NATCHEZ — Deer season ended a little more than a week ago.

And while it is too early for the state to have actual 2009 harvest numbers, all signs are pointing to an average season of hunting in Mississippi.

Carl Dunn, owner of Dunn’s Meat Market, said his business has been normal based on past seasons.

“Business went pretty well,” Dunn said. “I don’t think there was an increase, but it was right close to last year.”

Tucker Crisp, a taxidermist who has a shop behind his home on Beau Pré Road, said his business has been on par this season as well.

Crisp usually does approximately 150 shoulder mounts of deer and another 100 skull mounts.

“It started off real slow,” he said of this season’s business. “But before the season was over it got right back around to normal.”

The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks compiles its 2009 statistics over the year and won’t have solid harvest numbers until 2010.

But Deer Project Coordinator Chad Dacus said, from what little information has been gathered so far, it was an average season.

And while it may seem to some that this was a down year for hunting, that’s just not true, Dacus said.

“Last year we had a new archery record, and we had multiple bucks that scored over 170 inches. Last year was a record year by all account,” Dacus said. “But last year was an odd year. We normally don’t see that many deer of that caliber killed one season.”

Dacus said many people expected this year to be on par with last season, but he said that’s simply not possible.

The fact that so many record bucks were killed last year means there were fewer to be had this season.

“There were no state records broken as far as harvest was concerned, and there were not as many larger-antlered bucks over the 170-inch class killed across the state as there were last year,” he said. “Every couple years, the stars all align just right and everything works out for a great year. So we did not expect it to be as good this year for that reason.”

But Crisp said he did see some deer he thought were larger than normal.

“It seems like the basic 8-points ran bigger this year,” he said. “I had some big-frame 8-points this season.”

There are approximately 700 hunting properties and clubs across the state, mostly in central Mississippi, that Dacus said he works with closely to get early estimates of deer harvest.

Dacus said those properties reported their harvests at the same quality as normal and the same or slightly higher than normal numbers, but he only has official counts for the 2007-2008 season.

“As far as looking at managed property for last year, it was about 24,000 or 25,000 (deer harvested) on our managed properties,” Dacus said. “This is by no means a good estimate of other properties and of our public lands.”

The rest of the state’s hunting numbers will be reported in a survey that will be mailed out in the next month or two.

It will take the rest of the year, roughly, to compile and sort those numbers.

Dacus said overall, both the number of people hunting and the number of deer harvested were on target with previous seasons, which is a relief to the MWDFP.

There was concern before the season started that fewer hunters would be out this season.

“I think we’d have seen a big drop if gas would have stayed at $4 a gallon like we thought it might,” Dacus said. “But because gas prices dropped to some of the lowest they’ve been in years right at the time of hunting season, people were able to go hunting. They didn’t have that cost-prohibitive factor in there.”