MARQUETTE -- With a 160-pound buck fastened to the top of his SUV, Ron Rantanen says he's just happy to have harvested one this season.

"We were definitely seeing less deer and not a lot of bucks and not a lot of hunters either,” said the Ishpeming resident.

Regardless, hunters were still coming to the DNR station in Marquette Monday morning to register their deer, but definitely not as many as before, claims the DNR.

"It looks like at this check station, we're down about 25 to 27 percent from last year,” said DNR wildlife biologist, Terry McFadden.

The Marquette station, which checked just under 400 deer in the last two weeks, wasn't the only one seeing a drop.  The DNR station in Baraga saw a 32 percent decrease in deer registrations compared to last year.  The Wakefield station saw a 34 percent decrease.  In Gladstone, registrations were down 15 percent, and the DNR in Newberry reports the eastern half of the U.P. is down 37 percent.  So what's to blame?

"We have fewer hunters than last year, and we're seeing that across the board,” McFadden explained.  “As well as we had a pretty severe winter last year, so we lost last year's fawns."  And fawns, he says, make up the majority of deer harvested.

Although it was a disappointing season, Rantanen says he didn't mind.  "I'm 70, and it's still fun!" he laughed.