It is going to be different depending on where you hunt, but I hunt in a pretty wide array of areas accross the state, and where I hunt the deer numbers are WAY down from just five years ago. And I'm not just talking about how many deer I have seen, the deer sign just isnt there. It was an honest accomplishment to see just one deer a night/morning this bow season. We have a cabin in northern WI (Sawyer County) and ussually have some awesome hunts up there, this year after a few weekends of scouting we figured out it wasnt even worth the trouble, to even find a freshly used deer trail up there took hours of scouting. I also hunt in northern Juneau County, deer numbers have been down there the last few years, but with some work it was possible to find some deer. I did also for the first time do some hunting in Western WI, onpublic land and did find some deer, I have not hunted there before soIdont know of thosenumbers are down or up. Ispend a lot of time talking toother hunters and in local sportshops, and most peopleby talking to these people you would think the deer have gone extinct. There are still deer around,but itthe numbersdo seem to have gone down. It just takes a little more work to find them.

I have mixed feelings about it, becauseI did see far less deer this year than past years, but I alsosaw a lot more maturebucks, (I missed2 130+ bucks on back to back nights). I hunt both public and private land, and since EAB has started we have taken more good bucks off publicland then in all previous years combined. I would say the quality of the deer herd has actually improved, but the nights of seeing15 or even 8 deer in a night (for me) are veryfew.

I am sure there are areas where deer numbers are a totally different story, but I spend a ton of hours in the woods, and I feel I have a pretty good idea of how many deer are in the areas I hunt. I also hunt MN andthere seemed to be a lot more deer over there this year.