MADISON, WI (AP)-- License sales for Wisconsin's 2016 gun deer hunts are trailing last year's totals with three days to go until the traditional nine-day season opens.
The state held its two-day gun youth hunt in October. The nine-day season opens Saturday and runs through Nov. 27. Also on tap are metro hunts in November and December, a December antlerless hunt and a late-December hunt in southern Wisconsin.
The latest figures from the state Department of Natural Resources show the agency had sold 379,171 gun licenses as of Tuesday. That compares to 392,138 licenses sold as of the Tuesday before last year's nine-day hunt.
Thousands of hunters typically purchase their licenses on the Friday before the nine-day season Saturday opener. The DNR sold nearly 60,000 licenses on the Friday before last year's opener.
