Deer harvest up on Wisconsin’s opening weekend

More than 600,000 hunters bagged 6 percent more deer in the first weekend of the Wisconsin gun season. That’s 112,581 deer harvested in two days.

Southern and northeastern Wisconsin had the biggest increases, harvesting 42 percent more bucks in southern Wisconsin and 12 percent more in the northeastern part of the state.

Several inches of snow kept numbers down in northwestern Wisconsin, but in Bayfield County, Ino Bar owner Jim King says business is booming.

“Now we’re ahead of last year’s pace, easily. We’re getting a lot more people to come in and register. Therefore, they’re stopping in for a bit to eat or something to drink.”

The DNR’s Dan Hirchert says it’s a good start for hunters and the economy, even though the number of hunting licenses is down about 3 percent.

“We have hunters come from every state in the country as well as other countries. So Wisconsin is a very desirable and destination location to hunt white-tailed deer. As far as decreasing figures of hunters, that’s hard to say. Folks have a busy lifestyle.”

Not too busy in thousands of hunting shacks and cabins. This is the Red Deer Resort hunting cabin near Hayward. David Plahn is quite accommodating.

“What do you want to know?”

Plahn heads north from Houlton, Wisconsin every year joining his buddies from Clayton. So far, no one’s had any luck, except the deer.

“Yeah, we’re seeing deer but nobody’s got a shot at anything yet. We’re still going out there. Of course we’re having fun. As long as the food’s good and the beer’s cold.”

They plan to leave Wednesday, to get back home in time for Thanksgiving. The gun deer season ends Sunday.

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