Wisconsin Gun Opener Saturday

[bueller]

In your case I feel bad for saying what I did. But in many cases, there are so many non resident guys that come in to just shoot a buck and kill every doe they see because tags are cheaper than almost every other state. Rant over

No need to feel sorry. The bad rap is somewhat deserved as there are some bad apples. I eat way more tags then venison. Typically harvest one deer per year.

 

[westonwhitetail]

I agree with increasing the cost of non-resident tags. We were cheaper than most surrounding states. I think limiting the number of tags or a drawing would be good too. I do think if you own a property though, you should be eligible for the resident prices.

The hunt for me was pretty quite! Not many deer sightings compared to other years... There was a lot of shooting opening day around me but the rest of the season it was fairly quite out there.

 

[Bill Loser]

Opening weekend here was slow, really slow. We have state forest within throwing distance, either no one was hunting or no deer were seen. I would guess 10 to 15 shots total all day Sat and about the same Sunday. Shooting wise I would say the last Sunday was the best, but even that wasn't what I would consider alot.I have yet to talk to anyone who had a really good season as far as deer sightings go. Around here the deer are there, but no one moves anymore , us included.

 

[Wind Gypsy]

I agree with increasing the cost of non-resident tags. We were cheaper than most surrounding states. I think limiting the number of tags or a drawing would be good too. I do think if you own a property though, you should be eligible for the resident prices.

Just looked, looks like for some reason they value archery tags less than rifle tags.. $165 vs $200. MN is at $185 for either. Both are less than half the price of most western deer tags. MT will run you over $700 if I recall correctly. Guess that is the difference between places where deer are looked at like varmints vs places where they are less numerous and game agencies want to cash in on NR.

Re creating a drawing and landowner tags - Those types of changes are tough to make now that people have invested and made plans to do things a certain way for decades. How many acres should be required for NR landowners to get tags? Is a hunting shack on a quarter acre near a bunch of public land enough? Someone's going to be left out in the cold. That's why I'm almost always in the camp of not reducing most long held restrictions in opportunity because its awful hard to get em back.

 

[Bill Loser]

Just looked, looks like for some reason they value archery tags less than rifle tags.. $165 vs $200. MN is at $185 for either. Both are less than half the price of most western deer tags. MT will run you over $700 if I recall correctly. Guess that is the difference between places where deer are looked at like varmints vs places where they are less numerous and game agencies want to cash in on NR.

Re creating a drawing and landowner tags - Those types of changes are tough to make now that people have invested and made plans to do things a certain way for decades. How many acres should be required for NR landowners to get tags? Is a hunting shack on a quarter acre near a bunch of public land enough? Someone's going to be left out in the cold. That's why I almost always in the camp of not reducing most long held restrictions in opportunity because its awful hard to get em back.

That is a good question about the land owners. I do think if you own land here you should get a break, but where is that line drawn? Just a thought, how about license cost based on property taxes? Would be a record keeping nightmare

 

[bueller]

Opening weekend here was slow, really slow. We have state forest within throwing distance, either no one was hunting or no deer were seen. I would guess 10 to 15 shots total all day Sat and about the same Sunday. Shooting wise I would say the last Sunday was the best, but even that wasn't what I would consider alot.I have yet to talk to anyone who had a really good season as far as deer sightings go. Around here the deer are there, but no one moves anymore , us included.

Similar amount of shooting by me also. Several morning and afternoon hunts where I didn't hear a single shot within miles. As you said nobody moves. Nearly everyone walks to their spot, often times a box blind, hunts for a few hours, and then walks back down the trail to their car or home.

 

[Bill Loser]

Similar amount of shooting by me also. Several morning and afternoon hunts where I didn't hear a single shot within miles. As you said nobody moves. Nearly everyone walks to their spot, often times a box blind, hunts for a few hours, and then walks back down the trail to their car or home.

Yeah I would love to bitch about that, but I do it too. We were planning on doing some drives later in the week but it turns out we were all to lazy!
We got lucky and had 2 opening day, so the "pressure" was off to get some meat and we just kind of relaxed the rest of the week. Passed on a few deer every day. All the adults just disappeared and all we saw were fawns. I will say the number of fawns we have locally is very encouraging

 

[Tree Spud]

Wisconsin gun deer harvest was down 17.6%.

Statewide, the deer harvest from the nine-day gun season was down 17.6% compared to last year’s successful campaign. A total 173,942 deer were registered. The antlered harvest was down 14.7%, the anterless catch was down 20.3%.

Funny how the DNR blames a variable they know they no control over and do little to create tools that would manage hunters to shoot more deer.

The major factor was the weather compared to 2022 -- it was warmer than usual and there was no tracking snow like hunters had last year -- but every deer management zone was below the five-year average in both antlered and antlerless categories (see table below).

