Wood county registers 2,819 head, Clark County 5,244
Preliminary deer harvest and license sale totals for the 2025 gun deer season are now available. Final license sales figures will be available in January, when DNR staff will perform a thorough analysis and interpretation.
Karel Bock/Wisconsin DNR photo
Posted Wednesday, December 3, 2025 3:56 pm
For the Hub City Times
WOOD/CLARK COUNTIES – The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has released its preliminary license sales, harvest registration and hunting incident numbers for the 2025 nine-day gun deer hunt, which indicate the number of deer hunters in Wisconsin slightly decreased compared to 2024.
As of 11:59 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 30, sales for deer hunting privileges — gun, archery, crossbow, conservation patron and sports licenses — reached 790,044, down 0.12% from the same time last year.
Of those, 550,611 were for gun privileges only, which include gun, conservation patron and sports licenses.
Deer hunting license and harvest authorization sales will continue throughout the remaining deer hunting seasons.
Final license sales figures will be available in January, when DNR staff will perform a thorough analysis and interpretation.
Preliminary figures show hunters registered 182,084 deer during the 2025 gun deer season, including 86,068 antlered and 96,016 antlerless deer.
Compared to 2024, the gun season harvest total is down 0.8% statewide, with the antlered harvest down 2.6% and the antlerless harvest up 0.9%.
Since the opening of the bow and crossbow seasons, Wisconsin hunters have registered 294,757 deer. This harvest is 1.1% ahead of the same time last year.
Marquette County in the Central Farmland Zone led the state with 7.9 deer registered per square mile.
Vernon County led the Southern Farmland Zone with 6.5 deer registered per square mile.
DMU 201 led the Central Forest Zone registering 3.8 deer per square mile.
Finally, DMU 108 led the Northern Forest Zone with 2.7 deer registered per square mile.
The DNR’s Wisconsin Deer Harvest Summary webpage contains more information regarding preliminary harvest registration totals, including county-level numbers.
The regular gun deer season ran from Nov. 22 through Nov. 30 and is followed by the statewide muzzleloader season (Dec. 1-Dec. 10), the statewide antlerless-only four-day hunt (Dec. 11-Dec. 14) and the antlerless-only holiday hunt in select farmland zone counties (Dec. 24-Jan. 1, 2026).
Wood County totals showed a total harvest of 2,819 — 1,148 antlered and 1,641 antlerless — and Clark County showed a harvest of 5,244 — 1,966 antlered and 3,278 antlerless.
Both counties are located in the Central Farmland Zone.
Exposing the Big Game 