Posted Tuesday, March 16, 2010 -- 9:15 p.m.

" Couple of years ago I did shoot the best deer I've ever shot in my life and that's great. "

In the close to 15 years that Nate Weber has been hunting near Barneveld he's never had a year like he did in '09.

Not only did he not get a deer...he didn't even see one.

Weber says, "It was a really bad season. The worst we've had."

Nate thinks part of the problem may have been the DNR's numbers were a little bit off last year and he's not alone according to the DNR.

At meetings around the state others are saying the same thing.

" I think that's been the sentiment that's been most loudly heard."

Jake Fries is a Wildlife Biologist for the DNR. He says he's heard from people who saw a lot of deer and people who didn't see any.

He just wants people to remember deer populations are going to vary from time to time.

Fries says, " Deer aren't spread evenly across the landscape and there is definitely situations where hunters do see a lot of deer in particular spots and there's places where hunters don't see a lot of deer. "

As an example Fries says the number of bucks tagged during the archery season went up. For Nate that's hard to accept.

He says it all comes down to what he didn't see with his own eyes.

" It's nice just to see something but when you don't see anything you really become skeptical about are the numbers right."

Earlier today the DNR announced it would raise deer population goals in 43 of the state deer management zones.

That would raise the population goal by about 60,000 deer to about 800,000 total in the state.