APR or “No” Party Hunting??

Like I said above, in my recently enlightened opinion, your cousin is missing the whole point of deer camp. Please don’t take that wrong, I appreciate what you are saying. It wasn’t until very, very recently did my opinion change. I get that this tradition is generations old in Mn.

We party hunted in the Black Hills as I was growing up. Thinking back on it, I hated it when I had to tag someone’s deer. Sure I could still hunt, but not being able to put “MY” tag on “MY” kill just didn’t seem right.

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I am ok with the APR, but there is a serious problem for those opposed to party hunting for does. As a landowner/cropper, deer damage to crops and fences cost us thousands of dollars every year. When our party comes, we plan on shooting lots of deer; the more does the better. Taking that away would be taking money out of our pockets.

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That’s a great point. Crop damage is a very real expense for farmers in high deer density areas.

A lot of us know what is right. I would say most that are members of this site. If there are lots of does then sure, shoot one of them for meat. If not we let them pass. Same with bucks. If we dont want bigger then we shoot smaller. But not too often. What I saw this past weekend in Wi made me sick. Hoards of selfish pieces of **** loading their trucks with piles of anything that moved. Mostly does and fawns. I know the person that runs a popular check station. He said it just sickens him and there has never been a doubt as to why the herd is so low in the area.
Lets get back to bucks only where its needed and hand out lottery doe permits where applicable. And possibly stop giving out cross-bow permits to anyone with a hang nail..

None of us NEED to eat venision every single year. It should be a treat relished and shared.

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Like I said above, in my recently enlightened opinion, your cousin is missing the whole point of deer camp. Please don’t take that wrong, I appreciate what you are saying.

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He is not “missing” the point of deer camp, his point is just different than yours. 9 days in deer camp with not being able to hunt the last 8 of them would not be the same…..

Hunting an area that you may not see ANY deer the WHOLE season puts a different light on it for me. This season, 5 deer were killed for 9 guys. ZERO shots at adult deer were passed. There isn’t anybody whacking and stacking and robbing anyone else of being able to shoot.

I wish I had land in SD like you to hunt…..I’d gladly pass young bucks and not tag anyones deer! Hint hint…

This is such a great discussion and I’m very happy that we can all discuss this logically without letting our emotions ruin the conversation. It’s clear there is a lot of passion on both sides of the discussion or in this case all 3 sides of the discussion.

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It is simple. Make it a ? at the point of sale on all deer license – They have used this method on other issues in the past. Just my .02 worth

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I too would love to see this question asked. I gotta believe most deer hunters in Mn and Wi are 1-3 day type hunters who pull out there rifle once a year. They likely aren’t the guys who visit IDOhunting daily/weekly like us. I doubt many of them have much passion at all when it comes to deer hunting. We are a very special group who love to talk hunting year round. My gut tells me APR is not something a majority of hunters would support.

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Kooty

I am with you on this one. Others here keep saying I am wrong, and that the majority of hunters are in favor of it. I think here on this site they are probably correct. Like you said the hunters on this site are far more passionate than the average hunter. I just believe that all Deer hunter should have a voice in the decision.

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Hunting an area that you may not see ANY deer the WHOLE season puts a different light on it for me.

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I am with Timmy on this one. Not all of use hunt in area’s where the deer #’s are high enough to say I’ll pass on smaller bucks and fill my tag with a doe later – You may not get a chance at a doe later. In these area’s shooting a Doe takes 2 possibly 3 deer out of the population the next season. Shooting a buck ( young or old ) is only a loss of 1. From a herd management standpoint it makes better sense to leave the doe’s and shoot a buck.

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9 days in deer camp with not being able to hunt the last 8 of them would not be the same…..

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I’m not a “deer camp” guy, so maybe I don’t understand this….if you are spending the season in deer camp and you paste a buck or doe opening day, why do you need to stop hunting? If I remember correctly you can buy several doe tags in either state, so why do you need to pack it up and go home if you can’t shoot a buck? To me, quitting hunting because you can’t kill a buck is greedy.

APR affects people differently and I can understand some of the view points. But in my case, APR is good thing for where I hunt. Sorry to be selfish, but I vote for what is better for me where I hunt.

Also, someone brought up moving the gun seasons back to later in the year, I would vote for that.

A lot of the Area’s in Minnesota are a hunters choice area ( One deer either sex ) No extra tags. If they did away with party hunting, once you shot and tagged a deer you would be done hunting for the season

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9 days in deer camp with not being able to hunt the last 8 of them would not be the same…..

