Statewide deer licenses, harvest totals up

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has released its 2024 deer season summary update.

Their data shows not only an uptick in license sales in the state, but also in hunter harvest. This data was newly updated on Dec. 1 and is now available on the DNR website. As of that time, deer license sales were over 791,000 for all types — gun, archery, crossbow, conservation patron and sports licenses. This is up from 2023, when that total was just under 788,700. Of those, 553,652 were hunters who applied for a gun deer license. This is up by approximately 200 licenses from 2023.

Preliminary harvest totals show an increase of 5.2 percent for all gun season harvests, with total deer registered this year being 189,622, according to a press release dated Dec. 3. Antlered deer accounted for 89,787 harvests, according to the DNR. The antlered harvest was up 3.6 percent and antlerless harvest exceeded last year statewide by 6.6 percent.

Since the opening of the archery season in September, hunters in Wisconsin have registered 289,361 deer, according to the press release. This harvest is ahead of last year’s by 8.7 percent. In the Northern Forest Zone, Florence County saw the most deer harvested per square mile with 2.9.

Northern Forest Zone gun deer antlered harvests numbered 17,591, down 1.8 percent from 2023 and down 7.9 percent from the running five-year average. Antlerless harvests across the zone were up 8.7 percent over last year, but down 7.2 percent from the five-year average. It should be noted, however, that the number of antlerless authorizations does not remain the same from year to year in the Northern Forest Zone. 

In 2024, 11,909 antlerless deer were harvested during the gun deer season. In 2023, that number was 10,305, which was down 27.2 percent from the five-year average.

Oneida County was down 6.7 percent from last year’s meager harvest of 1,598 to 1,491. This also represented a 1.7 percent shortfall from the five-year average. 

Vilas County’s numbers did not fare much better with a 0.7 percent decrease from 2023 and a shortfall representing 4.8 percent from the five year average. 

Anecdotal evidence from hunters in the Northwoods indicates most hunters were seeing fewer bucks. Those hunters who did see numbers of deer reported seeing a good number of fawns and does, which may bode well for future years. Due to the lack of winter in 2023-24, those bucks that were seen that were past the 1.5 year mark were of better quality than hunters had reported seeing in the past few years. 

In a recent media briefing, DNR deer program specialist Jeff Pritzl said there was stability in license sales, and mentioned the slight uptick in the harvest statewide.

“Given the late start of the gun season that we’ve been talking about up to this point, that’s really about as good as I think we could have expected,” he said. “We kind of held our harvest similar to last year, and actually saw some increases in a few places. But of course there’s a lot of local stories playing out and, regionally, a lot of variation across Wisconsin in that statewide figure.” 

What stands out in the Northern Forest Zone, he said, was that although there was a slight decline in buck harvests overall. During the previous archery season, the buck harvest was running “quite a bit ahead” of last year’s numbers. 

“That speaks to a couple of things,” he said. “One, it demonstrates this continued, the long-term shift away from hunting effort in the Northern Forest that we’ve been documenting for quite some time.” 

Pritzl attributed the downturn in harvest in 2023 to the number of deer that were making themselves available to harvest during the daylight hours, with that trend continuing to 2024. He said the antlerless harvest was up a bit in the Northern Forest, even with fewer antlerless tags available throughout the zone. He also said the cold and wind on opening weekend in some places may have prompted more deer movement, but likely also suppressed hunter effort.

Hunting incidents

In 2024, there was only one firearm-related incident in the gun deer season. This was a two-party incident which took place on Nov. 29 in Vernon County. A hunter and his father were sitting in their stand and heard a shot in the distance. The hunter then felt pain in his feet. It was found that he was shot through both feet. He was privately transported to the hospital, where he was treated and released. This makes 2024 one of the safest gun deer seasons on record in Wisconsin. 

CWD update

Erin Larson gave a Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) update as part of the briefing. She said the department was still urging hunters to get their deer tested for CWD. Hunters looking to have anything from a Euro mount to a full body mount could still do that while having their deer tested, she added.

By the Tuesday after opening weekend, results were starting to come back for hunters who wanted to have their deer tested. An email will be sent to hunters who have an email listed in their account. Results are also available online and through the hunter’s GoWild account. Should a hunter harvest a deer that subsequently tests positive, a replacement authorization will be issued to hunters that will be good for the remaining deer seasons of 2024 as well as for 2025, provided the hunter has a license for the weapon and time period of harvest for that season, but the additional authorization would not be weapon-specific.

If a positive result comes from a buck, a replacement tag would be issued that would be valid statewide. A positive CWD result from an antlerless deer would give the hunter an either sex replacement for the same unit and land type as that harvest.

Beckie Gaskill may be reached via email at [email protected].