MISSOURI, USA — Missouri officially has a new deer hunting season record.
Hunters ended the 2023-2024 hunting season on Monday with a total deer harvest of 326,026, according to the Missouri Department of Conservation. The total passes the previous state deer hunting season record set in 2006 at 325,457.
The Missouri counties with the highest deer hunting totals were Franklin, Howell and Texas counties with harvests of 7,395, 6,346 and 6,181 respectively. Click here to see where each county ranked.
The previous season also had the highest amount of antlered bucks harvested on record, with harvests of 147,705 antlered bucks, 29,060 button bucks, and 149,261 does. Missouri hunters harvested 299,719 deer during the previous hunting season, with 140,735 being antlered bucks, 27,028 being button bucks, and 131,956 being does.
It was also the first year since 2013 when hunters harvested more does than antlered bucks.
“Prior to the severe hemorrhagic disease outbreak in 2012 that reduced deer numbers and resulted in regulation changes to reduce antlerless harvest, doe harvest exceeded antlered buck harvest each year for about a decade,” MDC Cervid Program Supervisor Jason Isabelle said on the department's website. “Now that the deer population has rebounded and regulations have been liberalized, it’s nice to see the much-needed increase in antlerless harvest given our desire to slow the growth of the increasing deer population to maintain deer numbers at socially acceptable levels.”
Isabelle also attributed the increased harvest numbers to increases in the deer population, changes in hunter preferences, and the removal of the antler-point restriction in counties that became part of the Chronic Wasting Disease Management Zone.
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