Northern MN deer

How has everyone that is hunting northern MN been doing? i just hunted from wensday to sunday and im dissapointed at what ive been seeing.

From what im watching, the big boys are held up with doe’s and the chasing phase is already over?

Not too much north, but just east of Mille Lacs, very,very little movement… Maybe this weekend

big G

not sure how far north you are talking about? I was up just east (3 miles) of blackduck for opener thru wednesday (5 days) and saw numerous deer, some decent bucks along with spikes, forks, buttons, and tons of does…it was a good 4 1/2 days of hunting

im ten miles south of black duck. Do you think that they are rutting or is it over? cuz we have 22 guys in our camp that hunted over a ton of land and none of us saw any big bucks and no rutting activty at all.

Why do you think they call this the rut? Hardly any movement, zero shooters and one frozen bum! That is in my opinion definitely a rut. Talked to several buddies from Iowa and Missouri, said this is the best and most activity they had ever seen. What is wrong with MN?

I spent 3 days in the White Earth Indian Reservation opening w-end. I saw 7 different bucks and roughly 15 does and fawns. This is in NW MN private land and I would give it a 9 out of a 10 compared to alot of other reports I’ve heard. Although I saw no chasing I did see some scraping and rubbing. 2 weeks prior I saw alot of chasing in cental MN.

On monday my buddy shot a nice buck, he had bucks running all over the place, in southern MN. Bow hunting down there i saw a ton of activity a month ago, but now up north, which i dont get to hunt as much as i want to with the 8 hour drive being an issue.

I cant figure out where to find these deer, ive thrown everything but the kitchen sink at these guys, ive been in almost every kind of terran possible and some of the thickest nastiest stuff ive never wanted to sit in.

I saw quite a bit (compared to previous years) of scrapes and rubs, I didn’t see any massive bucks but the people that neighbor our land shot a 12, 10, and 2 8 pointers that were roaming and said they must have come through our land, just wrong place at the wrong time for me, but I think it is going on. I also saw a couple spikes a fork and a couple basket 6’s that were definitly on a path of hot does, nose to the ground and not caring what was around them and just looking for the ladies…good luck and they are out there….on my way home Wed I almost hit 3 nice bucks from blackduck to the hoot-n-hollar corner

This seems to happen when the peak of the chase phase starts after the gun season. The big boys figure out the hunting pressure very quick and do most of their moving at night. We had a late full moon this year and thus everything has been pushed back some. But, yes they do seem to be breeding already, which mean they spend most of the time tending the does (which tend to lay around all day).

There was some increased activity on Friday night-Saturday night but then the pressure shut things down again. Saturday morning I saw several bucks on the move and one mature buck chasing, but with all the hunters hitting the woods again on Saturday, that seemed to shut it down again.

The good news is A LOT of bucks survived this gun season in MN. Between all the corn in central MN or the timing of the rut. Late season should be very good this year

the thing is tho scott, is im not a lazy hunter by anymeans. Most of the spots i hunt are VERY remote and dont ever see any other people other then myself. Where do you think you will find the deer this last week of the season? Cedars? pines? they have really got us stumped this year

Get out those Muzzleloaders!

If you’ve got a lot of land, have you considered doing some still hunting? Cover more ground. Maybe push a deer or two to some of your buddies on the sit. I love still hunting in the big woods. Did this a lot in the Black Hills growing up. Although ultimately we were doing deer drives out there.

This is a summary of what I noticed this gun season. I may be way off but based on the trail cameras I have out, the bow hunting I do leading up the gun season and the late season hunting I do, this year was kind of an odd one and here is why.

If you look at the October and November full moons they fell at odd times. The October full moon fell to close to the beginning of November. The Oct 14th Full Moon started off the rutting activity very early this year. Again, there is a lot more that triggers the rut but rutting activity is definetly tied to the Full Moon. So, this year you had a pretty strong early rut, with that full moon falling so late in October.

The November Full Moon was only the 13th, after the gun season opener. So, when the rutting activity peaks, the gun season was in full swing, which clearly shuts things down. In addition, many parts of the state had a lot of corn in, which is another subject in its own.

My ideal cenario for the rut is a late October Full Moon. When this happens, like in 2007 the October Full Moon is to early (days are to long, to much day light, to warm) for the October full moon to trigger rutting activity. So, when you get the Late October full moon you get a very strong rut around that full moon, which usually plays into the MN Gun Season.

This year, I believe we had an abnormally strong early rut in Mid October, which resulted in not as strong of a Rut around the November Full Moon. Add in the fact that we had terrible weather on opener and by the time things should have really cranked up, the deer knew the season was upon them.

There are a lot of other factors but I do think this year was an odd one and will leave a lot of people scratching their heads as to what happened. I am not saying this is the scenario that played out everywhere in the state but it was certainly a problem in Northern MN where the buck to doe ratios are was off(which is another subject in itself).

I would bet you can ask guys that hunted Mid October and they will all tell you there was a very noticeable peak in rutting activing in October.

you can also toss in the weather up north had alot to do with the little movement as well. it was a system that just seemed to stall right over up there. I hunt in Park Rapids out by Osage, and I had the only deer down for the day until my dad shot a tiny one. but this year is odd for us around the farm as well, we all took bucks this year, didn’t see any does other 1 tiny on by my step mom. she shot that one with her digital camera. even walking around didn’t seem to move them unless you stepped right ontop of them.

just my opinion.

shane