(WNFL) – Nearly 600,000 hunters donned blaze orange attire and headed into the outdoors for opening weekend of the annual nine-day gun deer hunt in Wisconsin.
“We are off to a good start to the nine-day season, but the forecast is calling for some wet weather this week,” said Kevin Wallenfang, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources big game ecologist. “Harvest is up in many counties, even where some hunters said deer movement was poor. We saw excellent hunting conditions in much of the state over the weekend, so that combined with improved deer population levels following a mild winter and efforts to increase deer numbers, and we are hoping things continue to go well for hunters through the rest of the season.”
License Sales
As of opening morning, 591,783 gun deer licenses (828,664 gun, archer crossbow combined) had been sold, compared to 589,830 gun deer licenses (816,292 gun, archer crossbow combined) as of opening day in 2014.
Preliminary Registration Numbers
As of 5 p.m. Monday, 119,495 deer have been registered using the GameReg system, compared to 103,746 as of the Monday evening following opening weekend in 2014. Hunters must register their deer by 5 p.m. the day after harvest in 2015, as opposed to 5 p.m. the day after the nine-day season closes in years past.
