DNR concludes 2025 gun deer hunt

The gun deer hunt ended on Sunday, and preliminary figures from the DNR show that license sales and harvest rates are down slightly compared to last year.

Sales for deer hunting privileges have reached over 790,000. Roughly seventy percent of those were for gun privileges. The remaining thirty percent included  archery, crossbow, conservation patron and sports licenses.

Hunters registered over 180,000 deer during this year’s gun deer season. Just over half, about 96,000, were antlerless. The rest, about 86,000, were antlered.  

This year’s harvest total is down 0.8% statewide compared to last year. The number of antlerless deer harvested is down 2.6%. The antlerless harvest is up 0.9%.

“But again that’s coming off of last year where we had 13 Deer Management Units that had record buck harvests in 2024, so not a big surprise there. The good news is that the antlerless harvest is actually up 1% from last year, ” says DNR Deer Specialist Jeff Pritzl.

The regular gun deer season ran from Nov. 22 through Nov. 30. We’re now in the statewide muzzleloader season, which runs through  Dec. 10. The statewide antlerless-only four-day hunt is Dec. 11 through Dec. 14, and the antlerless-only holiday hunt in select farmland zone counties runs Dec. 24 through Jan. 1.