Deer kill on a good pace despite cold, windy opener

OPENING WEEKEND REPORT

Despite opening day behind far from ideal, deer hunters in Taylor County –– and throughout the state –– had a pretty successful first weekend of the 2022 nine-day gun season.

In Taylor County, hunters registered 1,018 bucks after Saturday and Sunday, up a solid 25.8% over the 2021 count of 809 bucks. The antlerless harvest sat at 673 through two days, up slightly, 2.4%, over last year’s figure of 657.

Overall, the 1,691 deer registered through this weekend comes out to a 15.3% openingweekend increase over last year’s total of 1,466.

The success here mirrors the 16.4% increase in the buck registration total and 15.4% overall increase throughout the Wisconsin DNR’s Northern Forest Region, which touches 20 counties. Statewide, hunters registered 56,638 bucks through the first two days, up 13.9% from last year’s mark of 49,471. They tagged 46,985 antlerless deer, up 16.6% over last year’s total of 40,282 to bring the overall increase to 15.1%, up from 90,023 to 103,623.

This was done despite some tough hunting conditions on opening day Saturday with high winds, blinding light snow at times and temperatures that plummeted toward single digits late in the day with wind chills around zero. After a cold start, Sunday turned into a solid day weatherwise for hunting.

The nine-day hunt continues through this Sunday, Nov. 27 and will be followed by the state’s 10-day muzzleloader hunt Nov. 28 through Dec. 7 and then the four-day antlerless hunt Dec. 8-11. The archery and crossbow seasons are on-going as well.

“The weather and the conditions always play a factor into hunter success,” DNR Deer Program Specialist Jeff Pritzl said Tuesday in a briefing with statewide media. “Every year there’s a half-dozen different variables that are either working in favor of or maybe against the hunters. This year on the favorable side we had snow cover. On the challenging side we had high winds on Saturday that went into Sunday in the southern part of the state along with some snow and wind chills. So there were some challenges there.

“But despite that, our opening weekend registration numbers essentially returned to normal,” he said. “If you compare it to last year, we’re looking at like a 15% increase. Some may be surprised at that given the weather conditions. But keep in mind that in 2021 we had a relatively slow opener and so this isn’t so much a big jump from last year as it is to more of a return to more normal to what we see over a five-year average. But bottom line it was good to see that those registration numbers returned to normal over the weekend. How it plays out the rest of the week again will be influenced by a number of factors.” Looking at Taylor County’s numbers with a more long-term approach, opening weekend’s registration totals showed the buck total was 14.6% above the five-year average, the antlerless total was 12.9% above the fiveyear average and the overall total is 13.9% above the five-year average. The Central Forest Region of the state showed the highest increase over last year in the opening weekend count with overall registration totals jumping 37.1% from 3,130 last year to 4,292 this year. The region’s increase was 15.7% above the five-year average. That region includes large chunks of Clark, Jackson, Wood, Juneau and Adams counties.

“It’s likely the forested zones, the Central and Northern Forest, had a little bit of a buffer from that wind effect on opening day,” Pritzl said. “It was the really open agricultural areas that were really exposed to that whipping wind.”

Weather forecasts call for calm and relatively warm conditions through this weekend.

Pritzl said historically, opening weekend tends to account for about half of the total harvest during the nine-day season. About 60% of the buck harvest comes in the first two days. So generally speaking a good weather weekend is important for reaching harvest goals. But increased deer harvests by archers and crossbow hunters are changing that thinking somewhat.

“Opening weekend is very influential, but I’ll say not as influential as it used to be,” he said. “We used to be much more dependent on opening weekend than we are now as the harvest opportunity or effort has been spreading out over time.

“It’s not quite as critical as it used to be,” he added. “These variables tend to balance themselves out over time. I would suspect we probably saw what will be about half of the harvest. Last year when we had kind of a slow opening weekend, that was concerning because we used to say we never make up for a bad opening weekend. That really wasn’t true last year. We did have a slow opening weekend and although we didn’t catch all the way up, we did make up ground over the rest of the nine-day season in 2021. It will be interesting to see how the rest of the week plays out.”

Pritzl also reminded hunters to not forget to register their deer after they harvest them and urged hunters to consider submitting heads for chronic wasting disease sampling. Hunters are required to register their deer by 5 p.m. the day after recovery.

License sales Six incidents, one fatal

Preliminary figures indicate that the number of deer hunters in Wisconsin decreased compared to 2021.

As of midnight Sunday, Nov. 20, sales for gun, bow, crossbow, sports and patron licenses reached 779,123. Of that total, 421,474 were for gun privileges only. The year-to-date sales for all deer licenses are down 2% from the same time last year.

The number of conservation patron licenses sold to date in 2022 is 2.2% higher than all conservation patron licenses sold in 2021.

Of the total licenses sold, 62% were sold online, and 38% were sold in-person by DNR license agents and DNR service centers, which includes private businesses across the state.

The DNR reported six firearm-involved hunting incidents during the opening weekend of the 2022 gun deer season, including a fatal incident in Green Lake County on Sunday.

In that case, which happened shortly after 9 a.m. in Seneca Township, an 11-year-old male was the victim of a gunshot wound to the chest. A 41-year-old male shooter attempted to unload his firearm while the firearm was placed in the backseat of a vehicle. The firearm discharged, striking the victim. The victim was flown via Med Flight to a hospital where he died. The shooter and victim were members of same hunting party.

The other five cases included:

  Sauk County, Woodland Township: On Saturday at approximately 11:10 a.m., a 22-year-old male was the victim of a gunshot wound to the thigh. During a deer drive, a 20-year-old male shooter, who was a driver in the hunting party, shot at a running deer, striking the victim, who was a stander in the hunting party. The victim was transported to the hospital and treated.

  Marquette County, Mecan Township: On Saturday at approximately noon, while in a ground blind in a field, a 69-year-old female was the victim of a gunshot wound to the thigh. A 16-year-old male shooter was hunting from his ground blind in an open field, separated by a pond from the victim, when he shot at a deer, striking the victim. The victim was transported to a nearby hospital and treated. The shooter and victim were members of same hunting party.

  Oneida County, Little Rice Township: On Saturday at approximately 1:30 p.m., a 24-year-old male suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the foot. The victim was repairing his rifle sling when his hand froze to the firearm. As he pulled his hand off the firearm, he hit the trigger, causing an unwanted discharge. The victim received medical treatment for injury.

  Iowa County, Mifflin Township: On Saturday at the close of hunting hours, a 15-year-old male suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the foot. The victim was unloading his firearm while sitting in the passenger seat of a truck when the firearm discharged. The victim was transported to a local hospital and treated.

  Forest County, Town of Hiles: On Sunday in the afternoon hours, a 33-year-old male suffered a selfinflicted gunshot wound to his little finger. The victim was manipulating his handgun when it discharged. The victim was treated for the injury.

Hunters are reminded that firearms are not allowed to be loaded when on or in vehicles.

Wisconsin’s 10-year average is approximately six hunting incidents for the gun deer hunt. The decline in incidents is the direct result of hunter safety education given by Wisconsin’s volunteer instructors and conservation wardens.