2023 NINE-DAY GUN DEER HUNT - While a good season for some, many deer hunters went empty-handed

2023 NINE-DAY GUN DEER HUNT

The opening weekend registration numbers showed a downward dive compared to last year and that didn’t change during the rest of Wisconsin’s nine-day gun deer hunting season, according to figures released Tuesday by the Department of Natural Resources During the season, which ran from Nov. 18 through Sunday, preliminary results show state hunters registered 173,942 white-tailed deer, down 17.6% from last year. Of that total, 85,390 were antlered bucks, down 14.7%, and 88,552 were antlerless deer, down 20.3% from a year ago.

In Taylor County, the drop was even more significant, typical of much of the DNR’s Northern Forest Deer Management Zone. Here, 2,650 deer were registered overall, down 33.5% from last year. The buck total was 1,383, down 30.7% from last year’s number of 1,995, and the antlerless total was 1,267, down 36.4% from a year ago.

The DNR prefers to make comparisons to the five-year average rather than year-to-year. In Taylor County, the preliminary buck harvest for 2023 is down 15.8% from the 2018-22 average of 1,643 and the doe harvest is down 26.5% from the 2018-22 average of 1,724, even though more antlerless permits are available now than there were in some of those previous seasons. The overall figure is down 21.3% from the 2018-22 average of 3,367.

DNR officials said it’s hard to exactly pinpoint both locally and statewide why numbers fell off as much as they did, but any number of factors could have contributed.

“I would say maybe it is a little bit surprising initially with the timing of the rut and all that,” said Emma Hansen, the DNR’s wildlife biologist for Taylor and Rusk counties. “It kinda seemed like things might pick up a little bit. But we had pretty warm weather the first weekend and I think that played into it a lot.

We didn’t have the snow cover that usually improves deer sightability. We’ve taken a drop for sure. Some of that is contributed to winter impacts from last year. I think there were some other things at play too. We talked (before the season) about the big acorn crop. Maybe that was changing deer behavior and movement a little bit.”

“I could probably come up with a half a dozen factors or variables that influenced this,” DNR deer program specialist Jeff Pritzl said Tuesday in a briefing with statewide media. “That’s part of the intrigue of hunting and one of the things we as hunters, myself included, do sitting around the table or the campfire speculating on what was it. Depending on where you were in the state, those reasons might be different.”

It was a relatively safe hunting season in Wisconsin with just three gun-related incidents. Unfortunately, the third one happened Friday in Taylor County in Rib Lake Township where a 30-year-old male was wounded by a gunshot fired by a 35-year-old male in his hunting party who was shooting at a deer during a drive. The 10-year average for hunting incidents is 5.9 and this is the sixth year out of 10 with no fatalities.

Winter severity from last winter was expected to lead to a bit of a drop in numbers in the Northern Forest zone. The region, which basically covers all counties along and north of Hwy 64, saw a total drop of 30% in registration numbers from a year ago, including a 26.9% drop in the buck kill. Antlerless permits were reduced in many counties due to concerns over the winter. Registration numbers for those deer in the region dropped 34.7% from last year.

“Last year we had pretty good conditions,” Hansen said. “We had snow and cooler temperatures that were getting the deer moving. We were still hitting that tail end of the rut a little bit. Last year was a really big high. This year was just on the lower end of things. That’s what we get. You get a pendulum. It’s never going to be constant.

“I’ve heard that from a lot of folks that it’s really been a quiet year,” she added. “I’ve also heard from other people, not necessarily just in Taylor County, but some people actually had a really good year or their best year they claim. It just depends on the people. Especially for folks who were willing to get back into those big brushy areas or change up their hunting spot or do deer drives, those people maybe saw more success because they got a little more creative with the hunting conditions that we had.”

With the Nov. 18 start date, the second- earliest possible start date under Wisconsin’s season framework, the hope among many hunters that the deer’s breeding period, or the rut, which typically peaks in early November, may still be happening on opening weekend. That activity, however, seemed to be hit or miss, as always.

“In a year like this year, I think that was part of the expectation in the anticipation because we had a pretty early opener and that usually enhances (rut activity),” Pritzl said. “Like every other year, we have gotten those reports that there was some evidence of buck breeding activity. However I think relative to what we hear every year, it probably wasn’t as great as I think a lot of us expected. I myself, I was hunting up north opening weekend and was very encouraged by the amount of buck sign I saw on Friday in terms of fresh scrapes and whatnot and it just didn’t play out on Saturday or Sunday for me to have any daytime deer movement.”

In the Northern Forest zone, overall percentage drops from last year ranged from 13% in Florence County and 19.1% in Langlade County to 55.3% in Iron County, the only county in the state to be bucks-only this year, 38.9% in Washburn County and 38% in Rusk County.

Taylor County hunters did register the most deer per square mile in the Northern Forest Zone at 2.7.

While predation is a common complaint among hunters, particularly in the north in years of low registration numbers, Pritzl said that is something that is hard to quantify.

“It’s always nice to have a very black and white or easy two plus two equals four formula that we look for and it’s prone to say there’s the connection,” Pritzl said. “In the big picture it’s really more complicated than that. There’s a number of things that are of influence. We could say this year predators played this amount of the role in the deer population trend and next year it could be very different. Research does suggest that during more severe winters like we had last year, that does tip the scale in the favor of large carnivores like wolves. But then in the mild years, it goes the other way. But it’s hard to just say this is the standard influence on an annual basis. It’s just one of those things that influences the ebb and flow from hunting year to year.”

The deer hunting season is not over. The 10-day muzzleloader season continues through Wednesday, Dec. 6 and that is followed by the four-day statewide antlerless gun hunt Dec. 7-10. Hansen noted that in Taylor County, carcass dumpsters sponsored by the Taylor County Sportsman’s Club in Medford, Rib Lake and Gilman will still be available at least through the antlerless season.

The archery/crossbow season runs through Sunday, Jan. 7.

License sales data

As of 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, sales for gun, bow, crossbow, sports and conservation patron licenses reached 788,697. Of that total, 434,817 were for gun privileges only. Year-to-date sales for all deer licenses are down 0.8% compared to last year.

This year, hunters from all 50 states and 27 countries purchased a Wisconsin hunting license.

Of the licenses sold to date, 66% were purchased online. The remaining 34% were sold in person through transactions at DNR license sale locations. Deer hunting license and harvest authorization sales will continue through the remaining deer hunting seasons.