2014 WI gun season-Northwoods

[PLB]

I'm taking the snowmobile up but not going till the middle of next week. With the bait piles out, the deer go nocturnal. I'll wait till they come back out usually when the others go home because they didn't see any deer.

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[KLEMZ]

I hunted Bayfield County last week (70 miles west of Vilas). We had 14" of snow there. I was surprized to find them still pawing for acorns thru the snow. The snow was all powder. If the snow in Vilas is all powder I wouldn't be surprized if they are still on the same pattern they where on before the snow hit. But be prepared to walk.. the active areas were very few and far between.

[trad4life]

I hunted Bayfield County last week (70 miles west of Vilas). We had 14" of snow there. I was surprized to find them still pawing for acorns thru the snow. The snow was all powder. If the snow in Vilas is all powder I wouldn't be surprized if they are still on the same pattern they where on before the snow hit. But be prepared to walk.. the active areas were very few and far between.

How was the deer population this year? I am hunting central wi and i have noticed a sleigh decline but nothing major.

[KLEMZ]

How was the deer population this year? I am hunting central wi and i have noticed a sleigh decline but nothing major.

The population has been low for several years now. I can't say I noticed any less sign then last year or the year before. The radio collar deer mortality study that is being done indicated that 23% of the adult deer they were monitoring in the northern zone, died during last years winter, so there probably are fewer deer than last year.

[Steve Heiting]

I'm home for Thanksgiving after five days in Ashland County.

Ugh. Where do I begin? Seven guys in camp, and we've collectively seen 13 deer. The one buck was hitting high gear when it was spotted, and no shots. We talked with the owner of the neighboring camp on Wednesday, and they had seen six deer in total with no bucks.

To say the herd is down is an understatement. Two consecutive bad winters have really had an effect. Going in, we found very little buck sign -- a few rubs and scrapes, but not much.

The capper was finding the leftovers of a fresh wolf kill on the river's ice.

We took a day off from Ashland County to make some drives on private land in Bayfield County on Monday and saw about 20 does/fawns, but no bucks. It was nice to see some deer, though.

We'l be back at it Friday and Saturday. We have a few more guys joining us, and we'll be making drives. Hopefully something good will happen.

[Dewey]

We had a tough hunt as well. I was the only one that saw a buck and that was while snow tracking. Ended up being a great bedded mature buck but didn't have a clear shot at him. If I stayed on stand that day I likely would have been skunked as well.

I did a bunch of scouting last Thursday/Friday and found very little buck sign like rubs and big tracks until I was at least 1.5 miles in from any roads. Overall deer sign didn't look real bad as I thought it would and was finding plenty of tracks. The snow wasn't nearly as deep as I expected to be and settled nicely by the end of the weekend. Fact is there are not a lot of bucks around anymore and seeing them is difficult to say the least. I think your best odds by far are tracking snow and going to them instead of waiting on stand.

I headed back south and gonna end my gun season doing some marsh hunting. Was really hoping to fill my tag on a northwoods buck but it didn't work out. Still had a great time at deer camp and that's the most important part.

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[Steve Heiting]

An update: My Ashland County camp started making drives Friday and Saturday with a larger crew, and finally felt like we were in the game. One of the guys who was waiting to make a drive and was already part-snowman from previous drives had an 8-pointer run up to him, but his rifle went "poink" instead of "BOOM." The buck didn't wait around to see what happened next. We pushed deer past standers on all four drives we made Friday, but that was the only buck.

On Saturday, we felt like we had unfinished business so we made three of the drives from Friday that had moved the most deer. Nearing the end of the first drive, I was about 175 yards away from a stander when he shot twice. I think I ran the rest of the way. There was Caleb with a 10-pointer, which avoided our camp's first "skunk" since 1979. It was likely a 3.5-year-old, but given the width of its forehead and Roman nose it could have been a 4.5 that put more energy into its body than its rack after last winter. We guesstimated it weighed around 170-175 pounds. It was heavy in the neck and hams, but didn't have the body length required of a 200-pounder.

We put out does and fawns on the other two drives, then swamped the shack and headed out. It's amazing how something you look forward to all year can end so quickly.

Thankfully, the warmth of the early part of the season (mid 40s opening day and 50 on Sunday) melted a lot of snow which may ultimately end up saving some deer this winter.

[justin84]

Just an update on our northwoods gun season. I spent about 48 hours in the woods Saturday through Wednesday and saw 5 deer, all does. Father in law saw a few more, including one spiker, but that was it. Had some fresh snow on Monday and there were fresh tracks all over the place, but considering we were in the woods from dark to dark, this was all nighttime movement. Spent a couple of days on public land, and a couple of days on about 250 acres of private land. All deer were seen on the private land; although we ran into some guys on public who have been hunting the area for years dragging out a 6 pointer on sunday before the Packers game.

Had a friend who is a heavy smoker, shoot a buck near his cabin in Flambeau. So he had a number of things working against him (smoking, being on the reservation) but he still scored. I was happy for him.