Tough early winter for deer.

After a colder and snowier winter in Central and Northern Minnesota last year, The last thing the deer need is another bad winter. After some rather large early snowstorms now the deer are getting hit with a prolonged period of extream cold. Sure not what a area that already seems to have lower #’s need. I sure hope the rest of the winter gives them a little break.

I was thinking the exact same thing last weekend as I trudged through butt deep snow for a half mile. If the snow gets hard and crusty, the yotes are going to have a clear advantage. It was still very soft last weekend, but I suspect the warm up and then hard freeze is changing the landscape as we speak.

I am in northern Wi now. After speaking with several locals we are all in agreement a hard winter could be devastating to the already hunted down herd. Deer could actually be rare in many areas. I’m sure the dnr will blame this one harsh winter for their demise. Yea right.

Here in southern WI we had a little better than a foot on the ground. We had the two days in the 30’s with a wind and that melted enough to give us another hard crust/ice layer. That is now on top of frozen ice/ground. Many of the fields were wet when the hard freeze came in Nov. So a lot of food source was frozen in to begin with. Not looking good at all for deer or turkeys.

Certainly a hard start to the winter around here, and if the trend continues; the wildlife is going to take another hit. We don’t have the heavy snowfalls this year in SC MN so far, however, we get a lot of blowing and drifting. We are heading into the 4th multiple day period of highs at 5 degrees or less. The blowing helps to clear some snow from fields and plots, however, when warm ups give way to extreme cold fronts we end up with fields and plots layered in 4, 8, or 10″ of nearly rock solid crust and ice.

With 15 acres of food we leave a year for the wildlife, I am not overly concerned as of now. However, seeing multiple acres of that already devoid of food is leaving me worried about what February as to bring.

I think most would agrre the deer herds are down in this region, MN, WI, IA, etc. Almost everyone is saying they saw less deer. Hopefully the DNR will dial back the limits to 1 deer per person every where for awhile until this straightens out. In SE MN the limits have been pretty liberal for years now and it sure shows.

You can add central SD to that list too. One of the worst years I can remember since the mid-90’s blue tongue epidemic.