Just wondering how the public deer hunt has been?  Have the numbers rebounded from the low deer count last year?

no it's still bad. i wasn't going to go bc last fall was so bad (i drew one of the last rifle weekends) and saw lots of ewes/hardly any deer. I didn't bother with archery and was going to skip this year all together but i drew 1st weekend and got tricked into going. for first weekend it was pretty junk. I saw one good buck and he was wayyy down in a hole, couldn't get a shot before he busted,  but other than that was hardly any deer and still way too many ewes. i shot a small hard horn buck on my last morning. i have gone every year for the last 6 or 7 years and never seen it this bad. unless you drew the first couple of weekends you are wasting your time and money imo

We got drawn for this week but unfortunately it's the same day we head to New Zealand again for Stag, Fallow, Elk and hopefully others lol. Bummed we missing lanai deer season. Next year makes 40 years I've been going there and we always came home with something.  N trust me it's been worse before. In my honest opinion, the question is how hard are you willing to hunt?? Alot of it has to do with how much you put in to it. Don't get me wrong you can always get lucky and be at the right place,  right time n boom. But more often then not you gotta put on the work. N now more than ever ppl should be going since you can debone. Like a lot of ppl I've had my share of packing out whole animals. It ain't easy packing a 200+ # animal period it's worse when it's a deer lol. Now can debone ppl shouldn't worry as much to hump and find animals. Their there just gotta find em!

Wishing everyone a safe and successful hunting season

Aloha

we had second week, it wasnt easy but we managed a few animals. if you are part mountain goat you will do well. if you like shoot um from the truck, dont even bother.

Our group had second to last week last year. Just have to know their behavior, habits, and feeding. Like everything else, you have to put the work and time in. I shot my buck four hours before my flight back to Oahu on our last day.

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With the eradication work done by Pulama Lanai, the last deer estimate for the public access land was roughly 650 deer. That is way way below target levels, and it will take years to recover to decent populations.