Preliminary WI Harvest Numbers Announced
 

Have you seen the preliminary gun harvest numbers? Sounds about like most expected--the harvest is down, way down.

Detailed Analysis:
Statewide: down 29%.
My area: down 31%

And I'm in a Herd Control area so we have "excess" deer!

Last year, my area was down 20%. That means that this year was down 45% from two years ago. That's crazy!

I'm not a horn hunter by any stretch of the imagination but I'm not planning to hunt anything but bucks for a while.

How do the numbers compare with your experience and expected figures?

This can't be right! There are more deer out there...the DNR says so and they are always right! (Sarcasm intended!)

Thats what we did on our land, bucks only this year. No more does till they rebound!!!

Im in MN and our area was down about 26% and that was down 20% from the year before ....so thats about 46%...man, they better get this figured out...I hope they go bucks only next year or at the very least draw for doe permits....there just isn't the deer out there that the MNDNR says there is.....sounds like wisconsin.

Actually, that means that you're down 41% from two years ago. You can't add percentages. Still a bad number, in my opinion.

Irony
 

In the midst of announcing a much smaller harvest than recent years, they emphasize the opportunity to go kill more:

I also liked the safety article which noted:

I wonder if hunters not having nearly as much opportunity to take the gun off safety contributed!

Quote"I wonder if hunters not having nearly as much opportunity to take the gun off safety contributed" End quote,

This is an accomplishment not be made light of! Hunter Education works - so don't belittle the DNR here at all!

JW

I'm not saying that Hunter Education isn't valuable, including helping to train safe hunters. I am saying that with close to half the number of deer shot this year compared to two years ago, that the opportunity for accidents seems greatly reduced.

To claim the latter is not to address the former in any way. Sounds like you've got a soapbox, JW.

Isn't less deer shot what many of you were hoping for after last season? Many people were on here saying that they won't hunt or won't shoot does until the population increases. It looks like that has happend. So rather than complain, you should be happy right? Fewer deer shot this year = more deer next year.

It's not that simple. If the doe harvest is restricted, then the herd will grow. To the extent that people can continue to shoot does at will, the population will continue to decline. In my area, despite a 45% drop from just two years ago, the DNR is still saying there are too many deer and want to see more does harvested!

Hunters that complain that the herd is too small want to see fewer does harvested because they're let go, not because they can't be found.

And for the record, going into this season, I was on the fence on the DNRs evaluation of the herd size. I've not been a vocal anti-DNR voice.