Let's hear your gun season successes!!!!

[Cooter]

My uncle and I sat from dark til 11:30 yesterday in that wonderful tropical breeze and each saw a coyote. Back out on Sat.

[trimbelle22]

Hunting around webster this weekend, passed up a small buck and a few does thursday/friday. then when we wanted to fill our doe tags later in the weekend we didn't see many deer. my friend missed a doe friday night and we saw a few other deer around, but didn't get any more shooting.

[azsearch]

more does than I could count(no doe tag) and finally one eight pointer at 20 yards

[tunrevir]

My party went 2 for 5 on bucks both decent 8 points nearly identicle racks. We didn't shoot any does but all saw does. Our deer numbers are down quite a bit from years past over in Rusk county. Great weather to sit but saw alot more deer after we had some snow on the ground.

Tunrevir~

[JAR JAR]

Close to 30 hrs total sitting and never seen brown( on private land). Needless to say it was the most disappointing season I have ever had.

Jar Jar

[HooknHorns]

Finally took an adult doe with minutes left of B-season.I thought I might have to take a small buck just for meat. 5 to 6 years ago there were hundreds of deer now theres a handful. Can't even be picky about what to take for the freezer.

[mwal]

Hunted private and public land in So Bayfield/Douglas County. Hunted Sat thru Tues then Sat and Sun not a deer seen. Went driving around to different camps and most meat poles were empty. ALso the least amount of shooting I have ever heard since I started hunting there in 1976. Didn't see any crossing the roads at night either. Very little buck sign in our area. I am depressed.

Mwal

[Cooter]

We managed to chase a pair of small does or fawns out Sat afternoon. On Sun my uncle did a few drives for my niece and she got shooting at a doe and small buck - she was using her trap/skeet 12 ga which made for some tough shooting. She had a blast though and is pretty pumped for next year and sounds like will get a scoped rifle, so good news on getting her 'fired' up about hunting!

[dave12341234]

yes, I shouldnt have waited til the last second. I shot a doe sun. night. Does anyone know how long you have to register a deer after the season?

[Cooter]

Until today at 5pm.

[dave12341234]

thanks!

[Badger]

Hunters never tagged 'Two-footer'

Dave Greschner

Sports editor

A big buck from Rusk County has made the record book without ever meeting a hunter's carcass tag.

The wide-antlered deer known by several names, including Jim, Two-footer and Wide Boy, has scored the widest inside antler spread in Wisconsin and fourth highest in the United States, said Mike Evenson, who pulled the deer's skull and rack from a creek bed in November.

Evenson, who lives in Rice Lake but hunts in Rusk County, found no deer body or bones at the site.

Evenson knew the deer's inside spread, at 30 and 5/8 inches between the antler beams was something special. He also knew about the deer long before he found the skull and antlers.

It seems everyone in the area a few miles southwest of Weyerhaeuser knew about the wide-antlered buck.

"It was crazy out there," said Evenson, who ghost wrote a letter for the buck, basically saying that some folks' ruthless pursuits of the deer were, in the end, fruitless.

"It's a trophy deer that died of old age," said Evenson, who last week received official scoring from the Boone and Crockett Club.

Evenson said that Boone and Crockett came up with the same inside spread measurement of 30 and 5/8 inches. That's the widest whitetail deer spread in Wisconsin, said Evenson, and puts the deer at fourth place nationally, behind whitetail bucks from Kansas (two) and Maine.

Evenson found the skull and antlers Nov. 29, the second Saturday of last fall's deer gun season.

"I was just starting a deer drive, making a big circle. I saw one side of the antlers sticking straight up from a puddle in a dry creek. The other end was stuck in the frozen mud," said Evenson, who hasn't revealed the exact location of the find.

The deer had been seen, hunted, chased, photographed and video-taped for years, said Evenson. For 9 years the same deer reportedly showed up on trail cameras and-in winter- at feeders at residences along Hwy. W.

"It was almost like a pet. It was an interesting and smart deer" said local resident Ron Zahorski, who said the deer came to his back yard over several winters.

As the list of hunters who missed the buck with guns, bows and muzzleloaders grew, so did the stories of Two-footer's cunning and ability to survive. The deer once had an arrow in it and was grazed by a bullet.

