Russell County youth deer hunters harvested a total of 16 whitetail deer over this past weekend’s youth-only gun season, an opportunity to get children into the outdoors before modern firearm season begins next month. That harvest number, reported by the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife, was the lowest in the Lake Cumberland area recorded for youth hunters.
Youth hunters in surrounding counties saw more success with Pulaski youth taking 59 deer, Adair youth taking 36, Wayne 30, Casey and Clinton youth each with 28 deer, and Cumberland County youth hunters harvesting a total of 27 deer.
Along with Clinton County, Russell County is the western-most Kentucky county located in Zone 4 of the department’s Kentucky Deer Zones, where deer population and harvest numbers have trended lower in recent years.
Much of eastern Kentucky is also located in Zone 4, where a hunter may harvest no more than two deer, with only being antlerless. In Russell and Clinton counties, antlerless deer cannot be harvested during the modern gun season, the early muzzleloader season, which begins next weekend, or the first six days of late muzzleloader season. The statewide bag limit of one antlered deer still applies.