2024 Deer Hunter – Deer Population Experience

The current state harvest is at 89,635.

Mine first.

It’s terrible. I hunt 642 (formerly 342). It really has two distinct areas. Ag top land and big woods – and they should or be treated the same. Today marks hunt 60 and I am not even at 5 mature does yet. This isn’t public land – this private or non-pressured land – and lots of it.

I would rather deal with CWD naturally than see what the DNR is doing. Kill them all is a travesty.

I was on the date deer advisory board when we improved the herd and implemented APR. the results were phenomenal. What are we going to do to correct this direction and push for a better deer herd management change?

Now your 2024 Season Review so far.

341 it’s been a ton of action. Hunt north of the metro also same there. Do not need APR that is not a fix. Harvest the deer you want , I would say get rid of early gun season but let the youth hunt at that time only.

225 most the time, and the population is great. I encounter deer on most every sit. Only a small handful of times i don’t see anything and that because I made a blind move.
I usually started my hunts in 157 as my target area but couldn’t this year do to killing a buck in 225 on opening day of bow. But the population in 157 is strong as well.

I hunt in 225, which is just north of the metro, a zone that borders Wisconsin. It’s where the timber line of the north meets ag land. The wildlife is thriving like I’ve never seen before – not just deer, but turkeys and pheasants too. I’ve seen 44 deer in 4 days of hunting thus far which is already a new record for me in 30 years of deer hunting.

The bag limit is 3 here – initial license plus 2 bonus tags. It has an early antler less season, plus the youth one, although I’m not sure how many participate in those. Gun hunting pressure this week is heavy though. Nearly every single property surrounding the 120 acres I hunt has pressure.

My only gripe would be the lack of quality bucks. I’ve seen 14 of them but none bigger than a six pointer.

I think the wildlife overall has greatly benefited from the fake winter we had. That’s my only explanation.

The bag limit could probably be expanded here and but I doubt it would make much of a difference. I’m just not sure how many people really want to harvest 4 deer. I certainly don’t.

I say leave it as is. If it aint broke, don’t fix it.

I read that there is some proposed legislation to remove the shotgun zone in the future, possibly as early as next season.

Zone 176 for me. For my personal land, I feel I have a pretty good handle on what lives here, as I feed them all winter and get to know whats around. This is the poorest local population I have seen since I bought my place.

In my field, most falls I could sneak out to look over it and see any where from 5 to 15 feeding any given night. This year – zero to 2 (usually zero) The lack of sign is astounding. We have had two yrs in a row of very low fawn recruitment – IMO it is bear related. Two springs in row we have had lots of spring bear problems. I know they prey heavily on fawns, so I feel thats a major portion of our local issue.

Regarding the CWD thing. I was talking to someone the other day who knows a deer breeder and this breeder claims you can breed CWD OUT of the deer herd. I dont know that I buy that but the person who told me said he was insistent and even pressed him on it. Never explained how that was possible, but I sincerely doubt it since it seems to be brought on by Prions which occur in soil to the best of my knowledge. Are some deer immune to this? I suppose that may be possible and breeding those deer together might work in the end, but I still have some serious doubts about his claims.
Regarding deer, while I have not been hunting this year the folks that talk with who have really struggled the last 3 or 4 years they are doing pretty good actually close to a normal year. Last year the one group of 13 guys who hunt very hard most of the first week got 1 deer and only saw 2 total. This year they had 5 by Monday morning and a couple nice bucks and saw many more. Another guy hunting the same area, but further West toward Itasca state park with two others they saw one deer last year. This year they shot a big doe and saw 5 others. So, not fantastic by any stretch but these guys focus on the bottle more than the hunting and dont spend the most time in the woods. They are all home already, got back Monday so they werent out there much.
Around my house I have been seeing quite a few deer, one being a massive buck laying in a picked cornfield with 4 does. Totally inaccessible. My son almost hit a black bear a few hundred yards from our house on monday coming home from work so that thing is still around. Havent seen any of the wolves I know that are around, but have heard yotes a few times.

