Archery, crossbow hunting seasons open Saturday

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) reminds hunters that the archery and crossbow deer hunting seasons open Saturday, Sept. 13. The two seasons run through Jan. 4, 2026, except in the counties and metro subunits that have extended seasons open until Jan. 31, 2026.

The early archery and crossbow seasons are great opportunities for hunters to harvest antlerless deer before they change their patterns and experience additional hunting pressure during the gun deer season. Bonus antlerless harvest authorizations remain available in many counties.

“The forecast going into 2025 couldn’t be any better from a hunter opportunity standpoint,” said Jeff Pritzl, the DNR’s deer specialist in a briefing with statewide media Tuesday. “We came off of two really mild winters now. We have no units in the state that are buck-only, mostly because of the mild winters we’ve had and last year we had 13 counties that saw a record buck harvest at the end of the year. If you drew a straight line from Green Bay to Janesville, every county that line touched had a record buck kill last year.

“That being said, deer are not evenly distributed on the landscape and that doesn’t mean everyone is going to have a great opportunity in their traditional spot,” Pritzl added. “Successful hunters often find they need to move a little bit and shift to where the deer are concentrated, which can change from year to year.”

One of the major changes to the deer hunting season in 2025 is the return to habitat-based management units in the Northern Forest and Central Forest regions of the state. Since 2014, most deer management units were county-based. In Taylor County, land south of Hwy 64 is now in the DNR’s Central Farmland Zone, while land north of Hwy 64 are in numbered units, such as 114, which covers the central portion of the county; 110 in the west, 119 in the east and 115 in the far north.

“Hunters that have yet to purchase antlerless permits or when they are successful and register their deer they need to be aware of what deer management unit number they are in for those purposes this year,” Pritzl said.

Hunters can find current availability for antlerless permits on the DNR’s website at https://dnr.wisconsin. gov/permits/bonusavailability.html. In the farmland zone portion of Taylor County, one free antlerless authorization is available for each deer hunting license purchased if a hunter desires one.

“We have high deer numbers this year, especially in the farmland zones,” Pritzl said. “Archers are understandably patient. They have a long season and they tend to be selective and wait for opportunities. The early part of the archery season is a great time to get that first antlerless deer in the freezer and contribute to real deer population management in the farmland zone portions of the state. The record buck harvest did not come with record antlerless harvest as well. This would be a great year to increase that antlerless harvest during the archery season.”

All harvested deer must be registered by 5 p.m. the day after recovery using GameReg online, by phone or at aparticipating registration station.