The deer harvest appears headed for an off year in Leelanau County and the state, with the worst outcome coming from the Upper Peninsula.
According to figures provided since the MDNR instituted a mandatory deer-kill reporting program in 2022, the harvest is down nearly 11% in Leelanau County from a year ago with only a few days left in deer seasons that run from September through December.
MDNR stats point to a slow firearms deer hunt as the culprit. The gun hunt opened on Nov. 15 with warm, windy and rainy weather that left deer content to lay low, which played a factor in tagging only 661 deer including 395 bucks. The kill during the 2022 gun season was 767 total deer with 457 of them bucks.
“It was too warm,” offered Jeff Lacross of Lake Leelanau, who hunts private land in Centerville Township. “Last year we had almost 10 inches of snow where I hunt. I’m going to say that I see twice as many deer with snow. I may not shoot them, but they keep me occupied. If you didn’t have a hot doe working your area, you probably didn’t see many bucks.”
LaCross, who was one of the early organizers of the quality deer management program for Leelanau County, let five smaller bucks go by. Instead, he shot a doe in the late firearms season and was considering harvesting another before Jan. 1, when the woods go quiet.
“It’s important to shoot the does to keep the herd balanced, and to keep the farmers happy,” LaCross said.
The reporting system breaks down the deer kill by season, which provides insight into what’s happening with the herd in Leelanau County. Archery hunters were more successful this year than last, which helped to make up for the lackluster firearms hunt. Archers during their early season shot 369 deer including 284 bucks. The early archery harvest in 2022 was 336 deer, with 235 of them bucks.
As of late last week, 729 bucks had been reported as harvested in all seasons this fall, compared to 743 bucks taken in 2022 — about a wash. But the number of antlerless deer shot was only 447, down 22% from the 571 taken in 2022.
More does than bucks are being shot now as a late antlerless firearms season progresses while bucks can only be taken by archery equipment, but not in numbers needed to catch up with the 2022 harvest in Leelanau County.
Wildlife biologist Steve Griffith, who works in the MDNR Traverse City field office, said he’s being told that hunters did not encounter as many deer sightings as expected.
“That’s what we’ve heard. Talking with other DNR staff, they’ve encountered the same thing. And of course the harvest was way down coming over the bridge,” Griffith said.
He’s a fan of the new reporting system and the near-immediate plethora of information it provides.
“It’s a huge improvement. In the past we wouldn’t get results until May, and we had to turn around quickly to make recommendations for changes the next season. We’re still getting hunter opinions, but these numbers shorten the time frame,” Griffith said.
The public posting of deer harvest numbers also speeds up the delivery of complaints.
A press release from John Pepin, deputy public information officer, addressed the lackluster hunting figures, particularly in the Upper Peninsula where the harvest was off 26%.
“Hunters in the UP have expressed a great deal of anger, frustration and concern with the low reported deer harvest this year. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources hears, appreciates and empathizes with those reactions, as DNR wildlife managers are also concerned with the reported harvest numbers,” Pepin wrote.
Although hunter sentiment blames the growing U.P. wolf population for the decline, the release states that predation is one of several factors depressing the deer herd above the straits including severe winters in the Lake Superior watershed in eight of the last 11 years.
