How was your opening Wisconsin gun hunt?

nap · 11-22-2008, 05:35 PM

Me and my dad went out hunting this morning for opening gun season in Wisconsin. We hunt right on the edge of a files looking over knee high grass, a stream, and a corn field. we had all the right signs and thought we did pretty good. guess not. went out all day.... An half hour before opening and stayed out till closing. Didn't see anything but squirrels. All around us we heard shots all around us but not where we were. I'm really pissed. How was everyone else opening Wisconsin hunt? [align=right] [/align]

Centauri · 11-23-2008, 04:56 PM

I was hunting up in Lake Tomahawk, and the hunting was just horrible. On Saturday, I saw nothing at all, except blue jays, but my dad's friend shot a nice little 6 pointer at 4:30 PM. Today I saw 2 does out of range running on top of a hill, and that was it.

Me and my dad stopped in at the registration station in L. Tom to check on the number of registered deer, and weheard that it was down 50 PERCENT last year. Unbelievable, just totally unbelievable. Almost every deer track I saw had wolf or coyote prints right behind it. The DNR has to stop them, and eradicate wolves again.

instinct · 11-23-2008, 05:59 PM

Me and my dad went out all day yesterday he got a shot off at a little spike at about 8:30a.m. but missed. I saw does all day went on a little push about 1:30p.m. to try to push something to my dad was pushing a bunch of does right at him when 2 bucks came from the other direction a big 8 and an even bigger 10 I shot the 8 before I even noticed the 10 was behind him. The shot didn't even scare the 10 he just looked at me and carried on his marry way no flag no running nothing. The only thing he did was stopped to smell the 8 that was down right in front of him.

hunter7198 · 11-23-2008, 07:45 PM

Slim pickings here in Price County, saw a yearling doe and my son saw a small spike but passed. Not much for deer sign, plenty of canine tracks here also....

MarquetteMagnum · 11-24-2008, 04:25 AM

my lady got her first deer ever, nice 7 point, 16 inside. but nobody is seening any deer. DNR sure got their #s off count.

Handles · 11-24-2008, 07:31 AM

Hunted with my dad for the first time in almost 20 years. The SE wind however absolutely affected our hunt. This was far fewer deer than we expected to see on the weekend, but we were on the SE side of the field (the stand is set up for a NW wind), and it was easy to tell that everything that came outof the woodswas sooner or later alerted to our presence even at the end of the field 365 yards away. Our group did ok shooting6 bucks, and everyone let the smaller ones pass.

jessejmc1979 · 11-24-2008, 11:51 AM

Absolutely horrible. We are in an earn a buck area and we haven't seen hardly any. Ever since they started to let everybody shoot as many does as they want the hunting has steadily gotten worse. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out if there are groups of 5 or 6 guys shooting 20 to thirty does your herd is going to suffer. I'm just hoping that us hunters can get the dnr to change some things so it's not like it was thirty years ago for our children where seeing a deer is a big deal.But I suppose all we'll hear from them is record deer numbers and we just aren't hunting hard enough. Ten years agoI saw 46 deer opening morning... This year 0. With the insurance companies in the dnr's pocket I don't see how we have a chance.

Northport buckslayr · 11-24-2008, 02:31 PM

I agree %100 jessie. I hunted sawyer county, and I saw four does all weekend. I could of shot three of them, but I didnt want to contribute to the problem. Two of the guys in our camp didnt see anything all weekend. 1.8 million deer is the craziest thing I have ever heard, the dnr is in somebodies back pocket and they are ruining a great wisconsin tradition.

jessejmc1979 · 11-24-2008, 03:04 PM

It really sucks but what can you do? If you don't shoot enough does... you will be earnabuck but what good does your earn a buck sticker do you if you don't have any deer. As far as I'm concerned the "glory days" of Wisconsin deer hunting I grew up in in the 90's are over and it's a damn shame. And all everybody hears is shoot all of the does to get huge bucks. Well I personally would rather see lots of does and little bucks than to see one "shooter buck" every two years and nothing else. I'm just happy that all the dnr cares about is the well being of us hunters and our deer herd. What a joke. I think it will get worse also because it's pretty hard to convince someone from another state to pay $160 for a tag and not see a deer!!!

vindog · 11-24-2008, 03:22 PM

What a horrible opening weekend. Sat all day Saturday and Sunday and half a day today and only saw one doe. Very few deer being seen by everyone around. Even the groups that are driving all day were seeing very few. DNR really screwed up hunting around here. EAB is a joke, and just too many deer seasons. Two T-zones, bow, gun, youth, muzzleloader, and crop tags on top of it is a joke. I don't mind all the seasons if they would cut down how many deer you can take. Shoot them all, thats what the DNR wants.[:'(]