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.

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.

Arkansas deer harvest increases, just short of 200,000

Hunters check 1,231 deer during inaugural early buck hunt