With the close of firearm deer season last week, we wanted to know how harvest reporting went since this was the first year of the DNR’s mandatory reporting requirement. Hunters now are required to report their harvest within 72 hrs. Reporting may be done using the new app or as before in person.
DNR spokesperson John Pepin says despite some pushback from some hunters, identifying kill spots has always been required when reporting in person. And nobody sees those locations besides the DNR. Pepin, “Probably the biggest complaint folks didn’t want to pinpoint on the app exactly where they got their deer, and so, because they felt like that information would be given out to others”
Pepin says weather wise the conditions were ideal and its been a safe hunting season. Pepin, “Plenty of opportunity since September to get out and harvest a buck, and we had a lot of people happy to do than and a lot of folks did actually get a deer and obviously they are happy that”
Pepin said over the 15 UP counties, 15 thousand deer were harvested… 4 thousand of those were antlerless. Menominee and Delta counties had the highest reported harvests.