It may far from a record setting season for firearms hunters, but the ever-growing number of bowhunters in Missouri let their arrows do the talking this past season by taking the largest amount of whitetails ever.

The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) recently released the 2008-2009 archery season statistics revealing hunters arrowed a record-breaking 44,434 deer during the 111-day season, according to the conservation department. To put this in perspective, this equates to about 400 deer per day.

The 2008-2009 archery season surpassed the previous record set during the 2006-2007 session when hunters killed 42,322 deer. With the archery season now gone, the combined total of deer taken with both firearms and archery will peak at 283,253.

Hunters also may have experienced the effects of antler point restrictions which began in 2004. Archers were able to harvest 16,434 mature bucks, making up 37 percent of the total harvest. This is an increase of nearly 2,000 over the previous season.

Conservation department officials pointed out with interest that the top three counties in the number of deer killed, including mature bucks, were located in some of the most populous areas of the state. St. Louis, Jefferson, and Jackson Counties all ended the archery season with more than 900 deer each.

Hunters in Jackson County alone arrowed a whopping 317 mature bucks during the archery season. This is more than Andrew, Buchanan, Clinton, and Dekalb Counties combined. Jefferson County (south of St. Louis) had even more, with a season total of 357 mature bucks.

Archery deer hunting has been one of the fastest-growing sports in the country. Missouri held its first bowhunting season in 1946. Of the 73 permits issued for the three-day season, none were filled. In fact, during the first six seasons hunters only killed one deer.

After six decades, advances in equipment and a healthy growing population of whitetails has helped the sport grow to a point where around 150,000 archery permits are issued annually, resulting in annual harvests of around 40,000. Hunters also enjoy being allowed to hunt statewide during a season which spans from September to January.

Outdoors correspondent Jeff Leonard can be reached at outdoors@npgco.com