Triple Trophy Award rewards successful deer hunters

Jan. 13, 2021

Randy Zellers

Assistant Chief of Communications

LITTLE ROCK – The 2020-21 Arkansas deer seasons are winding to a close with only late-season archery archers visiting the woods for some solitude and a last chance to harvest a deer before the season ends Feb. 28 deadline. There’s plenty of time, however, for hunters to apply to be in one of Arkansas’s elite hunting circles — the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s Triple Trophy Award.

Hunters who qualify for the Triple Trophy Award must, within a single annual deer season, take at least one deer by each of the three legal hunting methods – modern firearms, muzzleloading rifle or pistol, and archery/crossbow tackle. Qualifying hunters receive a patch and a certificate suitable for framing.

The program was started in the mid-1980s to encourage the harvest of antlerless deer and to spread hunting pressure through the three seasons, reducing crowding.

It may be hard to believe now, but at one point in the 1930s, only 500 deer were estimated to still exist in Arkansas. Unregulated market hunting and subsistence hunting nearly caused them to be completely wiped out. The AGFC introduced deer from other states and relocated deer to game refuges, where deer were protected and allowed to grow without disturbance. Harvest of female deer was strictly prohibited to enable the deer herds to expand.

By the 1980s, however, deer populations had grown to healthy enough numbers to allow some harvest of does to begin the change in management from growth to maintenance. But breaking the taboo of harvesting does was a difficult process. In fact, it is still frowned upon by some hunters, despite the need for more doe harvest to keep the herd balanced and healthy. If does are protected from harvest, the ratio of does to bucks can be too far out of balance. This can lead to many does being bred later in the season than usual as well as too many deer competing for limited resources, which impacts the health of bucks and does alike.

Visit www.agfc.com/tripletrophy to learn more and apply.