Gun Deer Season Got Off To Slow Start, DNR Reports

Open Weekend Figures Were Down 18.5 Percent From 2013

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A deer hunter in the central Wisconsin village of Redgranite. Photo: S.B. Tuska (CC-BY-NC-ND).

The nine-day gun deer season that wrapped up this weekend got off to a slow start, according to preliminary figures from the Department of Natural Resources.

Those figures show a total of 90,281 deer registered for this year’s opening weekend, compared to 110,797 in 2013 — a decline of 18.5 percent. The harvest of bucks was down 9 percent, and antlerless deer down 27 percent.

Up north, Ashland, Forest, Iron, Price , Sawyer and Vilas counties had a decrease of more than 40 percent. In central Wisconsin, Chippewa County was down 30 percent, and Marathon County was down 26 percent.

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DNR Conservation Warden Chelsey Collette said that rain and dense fog played a big part in the slow start.

“The weather always plays a huge role,” said Collette. “We had, obviously, some crazy weather this year in this area of the state. Rain, snow, fog — we had a little bit of everything, so that’s going to play a big role in people’s harvest success.”

Harvest figures for the entire season are not yet available.