Good stuff all! I do know the DNR is in a no-win situation. We hunters have just as much say in the “kill em all” plan as the DNR every time we squeeze the trigger.

gimruis wrote:

I hunt in 225, which is just north of the metro, a zone that borders Wisconsin. It’s where the timber line of the north meets ag land. The wildlife is thriving like I’ve never seen before – not just deer, but turkeys and pheasants too. I’ve seen 44 deer in 4 days of hunting thus far which is already a new record for me in 30 years of deer hunting.

The bag limit is 3 here – initial license plus 2 bonus tags. It has an early antler less season, plus the youth one, although I’m not sure how many participate in those. Gun hunting pressure this week is heavy though. Nearly every single property surrounding the 120 acres I hunt has pressure.

My only gripe would be the lack of quality bucks. I’ve seen 14 of them but none bigger than a six pointer.

I think the wildlife overall has greatly benefited from the fake winter we had. That’s my only explanation.

The bag limit could probably be expanded here and but I doubt it would make much of a difference. I’m just not sure how many people really want to harvest 4 deer. I certainly don’t.

I say leave it as is. If it aint broke, don’t fix it.

I read that there is some proposed legislation to remove the shotgun zone in the future, possibly as early as next season.

There are lots of quality bucks in the area. I’ve seen many that were shot this season and was highly impressed. They don’t get big because they are seen often. They get big by staying out of eye sight. After they break apart in the early fall those big guys don’t get seen near those little ones. At least from my experience

Very true Jimmy! Just because you CAN shoot them all doesnt mean you should, but some people cannot help themselves and they are almost always the first to complain when the numbers are down. There is a large group that hunts close to where I live and there pretty much shoot everything that comes by. Last year they didnt get much, but this year they have been stacking them up again.
I know another guy who has been bowhunting and he has shot and hit 3 different nice bucks and hasnt killed or at least found any of them. In my head I am like take better shots and practice more to make sure your bow is not jacked up because that is ridiculous. If I wounded even 1 and couldnt find them I would quit until I figured out what was wrong. When I bowhunted I would shoot hundreds of arrows over the summer. Most of the bad shots IMO are because of not shooting enough. My one buddy had 6 arrows he used for hunting. They had 3 different grain broadheads on them and 2 different kinds of arrows. I told him he was just asking for trouble. One arrow would consistently shoot way different. I said keep that one out of the ones you shoot. There is something wrong with that particular one. He never listened.

169 here, very quiet. Walked 15K steps the weekend before and seen zero scrapes, rubs or crap. Walked up to 1 Timberwolf 15 yards away. Seen 2 the next.
3 of us Sat-Mon spotted 2 does. Why they allow doe permits up there is beyond me.
That area is very tough right now.

I hunt 130/132, our camp is pretty happy with what we’ve seen so far. We hunt a highly pressured piece of county tax forfeit land. Last two years were tough, but this year we’ve got 2 bucks and ran into a guy just out for a walk with a nice 8-point down. Helped him drag it out, unusually heavy animal Three bucks out of ~1-2 sq. miles is good for the Brimson area.
Hugo’s Bar has weighed in a good number of bucks for the 2024 Big Buck contest. It’s a slow trend back, but overall we’re happy hunters!

IMO all you need to do to look at CWD as a risk to the Whitetail Deer herd, is look at the places it has been the longest. Converse County, WY or Fort Collins, CO area it has been for 50+ years or more locally Portage County, WI where it has been for 20+ years. There is not one county anywhere that show the herd being decimated by CWD. Period. They all still have healthy deer herds (by #’s, not CWD infection rate), and CWD is not going anywhere. So I agree the treatment is worse than the disease. But there is a ton of government and government programs that now rely on fighting this, so good luck unwinding that. Best thing we can do is rely on the herd #’s, speak out about it, and hunt like you always have (as an APR proponent) and let a few deer walk.

Right on BigWerm!!

Bearcat89 wrote:

They get big by staying out of eye sight. After they break apart in the early fall those big guys don’t get seen near those little ones. At least from my experience

You’d think at some point with this many around, one would just follow a doe because of the rut during daylight hours. I’m confident that if I see one I could shoot it. But I have to see one during legal shooting hours first.

