Hunters bag more deer during safest gun deer season in decades

Wisconsin hunters bagged 5 percent more deer during the nine-day gun deer season compared to last year, capping off the safest hunt in 40 years.

Preliminary figures released by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Tuesday show hunters registered 189,622 deer, up 5.2 percent from the 180,296 deer registered at the same time last year. The harvest was 1.2 percent above the five-year average. 

The deer harvest improved over last season despite anticipations that a late season start would reduce deer movement and hunter success. DNR Deer Program Specialist Jeff Pritzl attributed the increase to the weather.

“That snow that came in some parts of the state on Monday, other parts got some snow on Thanksgiving, certainly helped,” Pritzl said. “The colder temperatures and windy conditions — a lot of comments that that actually got deer moving a little bit better during daylight hours.”

Wisconsin’s nine-day hunt began Nov. 23 and ended Sunday.

License sales grew slightly compared to last year. The DNR reported 553,652 gun deer licenses were sold through Sunday compared to 553,479 gun deer licenses sold in 2023. 

The harvest included 89,787 bucks, up 3.6 percent from the same time last year. The antlerless kill was 99,835 deer, up 6.6 percent from 2023. 

Hunters killed more deer in every region of the state except for farmland areas of southern Wisconsin.

“The central farmland [region] really carries the overall harvest for the state,” Pritzl said. “They had a really good gun deer season relative to last year.”

Farmland areas in central Wisconsin saw the largest boost compared to last year with hunters killing 9.2 percent more deer. In the forested areas of central and northern Wisconsin, the harvest was up 7.5 percent and 2.2 percent respectively. Hunters killed 2.6 percent fewer deer in southern Wisconsin.

While the harvest improved, that comes after hunters killed around 30 percent fewer deer last year in northern Wisconsin. The harvest up north is still down 7.7 percent from the five-year average.

Safest gun deer season in decades

According to the DNR, there was just one nonfatal hunting incident during the gun deer season. Lieutenant Renee Thok, the agency’s hunter education administrative warden, said it was the safest gun deer season in 40 years. The sole incident occurred on Nov. 29 at 4 p.m. in Vernon County.

“A 14 year-old male was sitting in an enclosed tower stand with his father on private property. The victim’s father heard what sounded like a gunshot in the distance,” Thok said. “Then, shortly after, the victim had felt pain in his feet and found that he had suffered a gunshot through both the left and right foot.”

The teen was transported to a nearby hospital for medical treatment. Thok said the shooter has been identified, and an investigation into the incident is still ongoing. Thok said eight hunting incidents have occurred so far this calendar year.

Overall, three people sustained injuries during last year’s season out of 11 hunting incidents throughout all of 2023. The DNR said the state has averaged 5.6 hunting incidents over the last decade, noting no deaths occurred in 6 out of the last 10 seasons.

The DNR also projected hunters would submit 19,200 samples to test deer chronic wasting disease, or CWD, this year. Preliminary data shows more than 8,100 deer have been sampled statewide. Around 850 deer have tested positive for the deadly deer disease, primarily in southern Wisconsin where there’s high prevalence of CWD.

The DNR’s Herd Health Specialist Erin Larson said its processing center is currently analyzing hundreds of samples from the gun deer season.

“We are getting results for some hunters within a couple of days from that opening weekend, but we’re still going to be continuing to get results for another week or two,” Larson said.

First found in the state in 2002, the disease attacks the brains of deer and other animals, causing drastic weight loss and death over time. Larson said there were no new detections of CWD in wild deer during the nine-day hunt. The disease has continued to spread statewide and now affects 64 counties in Wisconsin. 

Hunters can still submit deer for sampling at self-service kiosks and dispose of deer carcasses at designated dumpsters or landfills for other seasons, including the muzzleloader and holiday hunts.

Wisconsin is estimated to have more than 1.6 million deer. Deer hunting contributes around $2.2 billion to the state’s economy.