By Ken Barhorst
He played a hunch and it paid off — in a hurry — for 92-year-old Sidney resident Dick Fisher on the first day of the deer gun season Monday.
Fisher and several hunting friends were only in the field for about 15 minutes when Fisher shot an 8-point buck, his first successful hunt in “at least four years.”
“For the last three years, the deer have been going down the same path every year,” Fisher said. “This year I set within 50 feet of it and it just came right to me. It was a nice buck. It was running, but I got lucky. I’m not good, just lucky. I was really a lucky old man.”
Fisher isn’t done yet, either. He realized Tuesday that his doe license had run out a couple days previous, so he went out Tuesday morning and got a new one. And he was planning to be back in the field again today.
Fisher started hunting way back in 1950, when he had to go to Pennsylvania to find deer.
“A friend of mine would tell me about the deer in Pennsylvania, so one year my father and I went over there,” he said. “I remember it real well. We were real fortunate that first year because they allowed a doe license. And we both got one.”
He didn’t go hunting again for about 10 years, however, and had to borrow a gun to go then. But he eventually saved enough money to buy his own and he’s found time to hunt ever since. In fact, in 1985 he trekked to Montana to hunt elk. “We saw some, but didn’t get a shot,” he recalled. “But it was a wonderful experience and well worth the trip.”
The deer he got Monday was a Shelby County deer. But it didn’t start out that way.
“It ran out of Auglaize County but I was standing in Shelby County,” he said. “I was probably about 100 yards in Shelby County when I got it.”
His deer was one of nearly 19,000 deer checked in by hunters on the first day Monday. The exact number was 18,776, well below last year’s total of 22,253 reported on the first day.
Those numbers are reflected in the number of deer checked in Shelby and area counties. In 2015, 97 deer were checked in Shelby County. This year, that total was 79.
The season remains open through this Sunday, with two additional days of gun season on Dec. 17 and 18.
Following is a list of all deer checked by hunters during opening day of the 2016 deer-gun hunting season. The first number following the county’s name shows the harvest numbers for opening day 2016, and the 2015 opening day harvest numbers are in parentheses.
Adams 274 (373); Allen 58 (116); Ashland 411 (483); Ashtabula 701 (771); Athens 375 (420); Auglaize 41 (99); Belmont 407 (429); Brown 167 (248); Butler 36 (66); Carroll 480 (571); Champaign 70 (104); Clark 29 (52); Clermont 81 (154); Clinton 58 (79); Columbiana 419 (522); Coshocton 767 (888); Crawford 134 (177); Cuyahoga 8 (7); Darke 47 (74); Defiance 179 (316); Delaware 88 (110); Erie 50 (66); Fairfield 182 (219); Fayette 30 (33); Franklin 32 (31); Fulton 79 (140); Gallia 379 (372); Geauga 147 (167) Greene 43 (54); Guernsey 592 (647); Hamilton 18 (44); Hancock 95 (135); Hardin 94 (149); Harrison 529 (556); Henry 67 (125); Highland 221 (300); Hocking 431 (521); Holmes 542 (552); Huron 342 (367); Jackson 270 (377); Jefferson 365 (386); Knox 651 (619); Lake 53 (44); Lawrence 208 (224); Licking 463 (562); Logan 155 (249); Lorain 180 (195); Lucas 23 (27); Madison 30 (28); Mahoning 168 (165); Marion 96 (120); Medina 154 (152); Meigs: 392 (418); Mercer 38 (76); Miami 28 (52); Monroe 333 (334); Montgomery 18 (28); Morgan 364 (387); Morrow 158 (184); Muskingum 696 (722); Noble 386 (352); Ottawa 20 (20); Paulding 75 (157); Perry 339 (399); Pickaway 65 (107); Pike 180 (209); Portage 155 (157); Preble 47 (80); Putnam 60 (90); Richland 355 (462); Ross 263 (320); Sandusky 41 (76); Scioto 195 (206); Seneca 203 (273); SHELBY 79 (97); Stark 208 (248); Summit 30 (24); Trumbull 425 (468); Tuscarawa: 645 (658); Union 67 (97); Van Wert 31 (63); Vinton 338 (401); Warren 34 (61); Washington 438 (490); Wayne 206 (211); Williams 138 (327); Wood 39 (87); Wyandot 168 (227).
Total: 18,776 (22,253).
