INDIANA, (WOWO): Hunters harvested fewer deer in the 2013 season than in each of the previous five seasons. That might be sobering news to some deer hunters, but it wasn't unexpected.

“Going into the year, I knew it was going to be down,” said Chad Stewart, deer management biologist with the DNR Division of Fish & Wildlife. “It’s what we thought it would be.” 

The reported harvest of 125,635 deer was about 10,600 fewer deer than the record harvest of 136,248 in 2012, a decline of 7.8 percent. It still ranks eighth best since regulated deer hunting began in Indiana in 1951.

“Down about 8 percent is very similar to what we’re seeing in a lot of other Midwest states, so we’re par for the course,” Stewart said. “We’re still harvesting a lot of deer. The 125,635 shows we’re down but not collapsing.”