Hunters register 54,000 deer opening weekend

Minnesota hunters registered 54,000 deer during the first three days of firearms deer season, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

Final numbers from the weekend show that the number of deer registered dropped 30,000 from 2013. So far this year, including special hunts and the archery season, hunters have harvested 67,000 deer, down from the 2013 to-date harvest total of 100,000.

“Comparing this year’s harvest to harvests in previous years doesn’t necessarily reflect hunter opportunity or the number of deer on the landscape in 2014,” said Leslie McInenly, DNR big game program leader. This year’s lower harvest is by design because regulations were implemented to place more deer – particularly does – off limits to increase Minnesota’s deer population.

The DNR’s ongoing deer management work also includes upcoming revisions to the deer population goals for large portions of northeastern, north-central and east-central Minnesota. This is part of a multi-year goal-setting process for the entire state. People interested in helping set these deer population goals can get more information on the process and opportunities for involvement at http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/mammals/deer/mgmt.html.

In much of Minnesota, the deer season continues through Sunday, Nov. 16. Additional deer will be harvested during the northern rifle zone season, which continues through Sunday, Nov. 23; the late southeastern season, which runs Saturday, Nov. 22, through Sunday, Nov. 30; and the muzzleloader season, which begins Saturday, Nov. 29, and continues through Sunday, Dec. 14.

In wi, they would have blamed hunters and weather for lower # of kills

I’m not all too sure Randy that the DNR’s explanation isn’t designed to take the heat off from them for mis-management of a lot of things regarding the deer herd here.

“By Design” LMAO.

That number is much higher than I had expected with all the scuttlebut about the low deer numbers.

Randy Wieland wrote:

In wi, they would have blamed hunters and weather for lower # of kills

Nah, we’d have just blamed it on the wolves…and Madison!

I’m fine with a few years of lower deer #’s, if it will get the deer herd back to where it once was 5-7 years ago. I’m glad the DNR finally agreed that there was a #’s problem, and took some steps to correct the problem. As they say ” better late than never ” The lower # of dOe permits in some area should allow the #’s to bounce back much quicker. Now if they could catch a mild winter break it would be great.

Keep having the firearms season during the rut don’t help a thing . As far as numbers I’ve seen good amount of deer here in Minnesota while bow hunting this last week. But there seems to be a lack of mature deer .

Randy Wieland wrote:

In wi, they would have blamed hunters and weather for lower # of kills

Just wait until our opener next weekend. They will add too much standing corn to the excuse why numbers dropped so much.

tony_p wrote:

Keep having the firearms season during the rut don’t help a thing . As far as numbers I’ve seen good amount of deer here in Minnesota while bow hunting this last week. But there seems to be a lack of mature deer .

Living in SE Minnesota I could not agree more with that statement.

jordanb wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>tony_p wrote:</div>
Keep having the firearms season during the rut don’t help a thing . As far as numbers I’ve seen good amount of deer here in Minnesota while bow hunting this last week. But there seems to be a lack of mature deer .

Living in SE Minnesota I could not agree more with that statement.

X3 if MN hunters want to see more mature deer MN needs to move the gun season out of the peak rut time.

Ag organizations and insurance companies… among others push politicians constantly to reduce the deer herd. Politicians know about as much about deer management from a biological standpoint as my 8 month old son. The DNR takes the blame even though their recommendations are not necessarily followed. If you don’t like the numbers or the management… go talk to the politicians. Many DNR folks are hunters too… why would they mismanage the herd to detriment themselves? Truth be told, hunters are not giving their opinion as strongly as others.

Add me to the list wanting the MN opener moved. Michigan is Nov 15 and Wi is the weekend before Thanksgiving. MN should be similar and not 2 weeks earlier.
Tradition is a hard thing to change though. Imagine all the people in Mi that want a Sat opener instead of Nov 15 every year.
Back to MN. I feel for the gun hunters and the tough stretch of weather this year but it had to be a blessing for the herd.

tony_p wrote:

Keep having the firearms season during the rut don’t help a thing . As far as numbers I’ve seen good amount of deer here in Minnesota while bow hunting this last week. But there seems to be a lack of mature deer .

