By Gene Hornbeck

Deer hunters in the Great Plains states of Nebraska, Kansas, North Dakota, and South Dakota are in for another banner year of deer hunting. There will be few deer management unit and permit changes in most states, but for the most part the outlook is on a par with those of the last two or three years.

Now let's take our annual state-by-state look at how hunters fared across our region last year, and what the coming season has in store for Great Plains deer hunters.

Whitetail figures showed 86,371 deer killed: 34,984 adult bucks, 32,106 adult does and 19,281 fawns or young of the year. Permit success for the year was 79.6 percent.

"This fall the gun season will run from Nov. 5-21 with 145,250 permits available, with 53,000 of those for bucks only," said William Jensen, Ph.D., and big-game biologist for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department in Bismarck. "That total is up from 123,475 last year.

"It's difficult at best to pick a few units that will be better than others this fall," Jensen said. "We have a lot of deer management units and we try to take what we believe is the harvestable surplus by sex and species in each of those units, using permit numbers, known success and population surveys.

"Example: The unit with the highest success came to those holding an antlerless mule deer permit in Unit 4C, where 305 hunters took 290 mulies for a 95.1 percent success ratio. The unit with the combination of most permits and highest success was 2E. It served up 87.3 percent hunter success for 5,995 hunters. All of the deer taken in that unit were whitetails. Unit 2K2 had a few less hunters, but served up an 87.6 success ratio with 5,641 hunters taking 4,941 whitetails - 2081 adult bucks, 1,784 does and 1,076 fawns."

Unit 2C had 6,536 permits issued for it and hunters took 5,420 whitetails for 82.9 percent success. Unit 3E1 logged 84 percent success when 1,134 hunters took 953 deer.

Unit 3F2 saw 1,484 permits issued, and hunters there racked up a score of 82.1. The kill broke down to 227 mule deer and 991 whitetails. Unit 2J2 hunters scored 84.6 percent - 4,781 hunters took 4,045 whitetails.

Success in many of the units in North Dakota were within a percentage point or two of making the top five - example - hunters in units 4D, 4C, 3A3, 3A2, 3A4, 3F2, and Unit 2F2 all scored above 80 percent success.

According to Jensen, muzzleloader season will open on Nov. 26 and run through Dec. 12. There were 1,389 buck-only permits allocated for that season, along with a similar number of antlerless permits.

Jensen said that the state had a fairly mild winter, and herds came through it with few or no losses.

"We have increased the permits in some areas a little for this fall in an ongoing effort to stay ahead of the increase in the whitetail herd," he said. "Most of the land in North Dakota is private. About 5 percent is in public domain and those lands do offer a good chance to take a deer. The major entities involved include the Game and Fish Department, U.S Forest Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Department of Interior."

Photo by BillKinney.com

Although not all South Dakota deer seasons had been finalized when I talked to Fowler, he said at the time that a few changes to the closing dates and permit numbers might be made. The East River season will open on Nov. 20. The West River season will run from Nov. 13-28 and the Black Hills buck-only season is set for Nov. 1-30. In the four special units within the Hills, the season is set to run Nov. 10-19.

The top deer management units in South Dakota for numbers of hunters and deer taken in them can get rather involved. Each unit is quite small and may have a number of permit choices such as any-deer, any-buck, antlerless, whitetail, mule deer, etc.

"The three primary South Dakota firearm deer seasons - including Black Hills, West River Prairie and East River - resulted in the sale of 72,901 licenses in 2003, of which 35,390 of those licenses included tags for two deer, and 37,511 licenses included one-deer tags," Fowler said. "Of the 108,291 tags thus issued statewide, 54 percent were filled. Of the 58,941 deer taken, 83 percent were whitetails and 17 percent mule deer. The West River Area accounted for 84 percent of the mule deer harvest.

"Hunter success in the three units combined was 63 percent. Success ranged from 56 percent in the Black Hills to 61 percent in the West River and 66 percent in the East River."

The bottom line? Some 72,901 licenses, which included a total of 108,291 tags, were sold for the three units in the state last year. And the kill was 58,941 deer, resulting in 54 percent hunter success.

Here's a look at some West River units that served up good success. Last year, Unit 315A offered 50 any-whitetail and 50 any-mule-deer permits along with 400 each of any-whitetail, plus an antlerless-whitetail and any-mule-deer, plus an antlerless-mule-deer permits. A total of 898 resident and 40 non-resident permits were sold and 643 deer taken, for 71 percent success. The highest success came to the 399 hunters holding second tags, who killed 340 deer for a 79 percent success rate.

Unit 315B offered 595 hunters holding any-deer plus any antlerless deer permits a success ratio of 76 percent. In Unit 331A, 543 hunters holding the same type of permit killed 375 deer for a 69 percent permit success. In Unit 339A, 270 hunters holding similar permits killed 213 deer for a 79 percent permit success.

In the East River Unit 203A, the 1,002 any-deer and any-antlerless deer (2 tags), permits issued resulted in 790 deer taken for 79 percent success. In Unit 226A there were 500 of these permits issued and 381 deer taken for 76 percent success. In addition, there were 401 any-deer permits issued, and 258 deer taken in the unit. Success was 76 percent for those permit holders.