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I’m not a “deer camp” guy, so maybe I don’t understand this….if you are spending the season in deer camp and you paste a buck or doe opening day, why do you need to stop hunting? If I remember correctly you can buy several doe tags in either state, so why do you need to pack it up and go home if you can’t shoot a buck? To me, quitting hunting because you can’t kill a buck is greedy.

APR affects people differently and I can understand some of the view points. But in my case, APR is good thing for where I hunt. Sorry to be selfish, but I vote for what is better for me where I hunt.

Also, someone brought up moving the gun seasons back to later in the year, I would vote for that.

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In our area, we are a lottery zone. We get one tag per license with ZERO extra tags avail. My cousin shot a small buck on opening day. He hunted 7 more days without getting a clear shot at anything else. Without the party hunting/cross tagging option, he would have had a boring week.

T

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It is simple. Make it a ? at the point of sale on all deer license – They have used this method on other issues in the past. Just my .02 worth

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I too would love to see this question asked. I gotta believe most deer hunters in Mn and Wi are 1-3 day type hunters who pull out there rifle once a year. They likely aren’t the guys who visit IDOhunting daily/weekly like us. I doubt many of them have much passion at all when it comes to deer hunting. We are a very special group who love to talk hunting year round. My gut tells me APR is not something a majority of hunters would support.

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Kooty, I agree with this 100%. Which is exactly why we shouldn’t make it a law, but have it as an option for all of us that want to pass on smaller bucks. I truely wish more people would practice QDM, but I am very much opposed to shoving down their throat.

This is a very good civil discussion, nice to see

You guy’s arent listening or you dont get it. I will say it again Farmers ,Insururance companies, CWD control all need Party hunting for does to control deer populations its as simple as that. APR should be a personal choice. Now would you all shut-up and go kill a deer.

U spoke too early sticker lol

I do not have any problem with QDM. I unlike some others here do not see APR as a QDM plan ( unless that is what is needed for your area ) to me the main component of QDM is to harvest the proper deer for you herd. In some area’s this may be Doe’s while in other areas it may be bucks. The buck to doe ratio is a key factor in any QDM plan. If your area has a high buck to doe ratio shooting bucks may be what is best ( I assume most here would prefer to shoot smaller younger bucks rather than those 3-4 year old deer with good genetics ) In the area I hunt the overall # of deer is rather low. To me the best QDM plan for my area is to leave as many doe’s as possible to bring the # of deer up. If I want to practice QDM and also hunt and enjoy the harvest of a deer that means I prefer to shoot a buck. 1 buck can take care of breeding several/many Doe’s. A harvested Doe removes possibly 2-3 dear from next years herd compond that with several years and you see the hurt of harvesting doe’s in area’s with overall low #’s

I compare MN to the Colorado of elk hunting. Colorado is managed for opportunity and the occasional trophy, where as a place like Arizona is managed for trophy quality. It is what it is. Go hunt Iowa where it takes you 3 years to draw a bow hunting tag and a majority of the state is leased or super expensive to buy property. Be careful what you wish for. Residents in Arizona can wait years to get an elk tag, obviously its an extreme.

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I compare MN to the Colorado of elk hunting. Colorado is managed for opportunity and the occasional trophy, where as a place like Arizona is managed for trophy quality. It is what it is. Go hunt Iowa where it takes you 3 years to draw a bow hunting tag and a majority of the state is leased or super expensive to buy property. Be careful what you wish for. Residents in Arizona can wait years to get an elk tag, obviously its an extreme.

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EXCELLENT POINT!

That is an interesting take on the subject. I wonder how many non-residents come to Mn each year to deer hunt. I’ve never thought of it as a “destination” to deer hunt.

Sounds logical since they have allowed the herd to be slaughterd over the last several years in MN and WI.

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Like I said above, in my recently enlightened opinion, your cousin is missing the whole point of deer camp. Please don’t take that wrong, I appreciate what you are saying.

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He is not “missing” the point of deer camp, his point is just different than yours. 9 days in deer camp with not being able to hunt the last 8 of them would not be the same…..

Hunting an area that you may not see ANY deer the WHOLE season puts a different light on it for me. This season, 5 deer were killed for 9 guys. ZERO shots at adult deer were passed. There isn’t anybody whacking and stacking and robbing anyone else of being able to shoot.

I wish I had land in SD like you to hunt…..I’d gladly pass young bucks and not tag anyones deer! Hint hint…

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I don’t seem to understand your cousin’s issue either. I to would say your argument portrays him missing the point.

