Opening weekend deer registrations were up 36% in Door County compared to the first two days of last year's gun-deer hunt.
That's according to preliminary call-in numbers collected from Department of Natural Resources registration stations.
Hunters in Door County registered 909 bucks and 492 antlerless deer on opening weekend for a total of 1401 deer, a 36% increase over the 1029 deer (640 bucks, 389 antlerless) taken during opening weekend in 2011.
The Kewaunee County numbers showed nearly an identical increase, going from 834 deer taken on the opening weekend last year (503 bucks, 331 antlerless) to 1126 this year (686 bucks, 440 antlerless), a jump of 35%.
In the 16-county northeast Wisconsin region, the preliminary figures show a harvest of 29,829 deer, up 16.1% from a year ago.
Statewide the Saturday-Sunday registration tally was 134,772 deer -- a 19.7% increase.
Tom Hauge, director of the DNR wildlife management program, reminds folks that the numbers are preliminary. "The final opening weekend tally will likely be somewhat larger, when all the registration stubs are entered into the database over the next couple of months," says Hauge.
He says the warm weather likely had some hunters registering their deer right away instead of leaving them hang at camp, which likely bumped up the numbers. "Generally, we see about 60 percent of the overall harvest in the first weekend, but we hold drawing of conclusions until the season is complete."
You can view the breakdown by county and region by going here.
