From my March 2, 2016 column in The News Journal.
After hunting hard from the beginning of September to the end of January, I needed a month or so to reflect on the 2015-16 hunting season.
Even though I don’t like to consider hunting seasons as successes or failures (since I derive enjoyment from the act of hunting, not necessarily from harvesting game), every year I find myself tallying the numbers of game animals observed, lamenting missed opportunities and wishing for at least one more deer in the freezer. True to form, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time over the past month attempting to assign a thumbs-up or thumbs-down grade to the season.
My thumb remains horizontal.
Actually, until I read a DNREC Division of Fish & Wildlife-issued press release on Feb. 24, my thumb was pointed downward. Delaware’s annual harvest totals for deer have been fairly consistent over the past 10 years (about 13,500 deer per year), so another typical harvest would have done little to offset the lackluster migratory bird hunting seasons that Delaware hunters experienced this year.
Although some duck and goose hunters reported moderate success (especially in some localized hotspots), most Delaware waterfowlers believe the 2015-16 season was one of the worst on record. Lack of late-summer and early-fall rain left many ponds dry and unappealing to waterfowl, and the abnormal, record-breaking warmth in the Atlantic Flyway significantly slowed or delayed the southward migration of ducks and geese. Because bodies of water in areas north of Delaware did not freeze until late in the season and because early- and mid-season snow cover was non-existent, ducks and geese were not forced to adhere to normal migration patterns and timelines. As a result, fewer ducks and geese were in Delaware during the waterfowl hunting seasons.
Alas, late-January’s low temperatures and snow finally brought strong numbers of migrating birds to Delaware, but they arrived just in time to see the waterfowl seasons close on Jan. 30.
I harvested about half as many woodcocks as I normally do, which I also attribute to the abnormally warm fall weather. Since woodcocks eat mostly worms and other invertebrates that they can easily find in unfrozen soil, I believe the warm temperatures in New England slowed their southward migrations. Since the birds had little trouble finding food, they may have been content to stay in northern states longer.
However, thanks to DNREC’s press release, I now know that Delaware’s deer harvest was atypical. In fact, Delaware hunters harvested 14,681 deer during the 2015-16 season, which is the highest total since modern-day deer harvest record-keeping began. The total beat the previous record set in 2004-2005 by 12 deer and topped last season’s harvest by 412. Additional records were set for the number of deer harvested in Sussex County (7,960), the number of adult does harvested (6,869), and the number of antlered bucks harvested (4,218).
The record deer harvest had just enough influence to move my downward pointing thumb up. Slightly. Because migratory bird hunting was so bad, I just cannot assign a thumbs-up grade to the entire 2015-16 hunting season.