Deer gun season begins Saturday

The long-awaited deer gun season will open statewide on Saturday across Sooner land with an estimated 160,000 draped in blaze orange going afield. Gun season will end Dec. 3.

With a healthy herd and estimated numbers of between 600,000 to 700,000, there’s no better time than the present to bring home tasty venison to feed the family, friends or donate the meat to those in need.

According to the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation (ODWC), a new mark was set for the overall deer harvest in the state. Hunters reported taking 134,158 combined in all 2022-23 deer seasons. This total blew away the previous high total of 126,290 set just two years ago.

Oklahoma’s deer populations enjoyed growing numbers and good habitat conditions across much of the state last year, factors contributing to the record harvest, but also contributing was the willingness of Oklahoma hunters to help the state’s management plan by taking more antlerless deer according to ODWC. The antlerless harvest made up 45 percent of the total which falls right in line with the statewide management goals that are resulting in healthy populations overall.

Now, with a booming population, deer hunting season is vital to ODWC’s mission to manage the number of deer.

Not only can too many deer cause damage to agriculture plots, orchards, soybean and cornfields, but also an increase in motor vehicle accidents with the expanding herds.

A number of years ago, Jim Shaw, professor of natural resource ecology and management at Oklahoma State University said, “Back when we didn’t have hunting seasons, we lost our game species. White-tailed deer in Oklahoma were virtually extinct in 1914. Through the monumental efforts of the ODWC and sportsmen, great strides have been taken since the late 1950s to restore the deer herd. As a matter of fact, in 1964 the firearms season saw a harvest of only 3,368, a number that’s hard for me to wrap my head around.”

With each upcoming deer season, I often reflect back to the late 1960s when an uncle took time to take me along to deer camp in the rugged Kiamichi Mountains of southeastern Oklahoma. In all honesty, it was more about the camaraderie and hearing my elders tell their stories than anything else and a Kodak moment if you’d located a single track.

While many of the friends and elders from those days have long since passed away, I can only imagine what they might say today.

Before going afield, there are a number of things a hunter needs to consider. As sportsmen, we owe it to our family to let them know our hunting area no matter how secret it is.

If you are hunting from a tree or ladder stand, please make sure and use one of the safety devices approved by the Treestand Manufacturers Association. Here is a link to a number of their safety videos: https://tmastands.com/safety/.

Remember, hunters in the know — take a doe and let the young bucks grow.

John Kilgore is the former Greenleaf State Park manager. He can be reached by emailing him at jkilgoreoutdoors@yahoo.com.