Hunters across Ohio checked 238,137 white-tailed deer during the 2024-25 hunting season that concluded in early February, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Wildlife. The final total, the fourth highest number of deer taken on record, represents all deer bagged during archery, gun, muzzleloader, and youth seasons since Sept. 14, 2024.
The number is up roughly from the 2023-2024 season’s 213,927, which at the time was the highest Buckeye State deer harvest in more than a decade. This year’s figure is the highest since 2010-2011 and marks the third year in a row that hunters in the state have taken more than 200,000 deer.
Ohio’s five highest deer season totals, in descending order are:
- 2009-2010: 260,442
- 2008-2009: 251,299
- 2010-2011: 238,683
- 2024-2025: 238,137
- 2006-2007: 236,676
Arkansas hunters during the 2024-2025 season checked 199,863 deer. 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.
Two hundred thousand is a nice round number, but it doesn’t make or break a deer season. Arkansas Game and Fish Commission 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.
“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’ deer population continues to recover after an unusually high spike in harvest following the COVID-19 pandemic. “The deer population actually saw a bit of a double-whammy then,” Meeker said. “The deer season prior to COVID (2019-2020), we saw a small drop in the harvest, likely indicating a slight population decline. But in the 2020-2021 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.”
Meanwhile, in Maryland, hunters harvested nearly 16-percent more deer during the 2024-2025 season than the previous year.
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