Less of a factor than the weather was the number of hunters. The number of license sales for all deer hunting is down 0.8% compared to last year.

So only 0.8% drop in license sales but a 17.6% drop in harvest. More seasons, longer seasons, more weapons, easier weapons .... when a resource is readily available and there is no effort or requirement to take advantage of it, people become complacent. When a resource is made to seem to be hard to obtain and one has to do things to get to the important part of the resource (bucks), they tend to put more effort in.

Wisconsin Gun Deer Harvest

 

[bueller]

Yeah I would love to bitch about that, but I do it too. We were planning on doing some drives later in the week but it turns out we were all to lazy!
We got lucky and had 2 opening day, so the "pressure" was off to get some meat and we just kind of relaxed the rest of the week. Passed on a few deer every day. All the adults just disappeared and all we saw were fawns. I will say the number of fawns we have locally is very encouraging

Oh I'm not complaining. I generally start to see deer again later in the week as they begin reverting to their normal routines after all the activity opening weekend. Participation drops way off by Sunday afternoon.

 

[Bill Loser]

Oh I'm not complaining. I generally start to see deer again later in the week as they begin reverting to their normal routines after all the activity opening weekend. Participation drops way off by Sunday afternoon.

I definitely did not mean it that way! Didn't think you were at all. Just pointing out that I and my group were doing the same thing that everyone else was doing.

 

[Bill Loser]

Wisconsin gun deer harvest was down 17.6%.

Statewide, the deer harvest from the nine-day gun season was down 17.6% compared to last year’s successful campaign. A total 173,942 deer were registered. The antlered harvest was down 14.7%, the anterless catch was down 20.3%.

Funny how the DNR blames a variable they know they no control over and do little to create tools that would manage hunters to shoot more deer.

The major factor was the weather compared to 2022 -- it was warmer than usual and there was no tracking snow like hunters had last year -- but every deer management zone was below the five-year average in both antlered and antlerless categories (see table below).

Less of a factor than the weather was the number of hunters. The number of license sales for all deer hunting is down 0.8% compared to last year.

So only 0.8% drop in license sales but a 17.6% drop in harvest. More seasons, longer seasons, more weapons, easier weapons .... when a resource is readily available and there is no effort or requirement to take advantage of it, people become complacent. When a resource is made to seem to be hard to obtain and one has to do things to get to the important part of the resource (bucks), they tend to put more effort in.

Wisconsin Gun Deer Harvest

If I remember correctly, last year they blamed the cold,windy conditions for the below ave. harvest. I do sometimes think they just make numbers up to fit their objectives. Far fetched I know, but looking at the numbers early on this year it seems fishy to me that we would add 70,000+ deer in the final 4 days of the season

 

[bueller]

Don't forget this was the second earliest date for the gun opener. In general that boosts the numbers quite a bit. With 2024 being a leap year we go to the latest date possible for the gun opener which historically gives a low harvest.

 

[Tree Spud]

Don't forget this was the second earliest date for the gun opener. In general that boosts the numbers quite a bit. With 2024 being a leap year we go to the latest date possible for the gun opener which historically gives a low harvest.

And with rut activity still strong, that would add to harvest activity.

 

[bueller]

And with rut activity still strong, that would add to harvest activity.

Absolutely. I'd wager right now that even with the drop in harvest this year we will still see a drop next year. If this year wasn't eye opening to some, wait to see 2022 vs 2024.

 

[Tree Spud]

If I remember correctly, last year they blamed the cold,windy conditions for the below ave. harvest. I do sometimes think they just make numbers up to fit their objectives. Far fetched I know, but looking at the numbers early on this year it seems fishy to me that we would add 70,000+ deer in the final 4 days of the season

With electronic registration tied to a hunter specific ID #, I don't know how they would manipulate the numbers. If you look at your Go Wild account, it shows you exactly how many deer you have harvested.

 

[Bill Loser]

With electronic registration tied to a hunter specific ID #, I don't know how they would manipulate the numbers. If you look at your Go Wild account, it shows you exactly how many deer you have harvested.

Yeah ,I get it. It just seems really fishy. Kinda like finding 25,000 extra votes at 2 in the morning in a closet.

 

[4wanderingeyes]

10 more years to go as a FIB. Then I can move up north, blame everything on the DNR, give up fishing and hunting, waste all my time cutting/splitting wood, and fit right in with the rest of WI residents.

This describes me

 

[Peeps]

Absolutely. I'd wager right now that even with the drop in harvest this year we will still see a drop next year. If this year wasn't eye opening to some, wait to see 2022 vs 2024.

I can already see the DNR response. They will blame the drop on the late opening date and the weather, no matter what the weather is.

 

[AtomApple]

Deer killed in WI to date : 266k
deer killed in MN to date : 146k