Bear Lottery

Ya it kinda sucks. I live in zone 45 and have to wait at least 6 yrs to hunt a bear in my backyard.

Red Eye wrote:

Ya it kinda sucks. I live in zone 45 and have to wait at least 6 yrs to hunt a bear in my backyard.

That’s pretty crazy, my parents are in 46 and I thought that might be an easier zone to draw, but apparently not. Might have to look into a nuisance tag if the cabin bear shows up again this year eating out of the bird feeder on the deck.

First thing warden gonna tell you is take bird feeder down.

Red Eye wrote:

Ya it kinda sucks. I live in zone 45 and have to wait at least 6 yrs to hunt a bear in my backyard.

Same here. Unit 45. This will be my 3rd or 4th point this year. They should have landowner tags similar to deer. We have 900 acres of hunting land up here and piles of bears. We just get to watch them for now. Only 3 acres at my house just outside of Brainerd, but I can watch bears come through the yard looking for a snack.

Red Eye wrote:

Just emailed dnr about finding out how many points I have. You have to call to find out. As for area 51 the minimum you will draw with is 3 points. So if you apply this yr you will have 2 points. After you apply next yr you will have 3 points. Then the year after is when you will be eligible to draw but not guaranteed. But if you don’t draw with 3 points you will then draw the following yr with 4. Assuming there is no point creep. Including a pic of email about point checking and pic of license graph with how many points it takes to draw. What the percentage means is that in area 51 18% of the successful applicants had 3 points. The other 82% took 4 points. So if you have 4 points going into this yr you are guaranteed a tag. And the point you’re gaining this yr by being unsuccessful doesn’t count till next yr.

Great info. Thank you for sharing. Definitely a bummer it will take us so long to take care of this bear problem on the farm we deer hunt. If anyone draws a tag for 51 and needs a place to hunt, let me know. You won’t even have to bait for them as they are already coming into our foot plots and deer feeders almost everyday

FYI Bear Lottery has been drawn, and pretty pumped our group was drawn for Zone 51 with 4 preference points. This will be my first bear hunt, so I’m stoked!

I drew a tag in area 45 where my land is located. I had 7 preference points.

The hunt starts now. For bait that is.
TH where is your land? I’m in Wadena county.

I’m in crow wing county. 80 acres surrounded by county tax forfeited land. Not far from Crosby-ironton.

It just amazes me how big of an area zone 45 covers with only 250 tags given out. Especially when you talk to and CO around and they are getting more and more bear complaints then ever before.

Permit applications for bear licenses exceeded 20,000 for the fifth straight year. Applications have not been this high since 2001. Of these, >4,100 (17%), a record high number, applied for area 99, meaning that they only sought to raise their preference level for the permit system, but not hunt this year. Permit availability was the same as 2020. Hunting success in the quota zone was the third highest ever and overall statewide harvest was the second highest since 2007. Hunting success is inversely related to the number of hunters but also strongly affected by fall foods. A record number of people bought no-quota licenses (4,643 hunters or 52% of the overall license sales). The total number of hunters were nearly a 30% increase over the 5-year average and is similar to the increase we saw in 2020

A pretty good read even if you do not hunt bears.

https://files.dnr.state.mn.us/wildlife/bear/bear_status-trends.pdf?20220529-50