Productive Hunting Season | Video

Jason Dumas | 3/21/2013

The 2012 deer gun season was better than 2011, but not because North Dakota sportsmen improved their marksmanship. Mother Nature played a role in the hunter’s success rate.

"Deer population has been down since the winter of 2008, 2009, 2010. Those three winters were difficult winters and having them back to back to back, we lost a lot of deer," said Randy Kreil of North Dakota`s Game and Fish Department.

For hunters who did fill their tag, weather was still a factor in the hunt.

"It was wet, threatening snow, freezing rain, and I wanted be out hiking, hunting around. After a while I was like, you know what, I`m wet enough. First one I see that`s legal, I`m shooting it. And that`s how it kind of ended," said hunter Ron Wilson.

Good weather or bad, Wilson will be out in the field again next year. "I wouldn`t miss it. I would have to be darn sick or a massive blizzard for me not to go. This is one of those things I just really look forward to."

This season the success rate was 63 percent percent, up from 2011`s all-time low of 51 percent.

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