The final report for the city of Duluth 2014 bow hunt for deer has been compiled by Brian Borkholder of the Arrowhead Bowhunters Alliance.
A meeting was scheduled for last week to present the season summary to city officials.
Here are the highlights:
451 deer registered (375 antlerless and 76 bucks). (Total includes eight deer that were taken illegally by hunters not registered in the city hunt.)
Total is up from 399 in 2013, but below the previous eight years’ harvests
355 hunters were registered for the hunt. Of those, 147 did not shoot a deer.
Hunters took an average of 1.25 deer in the hunt, down from the 10-year average of 1.67 deer per hunter. But among successful hunters (those who shot at least one deer), the average harvest was 2.13 deer per hunter, close to the 10-year average of 2.22 deer per successful hunter.
For comparison, the average Minnesota bow hunter takes a deer every seven to eight years.
Hunters took 10.8 deer per square mile in the 2014 hunt
The top-producing designated hunting areas in the hunt were Zone 1 (far western Duluth) and Zone 12B (upper Duluth Heights)
Total registered harvest for the 10 years the hunt has been held (2005-2014) is 5,201. That includes 4,374 antlerless deer (84 percent).
