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Deer-gun season returns for the weekend

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12:28 AM Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Ohio’s deer-gun season continues Saturday, Dec. 19, and Sunday with the fourth annual extra weekend.

So far, hunters have taken 114,633 whitetails during the statewide deer-gun season. The total so far this year, including archery, youth and controlled hunts is 178,633. Still to come is the muzzleloader season, Jan. 9-12. Archery season continues through Feb. 7.

Counties reporting the highest numbers of deer brought to check stations during gun week were Tuscarawas (5,901), Harrison (4,310), Guernsey (4,289), Licking (3,734) and Coshocton (3,680). The statewide deer population was estimated to be 650,000 before hunting began.

Huge buck scored

The 18-point Stephens Buck, taken on opening day of the deer gun hunting season (Nov. 30) by Brian Stephens of Clayton, was green scored on Dec. 9 at by Boone & Crocket scorer Mike Wendel of Botkins with a net score of 232 5/8 inches.

If the dry score in 60 days holds close to that, it would be the No. 1 non-typical rack in Ohio history taken by a muzzleloader, and the 35 1/8 inch left and 34 4/8 inch right main beams would be the longest ever recorded from a whitetail anywhere in the world, according to research by veteran Miami County taxidermist Rick Busse.

Short shots

All-American: Only one Miami Valley shooter is listed on the Amateur Trapshooting Association’s All-America teams this year. Dave Berlet of New Knoxville is on the Veteran First Team. Jim Walker, formerly of Springboro and Middletown and now of Florida, made the Veteran Second Team.

License sales up: A new quarterly report issued by the American Sportfishing Association, Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation and Southwick Associates found a 7.7 percent increase in the number of fishing licenses sold nationally between Jan. 1 and Sept. 1, 2009, compared to the same time last year.

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