Smith: Hunters tallying high marks in Wisconsin’s 2025 deer seasons

Deer hunters in Wisconsin had one of their best seasons in years, according to Department of Natural Resources data.

As of Jan. 27, hunters registered 338,685 white-tailed deer in the 2025-26 Wisconsin hunting seasons.

The preliminary total included 165,614 antlered deer, or bucks, and 173,071 antlerless deer, mostly adult females and fawns.

The total does not include deer taken on agricultural damage tags, the tribal harvest, in the Deer Management Assistance Program, vehicle-killed deer or at Ft. McCoy.

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The Jan. 27 data also do not reflect the entire deer hunting year, which in some management units featured late bow seasons through Jan. 31.

Final data will be available in the coming weeks and likely add about 6,000 deer, mostly antlerless taken through the ag damage program, to the total.

But even with some numbers outstanding, the Badger State’s 2025-26 deer seasons are notable in several respects.

The total harvest is on track to be about 4% higher than the previous year and the highest since 2012, when 368,313 deer were registered, according to DNR data.

And remember the 2025-26 deer seasons included a lackluster nine-day gun hunt (the largest portion of the annual deer harvest). The Nov. 22-30, 2025 gun season resulted in 183,094 deer registered, a drop of 4% from the previous year.

A heavy snowstorm hit much of the state late in the nine-day season and likely reduced hunter effort.

But other portions of the 2025-26 Wisconsin deer hunting seasons more than took up the slack.

It started in October when 8,480 deer were registered in the youth hunt (a year-over-year increase of 15%) and picked up again in December with the muzzleloader season with 11,910 deer (48% higher than 2024), four-day December antlerless season with 10,590 deer (28% higher) and holiday antlerless deer hunt with 11,277 deer (47% higher).

Continuing a trend since 2014, the crossbow deer kill of 70,047 (43,006 bucks and 27,041 antlerless) is up 10% from last year.

And the archery (vertical bow) deer harvest actually reversed a long-term trend and increased this season. As of Jan. 27 the total was 41,459 (25,701 bucks and 15,758 antlerless), a 7% year-over-year increase.

“We know it’s not true everywhere, but for good chunks of the state, it’s the good old days (for deer hunters),” said Ryan Haffele, DNR acting deer specialist. “It’s a positive trend, and this year tells us about the depth and breadth of our seasons.”

One of the biggest points in the statewide pile of data is this: the 2025-26 buck kill of 165,614 is 14th highest on record and the most since 2007.

That’s saying something especially since the number of deer hunters has dropped by 116,640 (or 16%) in the last 25 years, according to the DNR.

It’s a continuation of last year, when 13 Wisconsin counties set buck kill records. The DNR will be able to make comparisons of those data from the 2025-26 deer seasons in the coming weeks.

It also bears mentioning this year’s buck harvest occurred in an era when deer hunters are more selective and more apt to pass up a shot at an antlered deer than ever.

Even with those caveats, many still consider buck kill a loose correlate for the deer population.

That association held up for the 2025-26 deer seasons.

The DNR estimated the state herd at 1.82 million deer following the 2024-25 hunting seasons, a slight year-over-year increase and highest on record. The herd has especially swelled in the agricultural zones since 2011 when the Legislature prohibited the Earn-A-Buck regulation and the early antlerless gun season.

Both the southern and central farmland zones had record high deer populations prior to the 2025 season, according to the DNR. And those estimates come at a time when chronic wasting disease is increasing in prevalence and likely causing localized declines in deer numbers in some southern counties, according to the DNR.

The contemporary “tool box” of Wisconsin hunting regulations lacks a device even remotely capable of reaching the antlerless harvest goals in the agricultural zones. The DNR and County Deer Advisory Councils can set the number but the deer kill consistently falls short.

The statewide deer population also got a bump from two consecutive mild winters, which primarily benefitted deer in the northern forest and central forest zones.

Keith McCaffery, 86, of Rhinelander, who spent his 37-year DNR career working on deer and is arguably the most respected deer biologist alive in the Upper Midwest, told me before the 2025 seasons that Wisconsin “hunters this fall could be taking to the field with more deer than anytime in recorded history.”

In addition to being a lifelong Wisconsin deer hunter, McCaffery has been involved in deer population monitoring and management for most of his life, including through the period of highest deer kills. The 2025-26 registration data has only supported his claim about the possible number of deer available to hunters this year.

Of course deer population estimates have margins of error. Biologists stress looking at the trend as opposed to an absolute number. The leading indicators point to a higher deer population in Wisconsin this year.

One can only guess how much higher the deer kill would have been this year if the same number of hunters had gone afield with the same effort, attitudes, access and regulations as they did in 2000 when the record Wisconsin harvest of 615,293 deer was set.

But that’s a good debate topic for the local watering hole or deer camp.

The realities of the 2025-26 seasons are getting entered in the books.

What else made this year stand out? Hunters in the later seasons, especially the muzzleloader, December antlerless and holiday hunts, enjoyed snow on the landscape statewide, said Jeff Pritzl, recently retired DNR deer specialist.

“That hasn’t been true many years,” Pritzl said. “And it also showed hunters were still willing to get out there and work on filling tags late in the year.”

Pritzl pointed to the antlerless deer harvest of 173,071, a 5% year-over-year increase, as another bright spot from this year’s preliminary numbers. And as referenced earlier, the antlerless kill will be slightly higher in the final tally but will still fall short of harvest goals.

My own hunting seasons once again exceeded the expectations of a kid who grew up in southeastern Wisconsin with very few deer.

I saw lots of deer on each outing this year, primarily in Waukesha and Waupaca counties. I registered three, all adult does, and all in keeping with my and the landowners’ goals. I kept two for family consumption and donated one.

I let eight antlered deer pass while waiting for a doe on opening day of the nine-day gun season in Waupaca County.

Most important, my season included making new friends and having new experiences in the field while helping, at least in a modest way, to address extremely high deer numbers in a couple locations.

The final 2025-26 Wisconsin deer hunting statistics will be released in the coming weeks and months. Haffele, the DNR’s acting deer specialist, is planning to give a presentation on the deer harvest data at the Feb. 25 Natural Resources Board meeting in Madison.

If you hunted deer this year, I hope your season was safe and successful. If you care to share your stories or photos with me and potentially other readers in future articles, please email me at psmith@jrn.com.