Today marks the end of gun season here in WI and I gotta say that I am a little disappointed. Coyotes, Wolves, and bears have taken its tole to the north woods deer population. Normally, I see well over 25 deer in a season. This year was much different. Bow-hunting, I only saw 3 deer and gun hunting I saw a whopping 5. Reflecting on this, it seems that my un-luckiness has extended to shot placement during the past two seasons. While I was fortunate enough to take buck and a doe this season, shot placement was less then spectacular. The season marks the 3rd and 4th deer in a row,taken without any blood trail to follow. Details below:

2012 Bow- 10yd shot on a mature 9 point. The buck was literally right under my stand when It looked right at me, forcing a shot. The arrow entered just to the side of the spine, shredded both lungs. The deer ran perhaps 35yds before dyeing.

2012 gun- 75yd shot, taken left handed at a 2.5 year old 8 point. The brush deflected bullet, hitting the front elbow, amputating it off. I had thought that I had missed because I didn't hear any sort of crashing sound. The deer simply laid down after getting hit and died- probably of shock because there sure wasn't much blood. The deer was still twitching a little bit when I got up to it, so I put follow up shot into its heart.

2013 Bow- 25yd shot on a small 4 point. The buck jumped the arrow, resulting in a high shot to its liver. Deer ran 50yds before it laid down and died.

2013 Gun- Approximately 255yd shot at a 5 year old doe. It was a cold opening morning and when made the shot, I couldn't stop shivering. This ultimately led to me flubbing the shot a bit. The bullet entered high and back a little, clipped the rear portion of both lungs. The deer ran 20yds before expiring. I shot it in a swamp and didn't see it right away, so I originally thought that I had missed. To be thorough I circled the area a few times. I finally found it in the tall grass.

Congrats of the deer

Sounds like you had a good season, even though the blood trails were on the slim side. Things just work out that way sometimes. Even though it may have not been textbook, at least you didn't lose any of the animals you shot and in actuality, that is all that really matters.

Canadian, although I don't live in Wisconsin, I did two tours of duty at the nuclear plants up there, and have very close friends near Green Bay. As such, I also have at least some knowledge of the deer harvest restrictions that have been in place the last several years...

It is my honest opinion that the "earn a buck" and unlimited doe tag programs have significantly hurt the deer population in Wisconsin, at least in the area I am familiar with. Add to that the prevalent idea up there that "I am going to kill the first thing I see; the season is only nine days long and I pay a lot of money to hunt", and it gets worse. Although EAB is now gone, the unlimited doe tag for $2 is still in place. Not good... you can only shoot the mamas for so long before there aren't many deer left.

An anecdote: very late in 2007 I was at a quick stop in WI due east of Green Bay, and there was a mid-2000 Z-71 parked in the parking lot. There were seven deer in the bed: one mature 11 point, a first year six, and five button bucks. No wonder there aren't any bucks! When "nubbins" with antlers of 3" or less are considered does by the state and a doe tag is available for $2, what does one expect?

As you know far better than I, almost half the northern part of the state is National Forest land. I have to wonder how much of that is actually hunted. I would suspect not a lot, because up until very recently it was illegal to quarter a deer prior to getting it registered. Kill a whitetail that dresses 170-180# a mile or so back in the woods and you have a real problem on your hands. I just don't think there are that many that will work that hard for a deer. So the available hunting properties are hit pretty hard.

I am sincerely glad you were successful, but I truly believe the overall attitude about deer hunting is going to have to change in WI or it is going to get a lot worse before it gets any better.

Just my $.02...

