Despite sending over a half-million deer hunters afield for late November’s nine-day gun season, Wisconsin suffered only one accidental shooting – setting a safety record that could prove impossible to break.

   In fact, that lone shooting didn’t occur until late Friday, Nov. 29, the season’s seventh day, during the 70th hour of the 90-hour season.

   Renee Thok, the Department of Natural Resources’ hunter-education coordinator, said Wisconsin’s previous safety record for the nine-day season was last year when three hunters suffered nonfatal gunshot wounds. The previous records were 2014 and 2019 when four hunters suffered nonfatal wounds both years.

   The 2024 hunt marked the 10th time in the past 15 seasons Wisconsin didn’t suffer a shooting fatality during November’s traditional gun-deer season. The first year without a deer-season fatality in modern times was 1973, but that didn’t happen again until 2010.

   This year’s lone shooting occurred in Vernon County near De Soto when a 14-year-old boy was struck in both feet by a .270 Winchester slug fired at a running deer several hundred yards away. The incident took place on land in the state state’s Managed Forest Law program, which is open to public hunting.

   Kirk Konichek, warden safety specialist in Viroqua, said the shooter was a 25-year-old man who fired once from a Chevy Blazer after his hunting partner maneuvered the vehicle for a shot. Konichek didn’t release the shooter’s name and possible charges because the incident remains under investigation.

    Konichek said the shooter had just gutted and loaded a deer onto the vehicle when another deer ran between the Blazer and the distant blind, which was occupied by the victim and his father. He said the two groups are from the same family but weren’t hunting together.

   Konichek said the boy didn’t immediately realize he had been shot. “The blind has plastic walls, so the impact was loud,” Konichek said. “They had no idea what happened. At first they thought one of their rifles had fired, or maybe their space heater blew apart, but the rifles were still sitting upright and everything seemed fine. They checked themselves and thought they were all right, but then the boy noticed his feet were bleeding.”

   The boy was rushed to a La Crosse hospital and went home three days later, Dec. 2. After Konichek and other DNR wardens narrowed their investigation to the two men Nov. 30, the suspects “came clean” that afternoon.

   DNR data from the past six deer seasons show that shooting incidents involving different groups account for 21% of hunting accidents. Self-inflicted gunshots are most common, accounting for 48% of incidents, while “same party” shootings account for 31%.  

   The DNR has sold 553,652 gun-deer licenses so far this year, meaning Wisconsin has roughly twice as many gun-deer hunters today than it did through most of the 1950s. Even so, deer hunting today is safer than ever. Wisconsin averaged eight accidental shootings the past 25 gun seasons. In contrast deer seasons from 1950 to 1964 averaged 40 shootings annually.

   And when comparing shooting fatalities, deer hunting today is about eight times less deadly. The 1950-1964 deer seasons averaged eight shooting fatalities, ranging from three in 1962 to 13 in 1959. Starting in 2000, Wisconsin has averaged one shooting fatality annually, a run that includes 10 deer seasons with zero fatal shootings, eight seasons with one fatality, three seasons with two fatalities (2000, 2002 and 2003), and three seasons (2005, 2007 and 2015) with three fatalities. The deadliest season those years was 2001 with five fatalities.

   Deer season’s accident rate per 100,000 deer hunters was 27 from 1964 to 1973, 15 from 1974 to 1982, 10 from 1983 to 1992, 6.4 from 1993 to 2002, 4.0 from 2003 to 2013, and 1.06 from 2014 to 2023.

   Safety records since the 1980s weren’t conceivable during most of the 1900s, when shooting reports were often horrific. Wisconsin recorded 24 shooting deaths in 1914, and 13 in 1959 and 1970.

   Deer season’s toll also hit 12 deaths in 1900, 1942, 1946 and 1948; and 11 deaths during the 1938, 1939, 1957, 1958 and 1960 deer seasons. Otis Bersing’s 1966 edition of “A Century of Wisconsin Deer Hunting,” reported double-digit fatalities during nine of the 27 deer seasons he tracked from 1938 to 1964. Those seasons lasted five to nine days in most areas.

   DNR records don’t include deer-license numbers for 1900, but Wisconsin sold 155,000 deer tags in 1914. That means one of every 6,459 deer hunters died of gunshots that year. The DNR sold 501,799 deer licenses in 1970, which put the shooting-fatality rate at one in every 38,600 hunters, a six-fold improvement from 1914.

   If deer hunters today got shot at 1914’s rate, Wisconsin would have had about 90 fatalities and 100 woundings during this year’s Nov. 23 to Dec. 1 season. And if hunters today matched the 1970 shooting rate, Wisconsin would’ve had 15 gun deaths this season.

   The DNR cites myriad reasons for safer deer hunting. Blaze orange clothing hit the market around 1970, and Wisconsin made it mandatory on hunters’ hats and torsos in 1980. Red clothes were required during deer seasons from 1945 through 1979.

   In addition to blaze-orange, chartreuse and fluorescent-pink clothes make hunters more visible. Wisconsin also credits its hunter-education program for safer hunts. The DNR has about 3,000 volunteer hunter-ed instructors, as well as hundreds of field-day certified instructors for its online safety course.

   Changes in hunting tactics also help. Hunters today seldom conduct largescale deer drives, and more hunters seldom leave their treestands or elevated box blinds. Most shots fired from above drive into the ground, reducing ricochets.

   Combined, those factors make gun-deer season safer than anything known to previous generations.

Wisconsin hunters set a safety record during November’s annual gun-deer season, recording only one shooting and zero fatalities, the 10th deer season since 2010 with no shooting deaths. — Patrick Durkin photo