The Quiet Woods: Why Ohio's Bowhunters Are Seeing a Slight Dip This Season

The chill in the autumn air, that's what a bowhunter lives for, isn't it? The rustle of leaves, the quiet patience. Yet, this season, the numbers — the cold, hard data from Ohio's bowhunting opener — well, they tell a slightly different, perhaps even a warmer, story. Honestly, it's not a dramatic drop, but it’s enough to make you pause, to make us all wonder a bit.

From what we're seeing, and this is just through the first 17 days, mind you, hunters across Ohio have checked in around 54,000 deer. Now, for perspective, that’s down a smidgen from last year’s 56,000 in the same period, and a bit further from the roughly 58,000 recorded in 2022. It’s a trend, yes, a subtle one, but a trend nonetheless. Even locally, if you look at a place like Allen County, we've seen numbers dip from 195 in 2022, to 185 last year, and now sitting at about 175 this season. You could say it paints a consistent, if slightly diminishing, picture.

So, what gives? Why the gentle decline? Well, in truth, the usual suspects are being rounded up. First, and perhaps most prominently, the weather. Remember those unseasonably warm days we had? Those glorious, late-summer-feeling afternoons that stretched into early autumn? They’re lovely for picnics, not so much for getting deer up and moving during prime hunting hours. Deer, like many of us, prefer cooler temperatures for their peak activity.

And then there's the other big one: standing crops. Acres upon acres of corn, still stubbornly in the fields. For a deer, it’s like a five-star hotel with a buffet — shelter, food, and plenty of cover to evade even the most stealthy hunter. This really limits opportunities, forcing hunters to work that much harder, or maybe just wait for the combines to do their work.

Of course, it’s vital to remember that we’re still very early in the season. There’s a long stretch ahead, with colder weather surely on its way, and eventually, those crops will come down. Wildlife officials, for their part, continuously monitor the deer population, ensuring a healthy balance. So while these initial numbers give us a snapshot, they certainly don't tell the whole story. But it does make for some interesting campfire conversation, doesn't it, thinking about what the rest of the season might bring?