There are nearly as many theories on the significant drop in deer harvest numbers this fall as there are hunters who tagged deer. And most of that speculation probably comes from guys like me who didn’t have success in the November portion of firearms season.
Without including the conspiracy stories, there are plenty of logical reasons that deer harvest totals were down more than 20 percent during the opening weekend and 15 percent below the five-year average for the whole season.
Rather than one simple answer, several factors worked in combination this year to favor the deer over the hunters. Opening day was as late as it possibly could be. The acorn crop is amazing in woods throughout the state. The weather was warm and windy, and the season opened under the light of a full “super moon.”
Opening weekend netted more than 90,000 deer for hunters last year, but only 68,312 on Nov. 16 and 17 this year. During the full 11-day season, hunters checked 159,120 deer this year compared to 193,885 last year.
The first day of “deer season” opens two Saturdays ahead of Thanksgiving. Since the holiday was Nov. 28 this year, that moved hunting time past the peak of the deer breeding season, known by hunters as “the rut.” The earliest possible start date occurs when Nov. 22 is the fourth Thursday in of the month, and deer season opens on Nov. 10.
“The peak of the rut in Missouri occurs around Nov. 10,” said Jason Isabelle, program supervisor for the state Department of Conservation. “When the calendar shifts, it puts the opener about a week past peak rut and deer movement isn’t as high as it is earlier in the month.”
As deer breeding ramps up, bucks pay more attention to that activity than their own personal safety and are frequently on the move looking for opportunity. Those searches keep the does on their toes too.
Everyone sees deer in open fields nibbling on blades of grass and other greens, but their primary diet (other than the grain people often illegally feed them) consists of white oak acorns when they can find them. Because of a bumper crop this year, deer can discover their favorite nuts with almost every step.
“There are a lot of acorns in the woods this year,” Isabelle said. “When that happens, deer don’t need to move as much to find food, and they frequent fields and other open areas less often.”
Counties with the largest decline in harvest were in the forested portions of the state.
“Many northern and western Missouri counties were either up from last year’s harvest total or were down slightly,” Isabelle said. “With the good acorn crop we have this year, harvest was down the most in the more heavily forested Ozark counties.”
The warm weather of opening weekend had a bigger affect on the hunters than on the deer. They live outside all of the time and concern themselves with food, sex and sanctuary foremost of all. The temperature doesn’t really bother the deer. Hunters on the other hand fare better when they aren’t freezing.
The wind plays a bigger role, and it was beyond breezy on the first Saturday and Sunday of the season. Deer rely on their sense of smell and hearing for protection, and when the wind whips noisily through the trees and scatters the scary scent of predators, deer are more timid about their travels.
“We had a few nice days sprinkled throughout the November portion, but there a number of days with warm temperatures or high winds,” Isabelle said. “These conditions likely affected deer movement and also hunters’ desire to be in the woods.”
I do not put stock in solunar tables for forecasting the best hunting and fishing times, but I certainly believe that the gravitational pull of our planet’s satellite carries its weight. If it can affect ocean tides, it certainly gets a deer’s attention.
More important though is the light the moon reflects. Deer have good eyesight under the darkest of skies. When the full moon peaks on the night before opening day with limited cloud cover, it’s the land of the midnight sun for deer. The moon stayed bright for several nights throughout the season, so the deer were able to move freely under the cover of darkness.
In Jefferson County we saw harvest numbers that mirrored the statewide totals. Hunters checked 2,364 deer here this year compared to 2,936 from Nov. 11 through 21 in 2023.
John Winkelman has been writing about outdoors news and issues in Jefferson County for more than 30 years and was the Associate Editor for Outdoor Guide Magazine.
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