Kentucky's Crossbow Deer Harvest Reached 14,363 in 2025, 9.9% of the Total

Kentucky hunters checked 14,363 deer with crossbows in the 2025 season, 9.9% of the 145,483 checked, and the state's harvest app records none before 2004. The count roughly doubled from 4,705 in 2018 to 9,783 in 2019, the first season under a crossbow season that the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources (KDFWR) lengthened by regulation, and it has stayed between 12,202 and 14,363 since 2020. Over the same 27 seasons the muzzleloader share fell from 18.5% to 6.2% while archery and crossbow together rose from 12.5% to 21.3%.

Crossbow deer numbered 4,552 in 2017 and 4,705 in 2018, then 9,783 in 2019. That rise of 5,078 took the crossbow share of the harvest from 3.2% to 6.6% in a single season. KDFWR's 2024-25 deer report says crossbow harvest "has steadily increased in the last decade, particularly after crossbow season was liberalized in 2018".

A KDFWR news release of June 4, 2019 supplies the timing. The Fish and Wildlife Commission approved the proposal late in 2018, and the rule went into effect on May 31, 2019. The new crossbow season opens the third Saturday in September and closes the third Monday in January, which meant September 21, 2019 to January 20, 2020. In 2018 the crossbow season ran October 1 to 21 and November 10 to December 31, according to KDFWR's August 2018 release. By our count that is 73 days in 2018 and 122 in 2019-20. The same regulation let all youth hunters, ages 15 and younger, use a crossbow through the entire archery season. The release describes the longer season as "a way to tap into the popularity crossbow hunting has gained in recent years".

So 2019 was the first season under the new dates, and it is the season the count doubled. Timing is not proof of cause. The longer season and the youth change took effect together, and the counts cannot separate either one from hunters simply choosing crossbows more often.

After 2019 the count rose to 13,168 in 2020 and has moved between 12,202 and 14,363 since, with 2025 the high point. KDFWR's report calls 2024-25 "the highest recorded harvest by crossbow by over 700 deer". In the app, 2024's 14,040 beat the earlier high, 13,275 in 2022, by 765.

The app records no crossbow deer from 1999 through 2003 and 561 in 2004. Whether that reflects what hunters took or how weapons were classed in those years, the app does not say. The count reached 1,521 in 2010 and 4,565 in 2015, a tripling in five seasons that came before the 2019 rule. It then held between 3,988 and 4,705 for the four seasons from 2015 through 2018, so the doubling arrived after a flat stretch.

From 1999 to 2025 the firearm share moved from 69.0% to 72.5%, archery from 12.5% to 11.5% and the muzzleloader from 18.5% to 6.2%, while crossbow went from zero to 9.9%. In deer, the muzzleloader fell from 17,641 to 9,021, down 48.9%, while firearm rose from 65,666 to 105,435 and archery from 11,920 to 16,664. Archery and crossbow together reached 21.3% of the harvest, and crossbows account for 14,363 of the 31,027 deer in that group, about 46%. The four weapons add up to the statewide total in both 1999 and 2025.

Take the season closest to the rule change. From 2018 to 2019 the crossbow count rose by 5,078 while the statewide total rose by 2,639. Archery fell by 1,513 and muzzleloader by 1,187, and firearm rose by 261. The mix moved more than the total did. The counts cannot say whether the same hunters switched weapons, new hunters picked up crossbows or the longer season put more hunting time afield.

KDFWR's report prints deer by weapon in its Table 2: archery 16,662, crossbow 14,020, firearm 107,392, muzzleloader 11,794 and a total of 149,868. The app shows 16,674, 14,040, 107,411, 11,794 and 149,919. The differences are 12, 20, 19, 0 and 51 deer. The app takes late check-ins after a report is printed, so its totals run a little above the printed ones.

One caution about the report itself. Its narrative gives a crossbow count that disagrees with its own Table 2, and it cites a 33% increase over the last decade that we could not reproduce from the table or the app, where the count goes from 4,565 in 2015 to 14,040 in 2024. We relied on Table 2 and the app. The report puts crossbows at 9% of the 2024-25 harvest and says that share has held for five years, and our shares for 2020 through 2024 run from 8.9% to 9.4%.

Weapon is what the hunter recorded at check-in. Season structures and legal-weapon rules changed over the period, so the shares describe the harvest and cannot stand in for hunter preference. Seasons here carry the year they open, so the 2025 season is 2025-26; where we cite KDFWR's report we keep its own labels, such as 2024-25. Our counts carry no hunter numbers or days afield, so they give no success rate for any weapon. KDFWR reports that "Seventy percent of the overall harvest occurred during the modern gun season", and our firearm share for 2024 is 71.6%; the first is counted by season and the second by weapon recorded.

We believe a jump in a weapon's share should be read against the rulebook before it is read as hunter preference, so hunters and data readers should look up what the season rules allowed in the year of any jump. Kentucky's crossbow share went from 3.2% to 6.6% in one season, the same season a longer crossbow season began.

If you are choosing a weapon, these counts cannot decide it. They hold no hunters or days afield, so pick by the seasons you can hunt and what you shoot well. Confirm the current crossbow dates in the Kentucky Hunting and Trapping Guide, since the dates quoted here come from 2018 and 2019 releases. Our paper on Ohio's bow counties looks at the crossbow-and-longbow share of registered deer in another state, and the straight-wall paper covers gun-line rule changes in three others.