T/C I feel your pain. I have hunted near Castle Rock Lake for 19 years. Seeing 6-10 deer a day was normal, we hunt opening weekend and the 3 days after thanksgiving.For the past 5 years,I have only seen 6 deer a season. Only saw 1 this year. We took 2-3 doe for 10 years. Probably, the hunters on the surrounding properties did the same. I personally stopped shooting doe 4 years ago and am trying to get my buddies to do the same (5 of us). Though to their credit, they agreed that they had to see 6 doe a day before before they could shoot the 7th doe. If they only see 6 doe today, reset the counter to zero the for next day. Haven't taken a doe in 3 years using this method. We realized we were killing the breeding stock. I hope it isn't too late for the herd to come back up to previous numbers. I am sure the wolves are part of the problem too. Yeah, they are this far south!! We got skunked this year.

It was a tough deer season as far as weather is concerned. Deer numbers here about average for many years.

From my game cam pics were had a great carry over I saw lots of spikes and forks during the fall

I was hearing no deer, no deer my cousin said there was no deer when we drove his property with about 50 acres of woods we chased 7 does and fawns out.

Didn't shoot any as he didn't want us to as there was only one doe and fawn there.

Then we received about two inches of snow where there were no deer before there were deer tracks.

Our parties kill was down a bit manly due to bad shooting and a very cold first day. Zero and 20mph winds. We had myself included hunters that normally stay out all day in for few hours to get warm.

That really cuts down on the hrs the first day to kill a deer.

My wife who has killed a deer the first day for years was in a half hr after shooting light and never went back out.

Here's how deer season works in my part of Wis. regular rifle season is 9 days long around 90% of all deer are killed the first weekend. Bad weather low deer kill.

After Sunday a deer go into hiding and one has to kick them out.

Lots of small properties that owners bait on and well not let you drive them any more. Because you know I am going to shoot the next world record on my 40 over my bait pile.


But what happens is the deer eat at night and don't move during the day and have many small sanctuaries where they can hide.

Over the last 46 seasons I have lost over 4000 acres that was available to us for hunting for various reasons. 90% of those never get deer moved around on them or to other areas.

The deer go into them lay down and don't move during day light.

Case in point a 160 acres parcel was developed for housing. We and several other parties use to hunt it. Now we can't I have counted a dozen plus deer coming out of it at night going into nearby fields to feed.

The deer used to be moved around in that area making them available for hunting. Now they just lay in there.

There can be many reason for a good or bad season.


It was a little below average for us. Manly weather related.

The season was a bust for me; saw absolutly nothing. No one else hunting on the 500 acre farm near Princeton killed one either. Some drives were done and nothing got kicked up. I haven't shot a deer during the regular season in my home state of WI since 2009.

quote:

Originally posted by Bigasanelk:
The season was a bust for me; saw absolutly nothing. No one else hunting on the 500 acre farm near Princeton killed one either. Some drives were done and nothing got kicked up. I haven't shot a deer during the regular season in my home state of WI since 2009.

Wow......what zone are you in? 370,000 deer were killed in 2011 in WI.

http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/Wildli...nts/deerharvest5.pdf

I hunt in Rock County on private land. Our group of seven shot seven antlerless deer. Opening morning was the coldest I can remember in over twenty years of hunting this end of the state. Worse than the cold was the wind. I am certain that affected how many deer were seen and killed by our group; my two sons only lasted about an hour opening morning. I would say that based on my observations while hunting and on my daily 50-mile round trip to and from work, deer numbers this year are pretty much what they have always been. We don't have significant issues with predators this far south.

I walked two quarter sections that I hunt on Friday and cut one set of deer tracks.I hunt and trap this land and know bedding areas etc.I have 5 food plots all about an acre and before the season had pics of 2 does,2 fawns and a spike buck.Up to about 5 years ago our party of 5 filled out on bucks every year.When the Does are decimated you will not see squat for Bucks yet they sell doe tags every year for almost every unit around here.Thank God The UP still has a decent deer population.

quote:

Thank God The UP still has a decent deer population.

Not according to a friend who lives in the Powers / Spalding area. He said I was welcome to come up and hunt on his property but [in his opinion] it wouldn't be worth the cost of the license. The deer in the area are said to have been decimated by wolves.

We got three Bucks for 3 opening day in Wallace.