Curious how everyone’s opener went? Where were you and what did you see? We were on public land north of Nevis, and there were a ton of (mostly young) deer. We did get this decent 8 pointer too. I’m heading down to the Wabasha area to find a bigger one this weekend!
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In Roseau County I have passed on some decent deer and seen a bunch of smaller bucks. There are shooters on camera, just at night.
DT
I’ve been hunting Wabasha County. Lots and lots of small deer. Our party of three took three on Saturday, one was a buck and barely legal with the 4 point rule. A couple of us drove to Millville and got our management tags and saw only one decent buck had been registered. Lots of season left. We hit our hill again this morning for a few hours and saw 0 deer. Thursday is on the slate for another hunt day again but its supposed to be warmer than today.
There was quite a bit of early shooting this morning that pretty much had ended by 9:30. Saturday there was shooting all day. I really don’t need any more venison but I’d like to pop one with the pistol and that’s all I am taking to the woods now. I’ll donate the deer if I get another one.
Yeah, I’ve never hunted that part of the state, and lucked into the opportunity on some private land that holds some very nice deer. So, I’ll be sitting Friday thru Sunday, waiting for an opportunity on one of the nicer bucks! I know this weather isn’t ideal, but it sure makes for a nice day in the stand! What sort of pistol do you shoot Tom?
I have a CVA .50 cal break action black powder pistol. Its scoped with a 2X7 long eye relief scope. Very accurate 50 yard gun. I’m burning 90 grains of Pyrodex under a Hornady sabot holding a 300 grain XTP bullet in .45 cal. Shoot-thrus at 50 yards are the rule.
The land owner where we hunt bow hunts right up until the gun season starts. He saw I think 4 legal bucks in a week plus a ton of other deer. On the opener we saw more deer in the one day that I think we have seen all thru the season for the last 5 years. Everyone was commenting on the numbers of deer this year. Good luck this weekend coming up.
hunting near Park Rapids was slow for us. we’ve usually got a steady flow of deer and it’s just a matter of waiting for a nice buck to be in the mix. but this year, after a flurry of activity by some does and some spikes that we passed on opener morning, everything seemed to go nocturnal. the few nice ones on camera never showed. sat all day for 3 days, and would have been better off golfing between 9am – 3pm. with the crazy weather, the deer just didn’t need to move/eat to stay warm.
with deer numbers up but the weather so odd, i’ll be very interested to see the opening weekend numbers.
I was up north of Isle, 1 mile south of county road 18. Saturday was tough for deer hunting but gorgeous to be in the woods. That being said, I saw a fawn and a potentially nice unicorn buck Saturday morning, and another fawn at dusk Saturday night.
Sunday was once again going to be a beautiful day. I got to enjoy it for about an hour or so in the stand. At 630 I checked my phone and it was legal to shoot. I had been hearing a bunch of ruckus in the woods in that first hour. Well, as it was 5 minutes into legal shooting time, this guy came out and I made it count. One good shot to the neck and I got myself the biggest buck I’ve ever had the opportunity to harvest. Not huge, but respectable. BOOM!
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In Pine County, east of Hinckley the deer numbers and sightings seem to be way up. My group and neighboring groups have reported seeing way more deer this year than in any of the past 5-7 years.
The fawn recruitment and survival rates in my area were clearly very high this year. On my property I thought from our cam pics all summer that we had a lot of pics of 1 doe with twin fawns. They seemed to be everywhere on the property. Until hunting season when both my father and I saw 2 does, both with twin fawns.
So we have just on our property 8 grown fawns from this past spring alone. The nighboring cattle operation seeded a new alfalfa field that is drawing 25-30 deer at once per night and by the count of the property owner, over half of them look to be spring fawns.
But as others have pointed out, it can all be undone with one bad winter. I have already filled my grain bins with corn for emergency feeding if it becomes necessary.
Full moon and clear skies isn’t going to help this weekend…. deer will be feeding all night.
I didn’t get the best pics, but this big 10 or 12 pt and a smaller fork were hot on chasing a doe outside my office in EP about 10 minutes ago! He was right under the deck, might have to contact the city to see if they need me to remove the nuisance. Heck in EP they might pay me to do it!
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Tough to tell on the pics, but he had huge drop tines on each side and looked to be a 4×4 up top.
That’ll make it a little harder to focus on work! Thats crazy.
That’ll make it a little harder to focus on work! Thats crazy.
Yeah a little bit! lol that is the 4th very nice buck I’ve seen in Eden Prairie while working, unfortunately they don’t have any city hunts.
Don’t forget that we have a “Live from the tree” thread for live updates from the stand.
https://www.in-depthoutdoors.com/community/forums/topic/20162017-live-from-the-tree/ DT
Beautiful buck. Here is mine.Last Sunday morning 30yrds. Matahwa 20min south of Duluth.
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congrats very nice deer everyone
Big Werm….We hunted again this morning and saw 4 very large bucks traveling to the farm before daylight. On stand we saw three….a doe and fawn being pestered by a buck…. that went out and off the property before we had a shot. I had a nice 9 point walk right past my stand about 10 yards away and no buck tag. The other hunter had only antlerless ability too. I had crosshairs on this guy for practice. Could have been a wide open, standing broadside too.
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