I can’t complain too much. I’ve never had this much action in 30 years. I’ve gone days without a single deer sighting before which gets pretty old quick.

If people want to legally take there deer so be it. As long as they get utilized. Just between the kid and I we try to get 5 or 6 but we see and let alot of deer walk by. Just this morning I could have shot 4 different deer with the bow and seen a handful more.
A little off topic, but to musky that guy you know who’s shot and wounded 3 big bucks already, that guy doesn’t need to be hunting. Does a bad shot happen, of course. But to have 3 hits and no finds he obviously isn’t prepared or ready to be in the woods. There isn’t a excuse for that.
As for my neighbor they shoot 9 deer of the 50 acres every year it seems and the damn deer just keep showing up, including bucks of every caliber. So that’s very dependent on location.

Right BigWerm. CWD like invasive species are not going anywhere and in many cases we have no control over either as nature just does nature things to spread it.

Bearcat89 wrote:

A little off topic, but to musky that guy you know who’s shot and wounded 3 big bucks already, that guy doesn’t need to be hunting. Does a bad shot happen, of course. But to have 3 hits and no finds he obviously isn’t prepared or ready to be in the woods. There isn’t an excuse for that.

Oh my goodness, ya there’s no excuse for that. Stick to sharpshooting muskies.

gimruis wrote:

You’d think at some point with this many around, one would just follow a doe because of the rut during daylight hours

That’s a pretty low odds bet. I was lucky enough to hunt an awesome property down by Wabasha in years past, and got 2 of my biggest bucks in the 4 years I was able to hunt it. My buddy who married into the land, and has hunted there for dozens of years, is yet to shoot one decent buck. But he likes sitting in the same cozy stand every year waiting for a doe to drag a buck by him. I got one from the ground on the side of a bluff and another from a stand I hung that year after a little scouting.

CaptainMusky wrote:

WD like invasive species are not going anywhere and in many cases we have no control over either as nature just does nature things to spread it.

Agreed, but thankfully they don’t try and decimate the entire biomass in lakes to treat AIS. They are trying to eliminate entire deer herds in MN, in order to fight CWD, which again has never eliminated an entire deer herd.

We hunt 277 and our cameras seem to be getting less pics than last year but opening weekend there was a lot of shooting especially sat morning. We have been able to be selective on what we have shot in the past with an 8pt rule and no fawns. This year we changed it to just no fawns. We are meat hunters first. We got 2 does and saw 6 does and 1 buck total. We had a lot of coyotes on cam last year and saw them while hunting (unfortunately didn’t shoot any) this year they have been rare on cam and only 1 seen while hunting.

My son also hunts with his girlfriends family in 221 and they have been having a good year with mature bucks and does. Their hunting property is right at the house so they have easy access all season but have been seeing deer most sits all season long (archery and firearm)

FWIW 157 seems to have a very healthy deer population, and we had lots of activity.

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342 (2 different parcels we hunt):

My wife and I own 80 acres that’s predominately ag fields, and a fraction wooded. I feel confident at any point of the day at any time of the year I could kick up a couple does just walking the field edges/wooded fingers. We don’t hunt it heavily and maybe harvest a deer per year off of this as it’s our homestead and have just a couple blinds set up within an easy walk of the house. The neighboring parcels don’t really get hunted either, so it’s a bit of a sanctuary with no pressure. It’s relatively flat as well and seems to yield itself to mostly does and immature bucks.

My in-laws have 240 acres that’s all but a sliver wooded also in 342 but all steep bluffs. This gets hunted heavier and definitely has held more mature bucks though. I’d say we collectively take 4-5 deer per year with generally 1-2 being targeted, mature bucks. I don’t make many decisions about the who/what is harvested as it’s something I married into. There’s really only one small lackluster food plot but does have water nearby. I’d say the deer population here is high, but not absurd.

