Illinois deer harvest down over last year, but numbers still plentiful

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Illinois hunters harvested a total of 71,894 deer during the first weekend of the shotgun deer season on Nov. 21 to Nov. 23, a drop from 2007.

The second portion of the season will be Dec. 4 to Dec. 7.

Pike County, with 2,194 deer harvested, was the top county in the state, followed by Adams with 1,900, Fulton with 1,878, Randolph with 1,770 and Jefferson with 1,650. The preliminary figures released by the Department of Natural Resources includes deer killed on special hunt areas and private land, according to the IDNR news release.

Last year, 85,490 deer were taken during the first firearm season, according to the news release.

In Saline County, 726 deer were killed this year; 1,301 were taken in Pope County; 780 were taken in Hardin County; and 402 were taken in Gallatin County. All those figures were slightly lower than reported harvests from last year.

"The weather was unseasonably cold to start the season on Friday, but it appears many hunters were in the field enjoying some success on that day and throughout the first weekend of the firearm deer season," IDNR Forest Wildlife Program Manager Paul Shelton said in the news release. "Most corn had been harvested, although 10 to 12 percent remained in the fields in the northern part of the state.

"The good news for managers and for deer hunters with permits remaining for the second season is that most of the decline in harvest was a drop in buck harvest. This means that our doe harvest was fairly comparable to last year and that there are plenty of both bucks and does still out there for second season hunters."

About 59 percent of the deer taken this past weekend were bucks, compared with 62 percent last year.

Muzzleloader season is Dec. 12 to 14. The late -winter antlerless-only deer season is Jan. 16 to 18. Archery season continues through Jan. 15 except during the second firearm season.