Wisconsin hunters registered 106,404 deer on opening weekend of the firearms season, the state's Department of Natural Resources said Monday.
The kill is up about 6 percent from a year ago. The buck harvest was 54,263, the antlerless harvest, 52,141. The figures are preliminary.
According to the Wisconsin DNR:
• 564,825 hunters who purchased firearms licenses were residents and 32,056 were non-residents;
• More than 86,000 youth hunters under 18 participated in this year's hunt.
• Females represent 8.6 percent of total hunters, and 20 percent of new 10- and 11-year-old hunters;
• Hunters throughout the U.S. and 22 foreign countries purchased a Wisconsin gun deer license. The highest number of non-resident hunters came from Minnesota (16,017), Illinois (7,968), Michigan (1,012), and Florida (838);
• The greatest number of foreign hunters came from Canada (32), Germany (19) and U.K. (9).
The Wisconsin DNR said 607,926 gun deer licenses were sold before hunting began Saturday, down 3 percent from 2009.
But the number of 10- and 11-year-old hunters was up 15 percent from 2009.
No shooting fatalities were reported opening weekend, but there were five non-fatal gun accidents.
