Even after 50 years of participating in the Wisconsin gun deer hunt, outdoors editor Paul A. Smith still looks forward to the season’s opening. This 2025 edition runs Nov. 22 to 30.
What to know about the 2025 Wisconsin gun deer hunting season
The Wisconsin gun deer hunting season traditionally begins on the Saturday before Thanksgiving and runs for nine days. This year’s season is Nov. 22 to Nov. 30.
- Wisconsin’s deer hunting landscape has changed significantly over the last 50 years.
- The state’s deer population is at a record high, with more deer now in southern Wisconsin.
- Hunting regulations, hunter tactics, and the number of hunters have all evolved over the decades.
- Chronic wasting disease is a modern concern for hunters that did not exist 50 years ago.
This year will mark my 50th gun deer hunting season in Wisconsin.
And while five decades is a substantial chuck of time, it’s a relatively small fraction of the state’s regulated deer hunting, dating to 1851, according to the Department of Natural Resources.
And it’s infinitesimal when you acknowledge Native Americans have pursued deer for thousands of years in the area we now call Wisconsin.
But my personal experience and the much longer history of deer hunting in this region have one thing in common: change.
I clearly recall my first deer hunt near my boyhood home in Racine County. The area was “shotgun only” in those days.
Racine County didn’t have many deer in that era. But no matter the low odds of success, to me the chance to hunt deer was priceless. My father answered my pleas and obtained permission for us to hunt on a farm in Yorkville.
In the days before that season we went to R&W Supply in downtown Racine and bought paper slug cartridges to shoot out of our 12-gauge shotguns. The smoothbores were primarily used for ring-necked pheasant hunting.
I could barely sleep the night before that first season and I’m sure it was one of the rare days of my youth when I was up before the rest of my family.
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We set out before dawn, wearing red stocking caps and carrying a knapsack with a couple sandwiches and a thermos of hot chocolate, and set up along a fenceline. To the east was a picked corn field, to the west an oak woodlot.
As the day brightened, I watched every leaf of corn flip in a light breeze. Could it be a deer?
But by noon no whitetail had been seen.
The highlight – and believe me it was exciting – was the finding of a deer track frozen in mud along the field edge.
I would end up hunting more than 10 deer seasons before I’d put a tag on a deer.
Over 50 seasons I’ve been privileged to hunt from suburban woodlots to coulees in the Driftless Area to pine forests in Jackson County to mixed farmland areas in Marquette and Waupaca counties to the big woods of northern Wisconsin.
So many things have changed over the decades, from the deer population to the hunting regulations to hunter tactics and preferences.
Not only is the deer population higher than at any point in my life, it has substantially shifted in abundance to the south.
The Department of Natural Resources estimated Wisconsin had a record-high 1.825 million deer after the 2024 hunting seasons.
That total included record highs in the central agricultural and southern agricultural zones, as well as increasing numbers in the central and northern forest zones.
That same Racine County farm I hunted 50 years ago is now a subdivision. But it features a plentiful deer population and offers no legal hunting.
Compared to the 1970s, hunters now can pursue deer many more days of the year, essentially from mid-September until early January. Most agricultural deer management units have a firearm deer hunt from Christmas to New Year’s and an extended bow season to the end of Janauary.
But more of us now hunt on private land than when I started, too.
And hunters are pickier about what they shoot. It used to be most hunters would shoot the first legal deer that presented itself. Now many wait for a mature buck.
There are now fewer hunters than just a couple decades ago, too.
Combined with action by politicians in 2011 to prohibit the two most effective tools the DNR had to increase antlerless deer kills (Earn-A-Buck and an October gun hunt), the deer population is swelling.
Another notable issue that came on the Wisconsin deer hunting scene in recent decades is chronic wasting disease. Since it was announced in 2002, the fatal prion disease has spread in distribution and increased in prevalence. While it has not been found to affect human health or livestock, experts advise hunters to test their deer and not eat meat from a CWD-positive animal.
There was no similar disease present when I started hunting.
Taken together, that’s a lot of change in 50 years.
Am I still as excited as I was when I was 14? You betcha.
Over the years I’ve made an effort to share stories with you from deer camps throughout the state.
This year I’m privileged to be hunting with a multi-generational deer camp in Waupaca County. I bought a Stormy Kromer to fit in with their camp photo tradition.
Given the camp’s location in a deer-rich region, I expect to see more than a deer track.
What hasn’t changed over the decades are three things I cherish: the camaraderie of fellow hunters; the chance to harvest wild, nutritious, sustainable food; and the opportunity to add another chapter of experience in the great Wisconsin outdoors.
The forecast for opening weekend is good but with little to no snow on the landscape statewide.
For Tomahawk, for example, Saturday should be partly cloudy with zero chance of precipitation and a high of 42 degrees Fahrenheit.
It would be optimal for hunters to have a cover of white to help see and track deer. But the temperatures will make it relatively comfortable to spend hours in the field, if not all day, and shouldn’t pose meat spoilage problems.
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I’ve killed one antlerless deer so far this year, with my bow on private land in Waukesha County. I hope to take several more before the season is over.
We’ll see what opening weekend in Waupaca County holds for me and my group.
If you are participating in the 2025 Wisconsin gun deer hunt, I wish you a safe and successful season.
If you care to share your experience, please email me at psmith@jrn.com.
