Oh, deer: Deer-gun season is almost here The nine-day gun deer hunt blasts off bright and early Saturday morning By Monique Balas News-Chronicle With last year's chronic wasting disease scare reduced to a bad memory, state wildlife officials and hunters alike are hoping this year's deer harvest numbers will be back on target. "We hope to see hunters kill lots and lots of antlerless deer," said Tom Bahti, regional wildlife biologist for the state Department of Natural Resources. The DNR wants to eliminate some of the 1.4 million deer roaming Wisconsin's woods to control the state's ever-flourishing deer population. The DNR hopes the nine-day gun-deer hunt, which starts Saturday and ends Nov. 30, will reduce the herd to 1.1 million animals. Population control would avoid another outbreak of chronic wasting disease and help prevent deer-vehicle collisions, the DNR says. Bahti also hopes more hunters will head to the woods this year. Wasting disease, which was detected for the first time in Wisconsin deer in February 2002, scared off a lot of hunters last year. Close to 700,000 hunters generally take to the woods, but only 619,323 participated a year ago. The season comes late this year, just hitting the end of rutting (mating) season that can lead to big harvests. Last year's anemic nine-day totals brought in a total kill of 277,755, but Bahti said he hopes the figures will be much higher this year. "We're going to kill over 380,000 with guns - that's a fact," Bahti said. Wisconsin's deer hunt ranks third only to Pennsylvania and Michigan, and Bahti said the pent-up energy left over from last year's lackluster season should make for a good hunt, he said. Resident gun deer license sales are up this year by 14 percent and nonresident sales are up by 6 percent over 2002. Those figures don't quite measure up to 2001 sales, however: Nonresident license sales were down by 16 percent and nonresident gun sales were down by 25 percent. Don Kirby, store manager of the Gander Mountain store in Howard and a deer hunter himself, won't be scared off by CWD this year. "For myself personally and people who frequent (Gander Mountain), it just doesn't seem to be as much as a concern," he said. "It's probably just geography, we're three hours away from the eradication zone." The disease is centered in the Mount Horeb area and the affected deer were mostly found in Dane, Sauk and Iowa counties. Although the disease isn't gone completely, a testing of more than 41,000 samples of deer from last year's hunt revealed a total of 216 positive samples. The DNR wants to sample another 20,000 this year. To help eliminate an abundance of deer in that region - the eradication zone has doubled from a year ago - the DNR has several incentives in place, and hunters must shoot an antlerless deer before being allowed to take a buck. Bahti said CWD wasn't found in any of the 137 deer tested in Brown County and the 430 sampled in Door County last year. The agency will offer testing in a few areas outside of the eradication zone, such as Manitowoc, Portage and Waushara counties. But any hunter who wants to test a deer for the disease can do so for a fee; cooperating Brown County vets are listed on the DNR's Web site. One key factor to the success or failure of the deer hunt is the weather, which Bahti jokingly said hunters are checking about every 10 minutes in the week before the big weekend. Cold temperatures with a dusting of snow on the ground make for ideal hunting conditions, but it looks like a "brown season" this year. Since the coming weekend doesn't look promising for snow - WLUK-TV Channel 11 meteorogloist John Chandik is predicting highs in the mid-40s with rain on Saturday and Sunday - Bahti said dry weather will be the best hunters can hope for. "So much of this is dependent on the weather," he said. "Let's put it this way - dry weather with a brown background, we can live with that." He's hoping the weather will be accommodating because the opening weekend accounts for 50 to 70 percent of the kill totals, "so Saturday and Sunday could make or break us," he said. Archery kills are up by more than 80 percent from last year, thanks to better hunting weather and more hunters, Bahti said. "This is the biggest nine-day social event in the state," Bahti said. "There's nothing like it. Summerfest, State Fair - they've got nothing on the nine-day deer hunt." Overall, what does he hope will come out of this year's hunt? "Good weather, safe hunt, lots of dead deer." Trends for this year's hunt Although chronic wasting disease was a hot topic of conversation before last year's deer season, "it's not even being discussed this year," said Gary Bertrand, owner of Bertrand's Sporting Goods on North Broadway. "I talk to hunters here, and it's really not even brought up, compared to last year where it was absolutely the total conversation," he said. Surprisingly, Bertrand hasn't noticed much of an increase in license and equipment sales over last year's grimmer numbers. "I think maybe the hunters that didn't decide to go last year because of it (chronic wasting disease) were possibly on the border anyway, it didn't make that much of a difference," he said. Bertrand said deer cameras have been popular at the store with hunters. Triggered when a deer walks by, the cameras allow for tracking by providing a date and time when the deer passed. No-scent clothing - clothing that absorbs the hunter's odors - and silent clothing such as fleece came into hunting vogue last year and continue to be more refined as people become more aware of it, Bertrand said. "If there were a trend, that would be a trend," he said. Family Radio Systems, which act like smaller, powerful walkie-talkies, have also been popular purchases. Don Kirby of Gander Mountain in Howard said sales for his store have been strong throughout October. He's been keeping busy helping last-minute hunters prepare for the weekend. For his own hunt, Kirby is hoping for good weather. "I personally am going to pray," he said, "and hopefully the weather man will come through." FYI: Visit the DNR Web site at www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/land/wildlife/HUNT/deer for more information about deer hunting in Wisconsin. For details about veterinarians who will test for chronic wasting disease for a fee, visit www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/land/wildlife/hunt/deer/vettest.htm.