Area deer hunters are racking up some big numbers as a growing county whitetail population offers more opportunities for venison.

Including the youth gun, bow, crossbow and early stretch of the nine-day gun season, nearly 5,000 whitetails have already been taken from the Kewaunee/Door County Peninsula.

The numbers in Kewaunee County included 672 bucks and 538 antlerless deer, or 1,210 total, reported opening weekend with the new electronic registration requirements. That’s up 40 percent from last year.

It’s not comparing apples to apples, but there’s no doubt that deer numbers are up this year after a mild winter and reduced doe harvest in recent years.

In the past, hunters had until 5 p.m. the day after the nine-day season to register their deer. The new rules require online or phone-in reporting no later than 5 p.m. the day after the deer was taken.

Some former tagging stations are offering electronic registration assistance, including Algoma BP, Rouer’s Grand Slam in Brussels and Q-Mart in Sturgeon Bay.

Door County hunters registered 948 bucks and 683 antlerless deer the first two days, up 18 percent over 2014.

Many mature bucks sported 8- to 10-point racks, and there were plenty of yearlings with forks or smaller basket racks of 5 to 8 points.

Statewide through Sunday, 603,840 licenses allowing gun deer hunting had been sold, nearly 5,000 fewer than were sold by the end of the nine-day season a year ago. However, licenses can be purchased the remainder of the season and the numbers will climb.

Archery licenses sold so far are down about 6,500, but crossbow sales are up more than 16,000.

Archers and crossbow hunters can hunt throughout the gun seasons, but must comply with blaze orange clothing restrictions and can’t use their archery or crossbow tags on gun-killed whitetails.

As of midday Tuesday, 117 of 200 bonus permits for use on public land in Kewaunee County had been purchased, along with 357 of 1,100 available private land tags. All 200 public land bonus tags for Door County have been sold, but only 563 of 1,800 private land bonus permits had been purchased.

Cost for bonus tags is $12 each for residents, $20 for non-residents.

The nine-day gun deer hunt ends 20 minutes after sunset Sunday, and is immediately followed by a 10-day muzzleloader season Nov. 30-Dec. 9 and a four-day, antlerless-only gun hunt Dec. 10-13. Anyone hunting the Green Bay Metro Subunit in eastern Brown County can use any legal firearms for bucks or antlerless through Dec. 9.

For more on the 2015 deer hunting seasons go online at http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/hunt/deer.html or download the Pocket Ranger app to your smartphone.

Readers are encouraged to send first deer, trophy buck or other unique hunting tales via e-mail to [email protected].

Little ice yet

If the long-term weather forecast is right, it’ll be milder than usual the next two weeks, with several shots at rain.

While we had only a few snow flurries over the weekend, it was shoveling snow in southern Wisconsin and parts of the north had just enough for spotting tracks and deer.

A wet and windy Thanksgiving was in the forecast before skies clear and southerly winds switch to the north/northeast overnight. Steady 20 to 30 mile per hour winds were predicted Friday with higher gusts and temperatures dropping to around freezing.

The winds are expected to settle nicely for the weekend, with highs in the 30s, perfect weather for early and late sits or midday walks.

Last weekend’s low temperature of around 20 degrees wasn’t enough to stiffen up swamps but did make some ice to coat shallow standing water in fields. Standing water in swamps discouraged some hunters, while others used knee or hip boots to get back to favored ambush sites.

All the rain has been good for stream anglers, with a solid coho run late last month and brown trout and some steelhead this month. Anglers are encouraged to wear some blaze orange on the rivers and creeks through the end of the gun deer hunting seasons.

Dates, deadlines

The fall turkey season here reopens Monday and runs through Dec. 31, the same date that pheasant hunting ends. The southern zone duck season ends Dec. 6.

Dec. 10 is the deadline to apply for a spring turkey tag or a fall black bear hunting kill permit or preference point.

Canada goose hunting remains open until Dec. 21 in the southern Exterior Zone.

Kevin Naze is a freelance outdoors writer. Email him at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press Gazette: Kewaunee County deer harvest up 40 percent