Missouri Department of Conservation Reports Final Deer and Archery Turkey Harvest

The stories have been told and the pictures have been shared. The deer steaks are resting  in the freezer and the jerky has been passed around to friends and families.

During the 2016-2017 deer-hunting season which ended January 15,  a preliminary total harvest of 263,832 deer was reported by the Missouri Department of Conservation. Those numbers are down compared to the 273,249 deer harvested during the 2015-2016 deer hunting seasons.

With the close of this year's archery deer season, numbers were also down about 1200 compared to the 2015-2016 season.

Fall archery turkey hunting ended just a few days ago on the 15th. The preliminary numbers were 2,304 turkeys harvested. That's compared to 3,042 turkeys last year.

With all the activity across the state, the MDC reported four firearms-related hunting incidents during the fall deer and turkey hunting seasons. All were non-fatal.

All-in-all it was another great fall and winter of hunting. As in most years, Missouri is a great place to hunt deer and turkey.