State Wildlife Regulators Expecting Similar Harvest During This Year's Gun Deer Season

Friday, November 1st, 2024 -- 8:00 AM

(Danielle Kaeding, Wisconsin Public Radio) State wildlife regulators say a warm winter and dry weather this fall could improve hunters’ chances during the nine-day gun deer season, but they’re expecting a similar harvest to last year due to a late start.

According to Danielle Kaeding with Wisconsin Public Radio, the season begins Saturday, Nov. 23 and runs through Sunday, Dec. 1. Last year, hunters killed 175,101 deer statewide, down about 17 percent from 2022.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources said a lack of snow during the nine-day season and preceding harsh winter likely reduced hunter success last year.

This year, a record-setting warm winter likely led to increased fawn survival, according to Jeff Pritzl, the agency’s state deer program specialist. “That means more deer on the landscape to a certain degree,” Pritzl said.

“As it relates to bucks, their antler development will be a little bit better this year because they came out of the winter in such good physical shape.” Dry conditions this fall also means the corn harvest is ahead of schedule, creating less cover for deer in farmland areas.

Even so, Pritzl noted the late start to the season means it occurs further away from the rut or mating season when bucks are searching for does. That means deer movement will likely be reduced during the day.\

In past years, Pritzl said a late start has coincided with a drop of roughly 10 percent or more in the overall deer harvest. “I think expectations should be that we will see harvest numbers not that different from last year,” Pritzl said.

But Pritzl noted the archery harvest is up considerably in northern Wisconsin, which may indicate a return to normal after hunters killed 30 percent fewer deer in the region last year.

“That’s a good sign for the northern forest moving forward, and we’ll see if that is a foreshadowing of what will happen during the gun season,” Pritzl said.

Wisconsin’s deer herd has grown to more than 1.6 million deer, although Pritzl noted deer are not evenly distributed across the state. Deer hunting contributes around $2.2 billion to the state’s economy.

So far, the state has sold 444,743 licenses, of which 123,861 are solely gun licenses. Pritzl said many sales occur the day before the season starts. Last year, hunters purchased more than 553,000 licenses.

License sales have been declining over time as baby boomers are aging out of hunting and fewer young people take their place.

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