It’s the time of year when blaze orange and now blaze pink are all the craze in Wisconsin.
Deer hunting gun season starts at sunrise on Saturday. Thousands of hunters were out stocking up on last minute licenses and supplies at sporting good stores like Mills Fleet Farm in Germantown.
"Buck fever every year, happens every time,” said deer hunter Paul Weller. "Got the truck packed up and heading up there now."
For first-time gun hunter Sarah O' Neil of Fond du Lac, the next nine days are dedicated to getting a buck.
"I'm not nervous, I’m really excited to try something different this year and hopefully it’s successful for me,” she said.
Through Friday evening, Wisconsin DNR reports more than 533,000 deer hunting gun licenses for the season.
Last year, the harvest took in over 200,000 deer with expectations of another year on the uptick given a late deer mating season.
“All of the bucks will be in rut, so they will be coming out of the swamps looking for the doe so there will be a lot more deer around,” said hunter safety inspector Doug Gutenkunst.
Cooler weather over the weekend is welcomed by those in the field, but not everything is in the hunters' favor. Gusting winds are expected through opening day.
"The wind tends to make the deer not move as much,” said DNR Biologist Tom Isaac. "They’ll hunker down somewhere instead of moving around like they normally do.”
While weather is supposed to smooth out after, the number one priority that surpasses a trophy buck is hunter safety.
"We know where everyone is and you don’t shoot what you can’t see beyond,” Weller said.
The Wisconsin DNR said the state’s deer population has increased, especially in the southern part of the state, however numbers in around ten northern counties remain very low.
