Illinois deer harvest numbers decline during 2021 season

QUINCY — With the deer hunting season in Illinois heading into its final weeks, harvest totals remain significantly lower than previous seasons.

The archery deer season will run through January 16 and the late-winter antlerless-only and Chronic Wasting Disease seasons in designated counties will have three more days — January 14-16.

The seven-day firearms season, which is split over two weekends, produced a harvest total of 71,675 deer. In 2020, Illinois hunters harvested 77,160 deer. The second weekend, which ran December 2-5, saw a significant drop with 21,375 deer taken. In 2020, 29,432 deer were harvested over the same four-day weekend.

In Adams County, hunters experienced an uptick in 2020 only to see a significant dropoff this fall. There were 2,178 deer harvested during the firearms season in Adams County in 2019, followed by 2,235 deer taken in 2020 and 2,047 deer killed this year.

In Pike County, the numbers continue to diminish. In 2019, the county had 1,929 deer killed, while in 2020, there were 1,882 deer taken. This season, only 1,658 deer were harvested in what had traditionally been Illinois’ top deer producing county.

Hancock County had 1,584 deer taken this season, and Brown County hunters killed 822 deer.

Randolph County enjoyed the largest harvest in the state with hunters taking 2,162 deer. Adams and Randolph were the only counties to top 2,000 deer during the firearms season.

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources will compile harvest numbers for all seasons once the archery season is complete.