Wisconsin's nine day gun deer hunt ended Sunday, and hunters had until 5:00 Monday evening to register their deer.

We talked to the DNR and hunters Monday about this year's season, which took off slower than previous years with a heavy fog covering most of the state.

The DNR says that fog definitely put a damper on the opening weekends numbers, this year's opening numbers were down about 5.5 percent compared to last year.

Brian Harms has been hunting for the last 32 years near his home in Eleva. He tells us, “I've been fortunate, there’s only been two years that I haven't seen a deer to shoot at.”

Brian says this year the deer seemed to be few and far between. He saw a couple of deer on the first day, but didn't shoot at one until last week. He says, “I hunted every day, I got a permanent stand so I sit there all day long. Thursday I finally seen a few more, I got my buck then.”

And DNR spokesman Ed Culhane says he's heard similar stories over the last nine days, “We expected the harvest to be down this year, there were a number of reasons for that, one is the strange weather leading into the fall.

He says fields of standing corn for deer to hide in, and fewer antlerless tags given out combined with the slashing of the Earn-a-Buck program led to fewer deer being killed. He says, “So there was less incentive and less opportunity for hunters to shoot antlerless deer.”

Which accounts for more bucks being taken than does this year; and some hunters admit it was a lonely season.

Tom Schwartz was at Mike’s Star Market on Monday, he told us, “I happened to shoot a 9 point buck and my son got a 6 point buck, but very few deer seen, I only saw four all season, one I shot.”

Mike Miaer, owner of Mike’s Star Market in Eau Claire says while his meat processing business has been down this year, he has seen larger deer overall, “Just hearing from the hunters that come in, they haven’t been seeing a lot of deer, numbers are down but then it was foggy and a lot of corn standing, I’ve heard a lot of that this year.”

Several of the hunters we talked to Monday said they were successful, but they say it just isn't quite as fun when they don't see very many deer in the woods.

The DNR reports seven people were hurt and one possibly killed this hunting season in the entire state.