Jamie Friedrich says he can't believe he shot not just one deer on Opening Day of the gun deer season: He’s really shocked to come away with four.

“The fog made it very difficult. They were within 15 feet of me and I had heard them for about five minutes before I could actually see them,” he says, looking over the doe and three young buck fawns he shot on his grandfather’s land near Cadott.

Friedrich says the warmer weather made it a bit easier for him to get out in the woods in his wheelchair.

"I have a bit more upper mobility, but it can be quite difficult sometimes. I'm glad there's no snow on the ground,” he says.

With today's warmer conditions, hunters say it's actually more pleasant to be out in the tree stand for hours. But they say it's harder to track the deer.

"Brown on white really stands out,” says Michele Woodford, a biologist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. “Brown on brown is a lot harder to see."

But Friedrich says even with the deer being difficult to see, this year's harvest has been one of his most successful.

"Last year, we had a really hard time,” he says. “My most successful year was probably the year after I got in my car accident. That's when I shot an 8 point buck."

With a hatch full of doe and fawns, Friedrich says he'll hang up his rifle for this year, and concentrate on teaching the next generation how to bag a buck.

“I'm going to sit with my two cousins and help them hunt, see if we can get them a deer,” he says.

The DNR says they expect a lower number of deer to be harvested this year. It’s partly due to herd size, and because the “earn-a-buck” program is no longer in place.