Early opening of season finds white-tail deer near peak of mating season

[EDITOR'S ADVISORY: This opening day 2007 gun deer season report is also available for downloading and printing in portable document format.]

MADISON – A fairly early opening for Wisconsin’s regular nine-day gun deer season that found white-tailed deer near the peak of their mating season, combined with a deer herd above population goals across much of the state, made for what state wildlife officials say appears to be a generally successful opening of the 2007 gun deer season.

Department of Natural Resources wildlife biologists aging deer at registration stations across Wisconsin said one often reported theme was that buck deer were actively in rut – or in their mating season – and were often oblivious to anything other than the does they were pursuing.

Hunting conditions ranged from good to ideal in the north, with cool temperatures and some snow on the ground in certain areas, to much less than ideal in areas of the south and southeast with a steady drizzle that fell much of the day. Temperatures started out near freezing early throughout most of the state, and never warmed much past the mid-30s in the north, but reached the mid-40s in the south.

It was windy throughout much of the state, which DNR Deer Ecologist Keith Warnke noted, can make deer jumpy. As the rut was still going strong throughout the state, it didn’t seem to be as much a factor this year and bucks were actively moving.

“It wasn’t too cold to chase people out of the woods, but not too warm to keep deer from moving,” reported DNR Wildlife Biologist Pat Beringer in Park Falls.

“We haven’t seen a lot of activity at our registration station,” Beringer said, “but it’s cold enough that hunters can hang the deer they shot at camp and keep hunting. There’s no rush to bring them in because it’s not too warm.”

As expected, wildlife biologists working in Earn-a-Buck units – areas where hunters were required to shoot an antlerless deer before shooting a buck -- reported good numbers of antlerless deer being registered, as many as 3-to-1 antlerless to bucks at some stations. However, in herd control and regular units the buck to antlerless ratio was generally much higher.

Wildlife officials are urging hunters to shoot antlerless deer in an effort to bring down the deer population. It was estimated at 1.6 to 1.8 million animals and well above population goals in almost the entire state this year.

“If hunters didn’t get a deer today, they need to stay at it,” Warnke said. “There are a lot of deer out there; they just have to locate where the deer are. If you think about it, there are probably more deer out there after opening day this year than there were going into opening day 20 years ago.”

2007 License Sales

Waiting until the last minute to buy a gun license continues to be as much of a tradition as the hunt itself. License sales locations were very busy on Friday, particularly in the late afternoon when sales peaked at 213 transactions per minute around 3:30 p.m. One in every seven hunters pocketed a license still warm from the printer on the Friday before the opener. Nearly 47 percent of all deer hunters purchased a license in the eight days preceding the deer gun opener.

A total of 629,752 hunters hit the woods on opening morning to participate in the 2007 nine-day gun deer season. Of these hunters:

• 594,293 (94 percent) were residents and 35,459 were nonresidents.
• When more than 200,000 bow deer license sales are added to deer gun totals, deer hunting participation is showing a slight increase over 2006.
• Hunters throughout the U.S. and several foreign countries purchased a Wisconsin gun deer license. The highest number of nonresident hunters came from Minnesota (16,281), Illinois (8,830), Michigan (1,085), Florida (973), and Iowa (799).
• Female hunters represent 7.9 percent of the total number of deer hunters, and 13.26 percent of hunters age 12-25. This year, 20.6 percent of the first year 12-year-old hunters were girls.
• The most deer licenses were sold in Dane County (28,096), with Brown, Washington, Waukesha, and Marathon counties following.
• All ages participate in the hunt. More than 3,100 hunters were age 80 or older. Nearly 112,000 were aged 12 to 21. And the ages most represented were 46 and 47.
• More than 129,000 antlerless deer tags have been sold this year.
• Nearly 16,000 hunters got to preview the next generation of DNR’s licensing system when they purchased their license. In addition to the touch screen devices used to issue the license, hunters notice their bright green back tag; different from the yellow tags used for the past several years. About 70 locations are testing the new licensing system that will be used statewide next year.

Deer license and permit sales will continue through the hunting seasons.

DNR Call Center hears from tree stands

DNR recently announced expanded customer call center hours, with operators and computer chat service people available seven days a week. And hunters are taking advantage of the service. Operators began receiving calls at 7 a.m. Saturday morning from tree stands, deer camps and hunters afield.

One caller’s reaction was, “Wow, you’re there. This is great. This is the best thing DNR ever did for hunters,” and he went on to ask his question. Most common questions heard were, “I just shot a deer, which tag should I use,” and “I shot a deer with 2-inch nub antlers, is that considered a buck?” Operators also helped hunters find the nearest registration station, and fielded calls from hunters on Earn-a-Buck stickers, including one hunter wondering what to do about his sticker burning up in a car fire.

During the week prior to the opener, the center was receiving more than 1,500 calls per day, peaking at more than 2,200 on Friday before the opener.

Call center staff are available to serve customers from 7 a.m. through 10 p.m., seven days a week by calling 1-888-WDNR INFo (1-888-936-7462) or online at [dnr.wi.gov]. Spanish and Hmong service is available.

DNR call center staff manning the poacher hotline was also kept busy Saturday, with hunters calling in and reporting violations they had observed ranging from road shooting and baiting violations to finding permanent stands erected on public lands. Hunters wishing to report a violation can call 24 hours a day and seven days a week at 1(800)TIP-WDNR [800-847-9367] or cell #367 .