Wisconsin (directly across the river in Buffalo County)

The deer population here remains excessively high. My extended family has land just outside the city limits of Alma WI (180 acre farm my father grew up on). I don’t know of anyone around our property who targets anything but a few mature does and mount-worthy bucks. This is great in some regards, but also creates a pretty major population boom. There are big bucks, but there are also fields at night that have literally 80+ deer in them during Winter and the damage to crops and trees is crazy. Our zone here actually went to “earn-a-buck” where you had to harvest and register a doe to even be able to shoot a buck for a few years….which was obviously controversial. This is where I grew up hunting – party style “Brown it’s down” so to speak. Now there’s out of state plates everywhere, and new outfitters popping up every year with cool youtube channels and high dollar leases.

I hunt with a group that has hunted together since the 70’s…it’s a big chunk (around 1000 acres counting tilled ground which is about 2/3 of it)in zone 240…we saw far less deer this year than ever in the past…including a few sits for youth season and a few more with the crossbow before rifle season…it’s a 3 deer zone and we generally take about 5-7 deer from it as a party per year…we saw more coyotes this year than all years in the past combined…not sure what’s to blame but we are going to do some yote thinning over winter..(I started already)

With MN gun season starting on Nov 9th this year. The rut activity will have impacted doe numbers seen. Lots of does will quit eating in the open food sources because they get sick of being harassed by the little bucks.
Peak breeding is around the 15th every year. So with the amount of does in heat things can get hard for seeing the better bucks then. Which is going to make things even tougher for the second weekend.

I hunt in zones 277 (3 deer unit), 281 (2 deer unit) and 278 (1 deer unit). The weird part is where I hunt in 278 the numbers are very good. Probably some of the best deer numbers I personally see between the 3 units I hunt.

As for CWD goes. I have hunted in the Fort Collins area of CO. Ground zero for CWD. I can say the deer numbers were very good when I hunted there. I think the scare tactic of the disease kills more deer than the disease itself.

After spending a week and a half on the plains in SD it became very apparent deer densities are a lot higher in MN than out there at least in the areas I hunt anyway.

I hunt 155 just across the road from 157. Fairly low numbers in this area, saw a glimpse of 1 deer so far. I guess I wouldn’t say 157 has huge numbers up this way but it’s a large area.

Justin Paulsen wrote:

I hunt 155 just across the road from 157. Fairly low numbers in this area, saw a glimpse of 1 deer so far. I guess I wouldn’t say 157 has huge numbers up this way but it’s a large area.

Where abouts in 157 ? I hunt west of pine and numbers are definitely strong. Seen more deer this year then I have in the years past. That’s hunting both my brothers place along the snake and 2 different areas of public. The neighboring land owners were saying they have more quality bucks and high population of resident doe which is on par for what I’ve seen on camera at my brother’s.

Bearcat89 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Justin Paulsen wrote:</div>
I hunt 155 just across the road from 157. Fairly low numbers in this area, saw a glimpse of 1 deer so far. I guess I wouldn’t say 157 has huge numbers up this way but it’s a large area.

Where abouts in 157 ? I hunt west of pine and numbers are definitely strong. Seen more deer this year then I have in the years past. That’s hunting both my brothers place along the snake and 2 different areas of public. The neighboring land owners were saying they have more quality bucks and high population of resident doe which is on par for what I’ve seen on camera at my brother’s.

Couple miles east of Mille Lacs.

Couple miles east of Mille Lacs.
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Yup, very hard to compare the 2 areas the same. I completely agree with the assessment that way.

The interactive deer zone map is pretty interesting. You can see success rate is around 40% or more in zones with doe tags and a mix of ag and woodlands.

Success rate drops into the teens or even single digits as you move North and East in Minnesota where doe permits are lottery or non-existent and/or wolves and winter takes a bigger toll on deer subsiding in larger tracts of woods.

2023 Success Rates
225: 44%
157: 29%
156: 17%

Bearcat89 wrote:

Couple miles east of Mille Lacs.

Yup, very hard to compare the 2 areas the same. I completely agree with the assessment that way.
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Exactly. That makes an area hard to manage evenly as well. Other years when some areas had alot of deer,they had 5 deer limits but around here that wasn’t necessarily warranted. Some hunters don’t pay attention or care about local population and if they can shoot 5 they do. Next thing you know there aren’t many around.