The Illinois Department of Natural Resources has announced preliminary deer harvest numbers for the 2022-23 hunting season.
Hunters in Illinois harvested just over 158-thousand deer this season. That’s an increase of nearly 12-thousand deer over the previous season.
Nearly 77-thousand were taken by traditional firearms hunters.
Archery hunters brought in over 69 and a half-thousand.
The remaining belonged mostly to a strong 3-day youth hunting season whose more than 33-hundred was nearly double the last youth season.
The total take consisted of about 45% females and 55% males.
Additionally, sixteen northern Illinois counties were open to the special CWD season, which is used to assist in slowing the spread of chronic wasting disease in the Illinois deer herd. And 24 counties were open for the late-winter anterless season in 2022-2023. Counties that are at or below their individual deer population goal for two consecutive years may be removed from the late-winter season.
