaign by the university to build an Olympic-level shooting sports facility in Clarksville.

The memorandum of understanding outlines the construction and operation of the facility and was signed earlier this month in Little Rock by Austin Booth, director of the AGFC, and Richard Dunsworth, president of U of O.

Under the agreement, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission will donate $2 million in matching funds to the project and the university will raise the remaining cost of the project. The facility will be open to the public and will be constructed on a 140-acre parcel owned by the university just south of Interstate 40.

According to Dunsworth, with the AGFC’s pledge, a total of $4.5 million has been committed to the project, including $1.5 million from the university and $1 million from the city of Clarksville.

“We are one step closer to having a world-class shooting facility right here in Clarksville,” Dunsworth said. “We have the full support of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, the city of Clarksville and Johnson County, and now we’re ready to fully launch the fundraising initiative.”

The AGFC recently devoted an entire division’s focus to recreational shooting, which includes archery, competitive shotgun shooting and shooting range development.

Booth says the matching pledge is a continuation of the AGFC’s commitment to recreational shooting and its role in conservation.

“Aside from many being hunters and anglers and playing active roles in conservation, all recreational shooters contribute to conservation through the purchase of firearms and ammunition, which supports excise taxes earmarked for conservation work throughout the nation,” Booth said. “By increasing ranges in Arkansas, we’re not only helping remove barriers to hunting, but we’re also ensuring all who contribute to conservation are represented in our efforts.”

University officials said construction on the first phase of the project could begin once the university raises an additional $10 million. Dunsworth said the fundraising initiative would include naming-rights opportunities for donors.

The first phase of the complex would include a clubhouse, competition-level sporting clay courses and fields for skeet, trap and bunker as well as a pistol and rifle range. There will also be an archery field. The facility would also include spectator areas, picnic areas and pavilions.

The $5 million second stage would include an RV park and additional support spaces.

According to Dunsworth, the new facility would fill a void of competition-caliber shooting sports complexes in the region. The nearest Olympic-level complex is more than 600 miles away in San Antonio.

“Clay target shooting and archery are among the fastest-growing sports in the country, from youth on up to the collegiate level,” Dunsworth said. “Our research has shown that there are more than 100 junior and senior high and other youth shooting sports programs currently within a 100-mile radius of Clarksville, and we’re excited about providing a premier facility for these young men and women.”

The shooting complex will be adjacent to and easily visible from Interstate 40, the third-longest freeway in the United States. According to the Arkansas Department of Transportation, the Clarksville area of I-40 has an average daily traffic volume of about 30,000 vehicles.

Under the 15-year agreement, the AGFC staff would operate and manage the pistol and rifle range, and U of O will operate other parts of the facility.

The complex would be the home course of the university’s men’s and women’s sports shooting teams as well as local youth and high school shooting programs. Dunsworth said the university plans to create a collegiate archery program once the facility is completed.

The university established the state’s first board-sanctioned, competitive collegiate shooting program in 2010. Since then the teams have won seven individual and team national championships in sporting clay. Dunsworth said the university plans to create a collegiate archery program once the facility is completed.