In Montana there is no cross tagging and we all follow the law. If you shoot your deer opening morning you are tagless the rest of the season. We all seem to enjoy the 9 days in deer camp with or without tags. For us the point of being there is the camaraderie, not shooting piles of deer. Of course as a non-resident with a non-resident buck tag he better be huge if I am going to shoot him opening day.

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You guy’s arent listening or you dont get it. I will say it again Farmers ,Insururance companies, CWD control all need Party hunting for does to control deer populations its as simple as that. APR should be a personal choice. Now would you all shut-up and go kill a deer.

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What about areas that don’t have a “deer problem”? They offered 100 lottery doe tags for all the sections up in our area. That shows us deer numbers are low. I suggest this is an argument against cross tagging.

Point being I don’t think we can have blanket laws in MN that cover the state and 100% of hunters. Like lakes, deer zones need to be managed as individual ecosystems.

Also our guys in camp grouse hunt and fish when/if they aren’t deer hunting. There is lots more to do up there than just deer hunting.

Do I read the Minnesota laws wrong? The way I read them thre is NO party hunting for bucks but one may party hunt for does. This makes sense to me as it helps the DNR manage the herd and allows the party type hunting to continue so someone who shot their buck can still be out shooting deer but not bucks. I think APR is the best thing to happen to deer hunting but I have access to over 500 acres but this is no where near enough to manage a herd and or raise big bucks. If you would compare the bucks on camera before APR to now you would surely hop on board. In theroy every hunter that didn’t shoot a yearling buck the past couple years should be shooting 2 and 3 year olds.

I hunt in SE Mn and feel that APR is working. Lets be honest, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand why. You are giving the bucks that don’t have 4 pts on one side a chance to do so. I don’t care how old they are.
I am not a fan of just doing the APR in just SE MN. I think if you look at where the most boone and crocket whitetail deer come from in MN it isn’t from SE MN. Its from St. Louis County. I just saw it in a recent Outdoor news. Why not do it state wide?? I would argue that there are more big deer in other parts of the state than in SE MN. Where was that monster shot by that 12 yr old?? Not even close to SE MN. Small group of people that got it pushed through in my opinion and good for them. There are more bucks down there than in the past. Notice I didn’t say bigger bucks or more trophy bucks. This WILL NOT grow bigger bucks. You can’t change genetics through APR!!! I’m done with that point.
On to my next. My fear is that people that hunt in SE MN and are so called “trophy hunters” are starting to lose touch with “the hunt.” I rattled and grunted a nice 8 pt this year in SE MN and shot him at 6 yrds after he came in smelling some scent I put down. Some would say that he wasn’t a trophy. Well I can tell you right now that it was a trophy to me and is the most memorable buck and most enjoyable buck I have ever shot. Its a trophy to me so lets curb the “trophy class” deer talk. I’m tired of it. I enjoy the hunt. Your trophy is a trophy in your eyes because its in YOUR eyes. Not someone elses. I grew up in SE MN and still hunt down there at least 4 days every October. I’m considering not hunting next year because I’m sick of the mentality that if you don’t shoot a 150″ 5.5 yr old then it just isn’t a good buck. Whatever. I am super happy for anyone to harvest an animal that hey are proud of.
Instead of APR, lets do a couple of things. First move back the season state wide!! Second, only one season state wide. Third, no cross tagging bucks. Fourth, lottery for out of state buck tags. Those things I feel would help out as much as APR does.
This is my first post on IDO and I enjoy reading everyones opinions. This has really gotten me fired up over the past 2 months. I hope I’m not offending anyone, whether “trophy hunter” or “meat hunter”. That’s not my point. I think we should all respect the different reasons why we hunt. Rack hunters hunt for different reasons than meat hunters and neither is right or wrong. I personally go hunting for the hunt. Not for the horns, or the meat.
I think if we all look deep down, this is why we all hunt.

Buck Cross-Tagging in 300-Series Deer Areas (see page 73 for party hunting regulations in other areas)
This is most commonly referred to as party hunting. The intent of this regulation is not to break up the hunting party or force hunters to leave the field once they are successful. This regulation simply requires the hunter to shoot and tag their own antlered buck. Specifically,
• A person cannot take and tag an antlered buck for another member of their party. This applies to all hunters, license types, and seasons.
• It remains legal to take and tag antlerless deer for members of the party. This is a population management strategy and may lead to slight increases in antlerless deer harvest.

Welcome to IDO 8pter!

Thanks for your post, very well said, you make some good points.