Grant County escapes Wisconsin’s holiday deer hunt as NRB approves framework of 2025 season

Kenosha, Wis. — In a show of support for recommendations by County Deer Advisory Councils (CDAC), the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board (NRB) approved the 2025 deer season framework June 25 that includes a holiday hunt and extended January season in 44 Farmland Zone units.

The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) had agreed with all CDAC recommendations except for not including the holiday hunt and extended archery hunt in Grant County.

The DNR recommended to the NRB that Grant County offer the holiday hunt and extended bow season into January in order to be consistent with neighboring counties and to help increase the deer harvest in a region with increasing CWD prevalence.

However, the Grant County CDAC had decided earlier not to offer the holiday hunt nor the extended January bow season.

What may have helped NRB members make their decision to reject the DNR’s recommendation and accept the CDAC’s exemption of Grant County from the late hunts was Rob Bohmann’s comment that it was for just one year.

“We have to give CDACs the opportunity to learn. If you continue to override that they will never learn,” said Bohmann, Conservation Congress chair. “We have to trust those boots on the ground. They are not only our partners, but if we didn’t have hunters, we wouldn’t be able to manage our wildlife populations.”

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Bohmann said the congress supported the DNR’s proposed season structure, except in Grant County where the CDAC didn’t want the extended hunts.

Bohmann thanked those serving on CDACs saying, “The process would fail if it wasn’t for their willingness to serve the sportsmen and women in their county.”

NRB members wanted more information on the DNR and Grant County disparity.

Jeff Pritzl, DNR deer program specialist, said the DNR was not ignoring the CDAC recommendation, but said there was not a “clear path” to a decision since the Grant County vote was close: five-to-four in favor of no extended hunts. He said, in general, the holiday hunt could add a kill of 200 to 400 antlerless deer in a county, and provide more hunting opportunities.

“Everyone is on the same page of increasing the antlerless deer harvest,” Pritzl said. “How might we accomplish that?”

Bill Smith, NRB chair, heard from a few hunters who are very appreciative of the holiday hunt because it is an opportunity to hunt with friends or relatives who couldn’t get back to the state until the holiday season.

Smith said the holiday hunt has shown steady, positive growth. In the past when the NRB changed CDAC recommendations, it was due to an overwhelming social or natural resource reason.

In this case, he saw neither. He said he knows CDACs have difficulty recruiting members and sometimes feel they aren’t being heard.

Board members said they respect the CDACs and they also want to help reduce CWD, but in the end they wanted to keep a good relationship with CDACs and see what the data shows after the year. The board voted unanimously to approve the season, but to go along with Grant County’s recommendation to not participate in the holiday hunt and January bow hunt.

NRB members Douglas Cox and Jeff Hastings were not present and did not participate at the meeting.

The result is that 44 of the 58 deer units eligible for the holiday hunt will participate; 37 of 58 units will extend the bow season through January.

Unit changes

Pritzl said that a challenge coming up with an antlerless quota this year is that DNR was transitioning to new deer unit boundaries in the forest zones.

The changes included 19 Northern Forest Zone county units that became 24 habitat-based numbered units. In addition, some Northern Forest Zone units became five new small Central Farmland Zone units, seven Central Forest Zone units were reduced in size to six. Six southeastern metro subunits were expanded.

As a result, units in the Northern Forest Zone have been given numbers to differentiate them from the farmland units (still recognized by county).

DNR researchers developed a system to look at the average antlerless harvest, amount of private and public land, historic antlerless harvest, and permit success rate to help CDACs decide whether to increase or decrease antlerless harvests in the new units.

Pritzl said that for the 24 new Northern Forest Zone units, six recommendations were below recent averages, eight were at or near recent averages, and 10 were above recent averages.

“I can’t speak enough of the collaborative and cooperative approach that they (CDACs) took to this process this spring,” Pritzl said.

The result is that the DNR fully supported recommendations coming from northern CDACs.

The DNR also invited public comment on proposed quotas prior to the CDAC meetings; 6,383 people provided input.

The final desired antlerless harvest quota for 2025 is 291,385, compared to 272,837 in 2024 and 283,495 in 2023.

There will be 260,715 bonus “tags” available, compared to 248,120 in 2024, and 253,715 in 2023. Additional antlerless deer may be harvested using free Farmland Zone antlerless tags issued with each license in order to try to reach the goal of 291,385 antlerless deer harvested.

“This is in line with the fact that we are coming off two mild winters and we had an increase in harvest last year,” Pritzl said.

This year one Farmland Zone unit (Door County) will issue five antlerless permits with each license; three units will issue four; 19 will issue three; 27 will issue two; and 10 units will issue one antlerless permit.

The season

The 2025 deer season will include the usual buck-plus-antlerless permit during the archery seasons, and nine-day gun and muzzleloader seasons.

The four-day December statewide season will continue to be antlerless-only.

An additional nine days of antlerless-only gun hunting in 44 Farmland Zone counties will run Dec. 24 to Jan. 1, 2026.

Additional hunting opportunities with an either-sex January bow and crossbow season will be offered in 37 counties.

The regulations pamphlet was going to the printer in late June.

2025 season dates

Archery/crossbow:  Sept. 13 – Jan. 4, 2026 (Jan. 31 closure in metro subunits and select units).

Youth deer hunt:  Oct. 11-12.

Gun deer hunt for hunters with disabilities: Oct 4-12.

Gun deer season:  Nov. 22-30.

Muzzleloader:  Dec. 1-10.

Antlerless hunt: Dec. 11-14.

Holiday hunt: Dec. 24 – Jan. 1, 2026 (not all counties).