Looking closely at the numbers there were less hunters in 2013 than in 2012. Less hunters will equal to less deer taken. Then if you add in that the younger hunters are coming in with less experience than ever before, we are lucky to get the numbers that we have.
I don't understand how someone can figure that less deer killed means less deer out there to hunt??
In my hunting area I saw more deer & let more deer pass than ever before. Also I took the largest & most deer than I ever had before. So I can not say the deer numbers are down, it is just less quality hunters to take the deer that are out there.
If you crunch the numbers in 2012 we took .682 deer per hunter compare that to .659 deer per hunter in 2013, that is down only .023 deer per hunter. That is not enough to worry about in anyone's book.