Wisconsin’s and Fort McCoy’s 2024 nine-day gun-deer season took place Nov. 23 to Dec. 1, and hunters saw some warmer weather to start the season and ended the season seeing 385 deer harvested.
“We did not get the harvest we were hoping for, but not too terrible either,” said Wildlife Program Manager and Biologist Kevin Luepke with the Fort McCoy Directorate of Public Works Environmental Division Natural Resources Branch. I think we had a number of factors that influenced the harvest this year. The warmer weather during the first half of the season, no acorn production forced deer to seek out alternative food sources, the late season (this year was the latest that a gun-deer season can take place, ending in December), the first recorded case of Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease (EHD) on the installation, and not having all the bonus antlerless harvest authorizations purchased through the lottery drawing.”
Entering the 2024 gun-deer season at Fort McCoy, Luepke said the deer herd was looking plentiful.
“The herd was looking good during the summer with doe-fawn ratios exceeding levels over the past five years,” Luepke said. “The mild winter and abundant acorn crop in fall 2023 really lent itself to deer herd growth.”
Luepke also said little to no acorn production on the installation in fall 2024 was noted by wildlife and forestry staff. It’s difficult to say whether or not that contributed to a lower harvest in 2024 (was 426 in 2023), but it does make a difference.
“Deer will have to seek out alternative food sources this fall and winter, so deer may not be in the oak ridges that hunters had success in during previous years,” Luepke said. “The lack of acorn production this year may also cause the herd to go into winter with less fat reserves that are needed for winter survival.”
Hunters at Fort McCoy also saw a change in authorizations with their permits during the 2024 hunt.
“This year, we changed the harvest authorizations that were received with the purchase of a gun-deer permit,” Luepke said. “All gun-deer hunters (received) an either-sex harvest authorization instead of issuing a hunter’s choice approval to those who applied and were selected through a lottery drawing. Bonus antlerless harvest authorizations were also available through a lottery drawing instead of a first-come, first-serve offering as in the past.”
For the 2024 gun-deer hunt, deer data collection point was also in full operation on South Post in the same location just off Highway 21 as previous years. Hunters were required to bring their harvested deer through the deer data collection point. Biological data was collected, Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) sampling offered, and a dumpster was available to discard any carcasses. Collected CWD samples were sent to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and all successful hunters were encouraged to have their deer tested.
“That biological data we collect at the station is important to evaluate the herd health and calculate the installation deer population,” Luepke said. “We also collect lymph nodes for CWD testing.”
Testing is important, especially since there were findings of diseases affecting deer in 2024.
“We have some diseases that showed up in October that we don’t quite have a handle on the extent of the herd it is actually affecting,” Luepke said. “EHD was found on the installation in early-October. Currently, one deer has tested positive for EHD, but 10 other dead deer are also being attributed to EHD. No additional dead deer were reported during the gun-deer season. Above EHD being found on the installation, an archery hunter also had a buck test positive for CWD in late-October. That deer was harvested in training area B-5 and is the first CWD positive test result that has been harvested from Fort McCoy. We were able to collect 241 CWD samples from the 385 deer harvested, results are coming back as ‘CWD not detected’ from those test samples, but we are still waiting on 27 samples to be processed yet.” (More information on EHD and CWD can be found on the Fort McCoy iSportsman site at https://mccoy.isportsman.net and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources website at https://dnr.wisconsin.gov.)
During the season, staff asked hunters to report any dead deer they may come across to the wildlife staff who were working the deer data collection point, Luepke said.
“Any CWD positive deer results that do come back, that hunter will be eligible for a replacement harvest authorization the following year and will be awarded a gun-deer permit the following year prior to the lottery drawing,” Luepke said. “To be eligible for the replacement harvest authorization, samples must be submitted through Fort McCoy by either lymph node extractions at the deer data collection point or the self-serve kiosk that is also available near the deer data collection point. Replacement harvest authorizations that are issued next year still require the hunter to purchase the gun-deer permit for next year’s season, the replacement harvest authorization is NOT a replacement gun-deer permit.”
For information on local CWD sampling kiosks, deer carcass dumpsters, and deer donation locations, visit the Monroe County Land Conservation website at https://www.co.monroe.wi.us/departments/land-conservation.
Fort McCoy’s deer population continued to show it had larger bucks available to hunters, as well, Luepke said.
“There were several big bucks that came through,” Luepke said.
Learn more about deer hunting at Fort McCoy by visiting the installation iSportsman page at https://ftmccoy.isportsman.net.
Learn more about Fort McCoy online at https://home.army.mil/mccoy, on Facebook by searching “ftmccoy,” on Flickr at https://www.flickr.com/photos/fortmccoywi, and on X (formerly Twitter) by searching “usagmccoy.”
Also try downloading the My Army Post app to your smartphone and set “Fort McCoy” or another installation as your preferred base. Fort McCoy is also part of Army’s Installation Management Command where “We Are The Army’s Home.”
(The Fort McCoy Public Affairs Office and the Directorate of Public Works Environmental Division Natural Resources Branch prepared this article.)
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