Springfield, IL – The opening weekend of the state's firearm deer season ended with hunters bagging more deer than one year ago.
The Illinois Department of Natural Resources reports hunters brought down 68,037 deer. That preliminary total tops last year, when 66,126 deer were killed. But it fell short of the 2008 season when hunters got almost 72,000 deer during the opening weekend.
The DNR reports hunters harvested 99,493 deer during the entire seven-day firearm deer season last year.
The state agency said approximately 60% of the deer taken during the first weekend of this year's firearm hunting were bucks, which is identical to the first weekend of the firearm season in 2009.
The seven-day firearm season will conclude on December 2 - 5.
The muzzleloader-only deer season is December 10 - 12. The split late-winter antlerless-only firearm deer season and the special CWD deer season are December 30, 2010 - January 2, 2011 and January 14 - 16. The state's 2010-2011 archery deer season continues through January 16 (except closed in firearm counties during the second firearm season December 2 - 5).
The top three county harvest totals last weekend were in west-central Illinois. Pike County reported 1,957 deer killed, Adams County reported 1,741, and Fulton 1,721.
Figures from elsewhere in west-central Illinois:
Brown County: 892
Cass: 458
Hancock: 1,291
Henderson: 449
Knox: 1,021
Mason: 439
McDonough: 738
Morgan: 626
Schuyler: 1,130
Warren: 429