CONCORD — A shooting that injured a Pittsfield hunter on opening day of New Hampshire’s deer rifle season occurred as a result of a shot ricocheting off a tree, a enforcement official said Tuesday. The case will be handled as a misdemeanor.

“We’re considering the charges now, but there will be no felony charges,” Deputy Merrimack County Attorney Catherine Ruffle said.

Lawrence Williams Jr., 44, of Pittsfield will instead most likely face a misdemeanor charge — either shooting a human or negligent discharge of a firearm — after a shot from his rifle hit a friend and fellow-member of his hunting party on Nov. 9.

Dan Mullen Sr., 65, who also lives in Pittsfield, was hunting in a party of six, including Williams, near power lines off Loudon Road when he was wounded, state Fish and Game officials said.

Mullen was treated at Concord Hospital and released that night.

Prosecutors will not seek jail time for Williams, according to Ruffle, who said whichever misdemeanor he’s charged with would carry a maximum penalty of 12 months in jail and a 10-year suspension of his New Hampshire hunting license.

Three people were killed last fall in hunting accidents in New Hampshire and Vermont, including a Lisbon fatality earlier on the morning of opening day.

Wade Holmes, 48, of Lisbon, was hunting in woods off Mount Eustis Road on Nov. 9 when he apparently shot and killed Kenneth Brunelle, 31, of Marlborough, Mass., after mistaking him for a deer, according to Fish and Game officials. Brunelle was walking in the woods with his father and brother, who were hunting early in the morning. He was felled by a single shot to the neck and died at the scene.

“Obviously, we’re dealing with a fatality, but we aren’t that far off,” said Lt. James Kneeland of Fish and Game District 3 in New Hampton. He said he expected to turn his department’s findings over to Grafton County Attorney Lara Saffo within the next two weeks.

In another shooting that took place six days before New Hampshire’s rifle season opened, a Portsmouth man, Mark Mattson, was target-practicing in Raymond, Maine, when he was shot in the stomach and seriously wounded. Mattson spent several weeks at Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, much of that time in critical condition.

Maine State Police in Gray identified the shooter in that case as Travis Wood, 29, of Windham, Maine, and said the investigation is continuing.

Toward the close of Vermont’s deer rifle season, two men died when a Vermont hunter fatally shot a companion, then shot himself because he was so distraught, according to Vermont State Police.

The double fatality happened in the woods of Readsboro, a Bennington County town just north of the Massachusetts border.

Timothy Bolognani, 49, killed himself after accidentally shooting Benjamin Birch, 39, said Vermont State Police investigators. Bolognani, Birch and a third man were hunting together.

A Vermont State Police spokesman said Tuesday he could not confirm that the case has been closed, and Bennington County State’s Attorney Erica Marthage did not return messages left for her.