Unfortunately, I don’t have a good reason to visit one of my favorite winter events this weekend near Eureka, but because hunters in Missouri set a new all-time record for deer harvest in the 2023-24 season, the annual Deer Antler Scoring Open House could be busy.
From 9 a.m. to noon Saturday, Feb. 17, at the Jay Henges Shooting Range and Outdoor Education Center, hunters can get official measurements for the bucks they took this past fall. Scorers also will consider deer from previous years and shed antlers found at any time.
When the harvest totals of all hunting seasons combined were released in January, the state Department of Conservation announced a new record of 326,026 deer checked. The previous high was 325,457 in 2006. Of the total, 147,705 were antlered bucks, the most bucks ever.
That number includes a significant percentage of young bucks for sure, but there are also plenty of hunters who took trophies this year. There is no cost for having antlers scored, and reservations are not required.
The event will include certified scorers from Minnesota’s Pope and Young Club; the esteemed Boone and Crockett Club, founded in 1887 in Missoula, Mon., and Missouri Show-Me Big Bucks Club. Those organizations maintain record books and charge fees for inclusion. The Boone and Crockett registry includes deer taken with firearms, while Pope and Young focuses on certification for bow-and-arrow hunters. Show-Me Big Bucks recognizes trophy white-tailed deer harvested or found in Missouri, in typical and non-typical categories. The club also recognizes shed antlers.
Hunters who can’t attend Saturday morning may drop off their antlers at the education center to be scored and pick them up later. The Henges Range and Education Center is at 1100 Antire Road, at I-44, east of Eureka. For more information, call 636-938-9548.
As to the harvest totals from the recent season, Jefferson County was the top harvest county for archery hunters for the 12th year in a row. Preliminary information from the conservation department showed that hunters checked 55,396 deer during the 2023-2024 archery deer season. The top counties were Jefferson with 1,440, Franklin with 1,194, and St. Louis with 1,022. Hunters had checked 56,683 deer the previous season.
The biggest difference this year in the overall harvest total is the increase in antlerless deer. According to the conservation department, this year was the first since 2013 that more does were harvested than antlered bucks.
“With deer numbers increasing in most counties, additional antlerless deer harvest is needed to slow population growth and help maintain deer numbers at desired levels,” said Jason Isabelle, program supervisor. “It was great to see hunters take advantage of the additional hunting opportunities.”
Regulation changes this year added a new early antlerless firearms portion, a new chronic wasting disease (CWD) firearms portion, and an increase in the number of firearms antlerless deer hunting permits in most counties.
“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 said.
The other standout statistic from the season was the report of only one non-fatal, archery-related deer hunting incident and zero firearms-related hunting incidents.
John Winkelman has been writing about outdoors news and issues in Jefferson County for more than 30 years and was the Associate Editor for Outdoor Guide Magazine. If you have story ideas for the Leader outdoor news page, e-mail ogmjohnw@aol.com, and you can find more outdoor news and updates at johnjwink.com.