That story, published September 23, mentioned that the opening day harvest (1,632) was up nearly 500 over last year's opening day harvest (1,153).
Nine days later, it's painfully obvious that Tennessee's archery season is off to a very poor start.
As of Sunday, Tennessee's archery hunters had checked in a total of just 5,699 deer — down 26.4% from the same time period last year, when hunters had bagged a total of 7,743 deer by the end of the second weekend.
Since opening day, in fact, the harvest each day has lagged behind the harvest on the same day a year ago.
In reality, the opening day of this year's archery season wasn't an overall great hunt, so much as last year's opening day was an overall bad hunt. In 2005, the opening day of archery season saw a total of 1,734 deer bagged. That's more than the 1,632 deer taken this year on opening day. In 2004, 2,168 deer were taken on opening day.
So, what is the cause for this year's decreased harvest? Is it due to fewer deer being in the woods because of the EHD outbreak? Or is it because of fewer hunters being in the woods because of fears of the EHD outbreak? Is it due to fewer deer moving during the daylight hours because of the unseasonably warm temperatures? Or is it because of fewer hunters being in the woods because of the unseasonably warm temperatures? Or is it a combination of the lot?
At this point, it may be too soon to tell.
Of the deer checked in as of Sunday, 1,835 were antlered bucks while 3,522 were does, and 343 were antlerless bucks, including 266 button bucks.
