Opening weekend saw harvest numbers down about five percent from last year, which was below the five-year average, but the rest of the nine-day gun deer season saw those harvest numbers turn around.
Overall, more than 189,622 deer were harvested statewide, according to preliminary numbers from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. That’s up about five percent from last year and closer to the five-year average.
“Given the late start of the gun season that we've been talking about up to this point, that's about really as good as I think we could have expected to have kind of held our harvest, similar to last year, and actually saw some increases in a few places,” said Wisconsin DNR Deer Program Specialist Jeff Pritzl.
While improved from last year, Pritzl says harvest numbers were down again in the Northern Forest Zone.
After last year's low harvest numbers in the north, there was a lot of discussion about what was causing it and what to do about it.
"There's a lot of focus on what we've seen as change in the north that gets the narrative and the portrayal is that things have gone in the wrong direction as far as the northern forest hunting experience goes. And there's there's truth to that, for sure," said Pritzl. Though, that statement came with a but.
Pritzl pointed to mail surveys sent to hunters each year.
He says that data points to a trend of Wisconsin hunters choosing to hunt in the southern portion of the state rather than the north, particularly during the gun deer season.
“Cumulatively, over the past 30 years, our days of hunting effort in the northern forest right now are about half of what they were back in the 1990s,” said Pritzl. “That has to help put in perspective why we see those declining harvest numbers in the north that aren't necessarily tied directly to declining deer numbers.”
Pritzl says there’s also been a shift towards the archery season. Archery buck harvest in the Northern Forest is up 30% ahead of this time last year.
“As a different metric, which covers a greater period of time, it would suggest again that this declining harvest we're seeing in the northern forest isn't a direct parallel to the deer population up there,” said Pritzl.
There was only one person hurt in a hunting accident this year.
A 14-year-old in Vernon County was shot in his feet by another person, the incident is still under investigation.
It’s the safest nine-day gun deer hunt in the last 40 years with no gun-related related deaths and only one person shot.
“It's kind of hard to pinpoint one thing on why we only had one hunting incident this year, just because there's so many factors that play into that, whether it could be, maybe people aren't seeing as many deer while they're out this year, it could be any number of things,” said Renee Thok, Wisconsin DNR Hunter Education Administrator.
There are still more deer hunting opportunities. The muzzleloader season is going on now through December 11. The statewide antlerless-only four-day hunt is December 12-15.
