The last survey they released, for 2015-16, estimated 295,000 killed. GC is running roughly 25% of survey estimates. However, since GC attempts to record every deer, including those by unlicensed hunters, the GC figure should be considerably higher than the survey estimates. I don't think anyone has any idea of how many unlicensed hunters we have, so there is no way to tell from those figures what the true GC participation level might be.

But I agree with you that it is likely lower than the dcnr estimated %.

One thing that the survey definitely showed is that the trend is down. We went from pre buck limit estimates of over 400,000, to estimates 10 years later that are under 300,000. I think the low GC numbers are probably a combination of a low % of hunters reporting, and also a constantly declining harvest.

The buck limit, along with so much encouragement for hunters to kill does, are the biggest factors in the decline of our deer hunting. GC is insignificant compared to those factors.