In Unit 233A there were 555 (two-tag) any-whitetail/antlerless-whitetail permits issued, with 474 deer taken for 85.4 percent success. There were 333 deer taken in Unit 228A under the same permit by 400 hunters for 83 percent success.

"We are of course expecting good hunting this fall and hope we will have enough hunters in some of our management units to keep the whitetail populations within tolerable limits," Fowler said.

Details on the seasons and regulations are available by calling the SDDGFP at (605) 773-3485.

The permit holders are expected to kill about 50,000 deer with firearms and about 4,000 by bow. Last year's hunter-success rate was 52 percent for the November Firearm Season and 60 percent for the SCAs. Muzzleloader success was 28 percent; that for archery, 28 percent.

Where are chances best for filling one or more of the permits each hunter can get? "There will be a few less permits available in the quota units this fall," said Kit Hams, big-game program manager for the NGPC. "The commission cut the regular season permits by 1,700 and the Season Choice Permits by 250.

"The Season Choice Areas, wherein the hunter can use the weapon of his choice (rifle, muzzleloader or bow) to fill his permit, have been redrawn and renamed to increase pressure on the high-density deer populations on the Platte and Missouri River corridors in eastern Nebraska.

"We expect to see success in the Plains, Frenchman, Republican, Wahoo, Elkhorn and Southeast Blue units be at or near the top of the list as they were last year. The new SCA area, 21, will likely be the best of those areas as it harbors what we believe to be the highest deer population in the state and includes the Platte-Missouri corridor."

Nebraska seasons and permit quotas, as well as those in North Dakota, South Dakota and Kansas, are set by the wildlife managers after considering input from landowners, crop damage reports, deer-vehicle collisions, deer harvest, hunter opinion and disease concerns.

It doesn't appear that Nebraska hunters are going to have any better of a year than they've had during the past few deer seasons. That's due primarily to a high harvest of antlerless deer to bring populations down. Disease losses also will play a part in deer numbers, especially in some of the state's western units.

"Last year, late summer reports of dead deer were higher than normal," Hams said. "After analysis of harvest data, it was apparent that the combination of drought and epizoötic hemorrhagic disease had likely caused significant reduction in several western Nebraska whitetail herds. The units most likely affected include Calamus East, Calamus West, Keya Paha and Loup West.

Hams summarized the outlook for this fall this way: "The November 2003 firearm success of 52 percent was slightly lower than 2002 (54 percent), and is the lowest we have seen in more than 20 years," he said. "Muzzleloader success was 28 percent last year, and that was an increase over 25 percent in 2002. Archers scored 28 percent; that has been the average over the past 10 years."

Having been involved with the Nebraska deer story for some 40 years, I don't believe that we should look at a few less permits and maybe a lower percentage point or two in success and think this season won't be as good as last year. True, Mother Nature has thrown a few curves such as drought, EHD and chronic wasting disease at deer populations in the states in the Great Plains. But also consider that we've had the highest deer populations on record in all four states for many years. This season should be another exciting one for the Great Plains deer hunter.

"We are placing tighter controls on the mule deer harvest. There will be no antlerless-only mule deer permits issued this year. However, those deer will be legal on an any-deer permit.

"Last year there was a total of 138,357 licenses and permits sold for all deer seasons," he continued. "Our estimate on the total harvest last year was 72,500 deer taken by 88,524 hunters. That included 62,874 resident firearm hunters, 5,915 non-resident firearm hunters, 17,134 resident and 2,601 non-resident archers. Hunter success for all seasons was about 82 percent."

Fox noted that in total, 62,000 deer were taken by residents and 10,500 by non-residents. By species, there were 69,500 whitetails taken and 3,000 mule deer; of those, 59 percent of the whitetails and about 35 percent of the mule deer were antlerless.

The cutback on the mule deer permits should not be taken as a significant reduction of permits in Kansas. "There still will be access to plentiful permits and tags that will allow antlerless whitetails to be taken," Fox said. "Each permit and tag issued will allow the hunter to take an antlerless whitetail deer.

This year's firearm season will run Dec. 1-12; the muzzleloader season is slated for Sept. 11-24. Both are expected to serve up some excellent deer hunting throughout the state.

"The unit one selects to hunt in is likely based on the area the hunter is familiar with and where he has permission to hunt rather than picking one based on success," Fox said. "All of the 19 units offer a decent chance to take a deer or two.

Fox said that units 16 and 7 still have an increasing population. The highest deer populations have been recorded in DMUs 12 and 19.

"Unit 19 was new last year and it was formed from parts of units 9, 10, 11 and 14 to control a growing suburban deer population in a corridor from Kansas City to Topeka," Fox explained. "Hunter success in that unit last fall was not very good (44.9 percent) due to the fact that it is an urban area and access is limited.

"The top five units in the state for this fall are hard to pick, but let's go with the stats," said the biologist. "Unit No. 16 recorded 47.2 percent success on either-sex whitetail permits, No. 4, 48.2 percent, No. 5, 50.3 percent, No. 7, 50 percent. And No. 12 had 47.4 percent success."

Details on the seasons and regulations are available by calling (620) 672-5911, or 342-0658.