Wisconsin game officers wish hunters a safe nine-day deer season and remind them to avoid shooting one of Wisconsin's rare wolves that sometimes can be found in Sauk County and surrounding areas.

The traditional nine-day hunting begins shortly after dawn Saturday and continues through Nov. 30, said Dave Horzewski, the Reedsburg-based warden with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. The season is earn-a-buck, meaning a hunter must shoot an antlerless female or immature deer before they can legally shoot a buck. Hunters also can shoot a buck if they earned a tag by shooting an antlerless deer in the earlier bow or October hunting season.

"After the nine-day deer season in the (chronic wasting disease) zone we'll have a 10-day (earn-a-buck) muzzle loader season," Horzewski said. "That's a little different than last year. Last year you could go out with any weapon," he said.

The muzzle loader season will be followed by another four-day antlerless-only deer hunting season, Horzewski said. From now through Jan. 4, hunters are free to take deer with a bow.

The October antlerless deer season was pretty quiet, but Horzewski speculated game wardens might be busier this coming weekend. In past years, a Sunday night Green Bay Packers game sent many hunters heading home Sunday afternoon.

"Now we don't have a Packer game until Monday night, so it may be busier for people," he said.

Horzewski said he hopes all hunters will follow the four basic rules of safe gun handling:

n Treat every gun as if it were loaded.

n Always point the muzzle in a safe direction.

n Be sure of your target and what's behind it.

n Keep your finger out of the trigger guard and off the trigger until you're ready to fire.

"Usually when we see the accidents, it's usually be sure of your target and what lies behind it," Horzewski said. "That's where we usually end up getting the hunting accidents."

It's often when hunters aren't paying attention to what is beyond their intended target that people get shot accidently or flying bullets cause property damage, he said.

Another situation where hunters get hurt is when a group of them are trying to drive deer to a particular area so members of their hunting party can shoot them, he said. Sometimes people driving the deer will go to places their partners don't expect them and get hit.

"Plan your hunt and hunt your plan. Everybody's going to have a good game plan and everybody's got to stick to it."

The weather should be cool, so hopefully hunters will dress appropriately, Horzewski said.

"I want everybody to have a good safe season and enjoy themselves," he said.

Don't shoot wolves

Because northern Wisconsin has a growing wolf population, Dodgeville-based warden supervisor Chuck Horn cautions hunters to look carefully before they shoot what they think is a coyote.

Coyotes are a fur-bearing game animal and have a hunting season open year-round, he said. Much rarer and larger canines, wolves are protected from hunting in Wisconsin.

While most wolves in the state are in the northern areas, single wolves often scatter over distances, looking for new homes and potentially trying to find a new pack, Horn said.

"We're not finding any packs of wolves per se, but individuals that are roaming," he said. "We've had a couple down in Grant County, a couple in Lafayette County. They tend to flow corridors, river corridors, so the Wisconsin River and places like that would be a likely spot for them," Horn said.

In November 2007, a bow hunter shot a wolf near the Pine Island Wildlife Area in Sauk County, according to the DNR. Depending on the circumstances, a hunter convicted of shooting a wolf could be fined $300 to $2,100.

Horn said hunters should be able to tell the difference between Great Lakes-area wolves and coyotes.

"Two key differences are, compared to a coyote, a wolf appears massive and very long-legged, while the coyote's ears are pointed and much larger in proportion to the size of its head," he said.