STURGEON BAY, Wis. (AP) - It's just a step, but it could be the first one in creating a 16-day fall deer hunt in Wisconsin.
The Natural Resources Board is to decide Wednesday whether to conduct public hearings on a proposal to start the gun deer hunt a week earlier and extend the season to 16 days in 2010.
The nine-day season that has been tradition in the state for decades starts the Saturday before Thanksgiving.
The DNR is looking for new ways to control the state's overpopulated whitetail herd after the Natural Resources Board scrapped the earn-a-buck regulation last spring. That program
required hunters to kill an antlerless deer before they could take a buck.
The DNR wants to hold eight public hearings in October to get comments and opinions about the 16-day season.