Wisconsin DNR: More deer killed in 2011 gun hunt

MADISON, Wis. — Rejuvenated by the end of the state’s contentious earn-a-buck program, hunters killed more deer during this year’s traditional gun hunt than last year, according to data released Tuesday.

The Department of Natural Resources estimates that hunters harvested 226,260 deer over the nine-day hunt that concluded Sunday, compared with 221,534 in 2010. They took 102,837 bucks, up from 100,574 last year, and 123,423 antlerless deer, up from 119,261. The DNR counted 1,699 deer last year whose sex was not recorded.

DNR officials stressed the 2011 estimates were preliminary. The numbers were based on calls to registration stations, and the actual harvest could be larger. The agency plans to have final totals ready in February.

Still, the preliminary numbers suggest the state’s deer herd is growing again. That bodes well for the DNR, which has grappled for years with complaints from hunters about the agency’s herd-control strategies.

“Time will tell, but I think from hunters’ perspective, they’re pretty positive with how the season went and we’re pretty happy as well,” said Kurt Thiede, who administers the agency’s land division.

Hunters have complained that the DNR has overestimated the size of the herd, and they particularly disliked the state’s earn-a-buck program, which required hunters in DNR-designated areas to kill a doe before they can kill a buck. Hunters generally hated the program, saying it forced them to pass up trophy bucks and thinned the herd so drastically that they would spend days in the woods without seeing anything.

The DNR suspended earn-a-buck everywhere except in southern Wisconsin’s chronic wasting disease zones after a weak harvest in 2008. But the 2009 hunt was even more anemic — hunters killed only 201,994 deer — and hunters’ anger boiled over. The DNR responded by suspending the program everywhere except CWD zones again in 2010. This year the agency went even further, suspending the mandate everywhere.

Republican legislators still crafted a bill this summer banning the program statewide. Republican Gov. Scott Walker signed the measure earlier this month and hunters took to the woods with newfound enthusiasm.

“Nine out of 10 hunters were angry two or three years ago,” said Jeff Schinkten, of Sheboygan, president of Whitetails Unlimited. “But I see that whole tide turning a bit, and I’m excited about it. Overall, it’s a good year. I hope the fun is back in hunting.”

Schinkten and his hunting buddy, Mike Donovan, took Donovan’s 13-year-old grandson, Alec Nitti, hunting in Door County’s Newport State Park on opening morning. The first half-hour passed without them seeing anything and Alec began to grow impatient.

“I told him hunting is a lot of work,” Donovan said. “It’s a lot of waiting for 20 seconds of excitement.”

Turns out Alec got his excitement, in spades. Over the span of an hour a nine-point buck, a seven-point buck and a doe came wandering past.

“Please don’t miss, please don’t miss,” Nitti said he recalled thinking as he squeezed the trigger on the nine-pointer. “I’d be happy if I even saw a deer. It was just amazing. It was deer after deer after deer.”

Nitti ended up dropping all three deer. Donovan said he was glad earn-a-buck wasn’t in place; he would have had a hard time explaining to the boy why he had to pass up two bucks. Instead, he got to watch his grandson in those moments, giving him his most cherished memory in nearly 40 years of hunting.

“Nothing better than seeing the smile on your grandchildren’s face,” he said.

Even DNR Secretary Cathy Stepp got in on the action, bagging a doe on opening morning on freelance outdoors writer Lee Fahrney’s land near Hollandale, in Iowa County.

She said she was sitting in a blind with DNR Executive Assistant Scott Gunderson looking left when the doe came in on the right. Contorting herself into what she called a “Cirque du Soleil pose,” she got the doe in her sights and fired, killing the animal. Then a strange shade seemed to come over her field of vision. She was bleeding; she had pressed her gun scope against her eye socket and the recoil had driven it into her, gashing her skin.

She had to endure some scolding from Gunderson and teasing from Fahrney’s group, but she said she felt no pain.

The outing helped her realize how hard it must have been for hunters to pass up a buck, Stepp said.

“It is such an exciting and thrilling thing to see the deer there,” she said. “I understand you might never see that again.”