Because the lower jaw was missing when the skull was found, the deer can't be aged through traditional deer aging methods.

Picture can be viewed at the Rice Lake Chronicle web site. http://www.chronotype.com

[DonBo]

Great story, but I can't find the photo. Can you find it and paste it in here? We'd love to see it.

[Badger]

http://www.chronotype.com/main.asp?SectionID=12&subsectionID=108&articleID=17079

[DonBo]

Thanks Badger, here it is:

That's a heck of a buck!

[Cooter]

Indeed a dandy, think it was last year he found it. I remember see a live pic of it here at FM on a past 'trail cam' thread a couple years ago.

[Cooter]

Hunters register 195,647 deer in November hunt

News Release Published: December 1, 2009 by the Central Office

Contact(s): Keith Warnke (608) 264-6023

MADISON – A survey of Wisconsin deer registration stations conducted by the state Department of Natural Resources has yielded a preliminary tally of 195,647 for the just-ended, nine-day November gun deer hunt. This includes a buck tally of 86,251 and an antlerless tally of 109,396.

This number is preliminary and is expected change before a final report is published in late winter. It does not include harvest information from the archery, October antlerless gun deer hunt, muzzleloader, December antlerless deer gun hunt or late archery seasons. The preliminary harvest count in 2008 was 276,895.

“Deer populations are variable throughout the state,” said Keith Warnke, DNR’s big game biologist, “and we believe people when they say they did not see deer in their hunting area. We have also received reports from successful camps. As always, local populations make all the difference.

“Wildlife management and especially deer management is a process of continual adjustment. In response to hunter input we adjusted seasons this year to reflect lower populations across the north and central forests and suspended EAB in many areas.”

DNR wildlife officials anticipated the total harvest would be down due to changes in season structure that significantly reduced the antlerless deer harvest, lower fawn production and tough weather conditions for deer and hunters alike. In some northeastern units it was not possible to shoot an antlerless deer and in other northern region units the small supply of bonus antlerless deer tags did not meet demand. Careful adjustment of antlerless tag numbers is an important tool in managing deer numbers.

“There are still days to hunt in 2009 in herd control units where deer are above goal and in CWD units. The muzzleloader hunt is underway and the December antlerless hunt is around the corner.”

In February, DNR biologists will compare unit-level harvest numbers against overwinter population estimates and will adjust the recommended season structure for 2010 to address any significant trends.

“A pillar of Wisconsin deer management is the accurate harvest figures provided by hunters,” said DNR wildlife biologist Jeff Pritzl. “Periods of stable deer populations have always been relatively short-lived in Wisconsin. Mandatory deer registration allows us to respond quickly to changing population levels. We have annually adapted our harvest strategies, and will continue to do so in consideration of what the 2009 harvest tells us about the deer population.”

“This year, in response to hunter input, we moved 29 units from earn-a-buck to herd control status and 38 units from herd control to regular unit status. The total number of regular units grew from 21 in 2008 to 59 this year.” said Warnke. “The result was inevitably less antlerless opportunity and lower antlerless harvest numbers.”

A table of county by county (pdf; 39kb) harvest broken down by DNR region, with a comparison to the 2008 preliminary harvest is available on the DNR Web site.

http://dnr.wi.gov/org/caer/ce/news/pdf/2009_9_day_table.pdf

[DonBo]

Thanks for posting this Cooter. Man, some areas are down nearly 40%. If they realy look at these figures, the harvest next year should be way down again as there SHOULD be way fewer anterless tags available. But, the December hunt and the 19 day season still look to be here for years to come. Go figure...

[klecker]

Second weekend ended with our group adding two more doe from around the crex area. More shooting friday after thanksgiving in the area than on opener. Deer didnt want to move unless stepped on. Three good bucks got away this weekend. Marked alot of good areas for bow hunting next year, gps stayed busy for two days. The bucks were all bedded in waist to chest high marsh grass. Gonna be sitting over these areas next year when the lead flies. They can hear anything coming from a mile away, man, wolf what ever. No sneaking up on them in that stuff. 100 yrds away and they were up and out of there. Saw a fare amount of doe but no one really had any good shot opps. Had fun with the guys, everyone went home safe. Cant wait till next year.

Klecker

[RumRiverRat]

Had great Season.

Would have been even better if more corn was down.