The numbers are in, for the opening weekend of Wisconsin’s gun deer hunt. “Things started out a little slower than we were hoping that they would, but still we had over 90,000 deer registered, with a little over half of those, 47,000 being antlered bucks,” said Kevin Wallenfang with the Department of Natural Resources.
“We are down right now, in comparison, about 30 percent, and that was not totally unexpected. When we have years where we go from the absolute earliest opener which we did in 2018 to the absolute latest opener which we had this year, we tend to see usually a 20 to 25 percent reduction in the opening weekend buck harvest.”
The nine-day gun deer season opened Saturday and runs through Sunday. “I would just encourage people, you know we’re only talking about the first two days of the season, and there’s still lots of time out there and lots of deer out there to pursue, so get on out there and enjoy it,” Wallenfang said.