Yep hit the nail right on the head! Look at surrounding states, consistently they put out more mature deer. It would be a big step but no doubt it would improve the age structure of our herd.

At one time Mn use to have a 9 day season over Thanksgiving. Not sure when they changed it.

Steve Plantz wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>jordanb wrote:</div>

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>tony_p wrote:</div>
Keep having the firearms season during the rut don’t help a thing . As far as numbers I’ve seen good amount of deer here in Minnesota while bow hunting this last week. But there seems to be a lack of mature deer .

Living in SE Minnesota I could not agree more with that statement.

X3 if MN hunters want to see more mature deer MN needs to move the gun season out of the peak rut time.

..OK All you String Guns. I am Sick and Tired of your SELFISH and WHINING ways.!! Here in mn you have OVER a 100 days a year to Bow Hunt.! But you are whining that you want to kick the Gun hunter out of the woods. But Butt you will Hunt the RUT.! Right.?!!? You want the WHOLE WOODS TO YOUR SELFISH SELFS.!!! Oh ya the gun hunters get 9 days to hunt. I don’t want to hunt later in the year. When its even more colder and we have to Get-rrr-Done in 9 days. But the bow has over a 100 days to hunt. So you can PICK the WEATHER you want to hunt in. Zone 3 has APR witch has to help. So that is a good thing and it seems to be working. E-NUFF SAID GOOD NIGHT. rrr

I don’t see a single post that says anything about kicking the gun hunters out of the woods. This the same thing you do each year. You come into a post or two, rip on the all archery hunters then fade off into the woodwork.

Why don’t you pick up a bow and learn a new skill. Then you could pick and choose when you want to hunt during those 100 days that cause so much bitterness for you.

Having opinions is welcome and encouraged, calling all bow hunters selfish whiners will lead to nothing positive.

I never said anything about kicking hunters out of the woods, I was just agreeing that there aren’t nearly enough mature deer in my opinion.

That was an overreaction….no one said anything about kicking gun hunters out of the woods! It’s about the TIMING of gun season. I bet you won’t reply to any of these posts…

kooty wrote:

I don’t see a single post that says anything about kicking the gun hunters out of the woods. This the same thing you do each year. You come into a post or two, rip on the all archery hunters then fade off into the woodwork.

Why don’t you pick up a bow and learn a new skill. Then you could pick and choose when you want to hunt during those 100 days that cause so much bitterness for you.

Having opinions is welcome and encouraged, calling all bow hunters selfish whiners will lead to nothing positive…… Sorry kooty I did not call ALL the bow hunters selfish. Just the ones that want to change the gun season FOR THE BETTERMENT OF THEM SELFS. … AND RIGHT No you did not say anything about kicking the gun hunters out of the woods. But you wanting to move the gun season out of the rut. Well that is kicking me and my family out of the woods. So what is the real agenda.? … As for pickup a bow. I bow hunted hard for 18yrs. I even hunted the old gun buck season with a bow.[THE RUT] Then I would hunt the 2nd gun season. I killed 14 deer in 18yrs. of bow hunting and did a pass on a LOT of deer…………rrr

..

Protourbaits1 wrote:

That was an overreaction….no one said anything about kicking gun hunters out of the woods! It’s about the TIMING of gun season. I bet you won’t reply to any of these posts…

….WRONG. Smile…rrr

Changing the gun season is not for the betterment of bow hunters. It’s for the betterment of allowing more does to be bred by mature bucks. For example, Iowa’s gun seasons are in December. Their archery season doesn’t open until October 1st, whereas MN it’s the second weekend in September. So that means the Iowa’s DNR is kicking the bowhunters out of the woods. If you’re a meat hunter and clearly you are, why do you care when the gun season is??

PS Are party of 6 just got done with the RUT Hunt. The season SOME people rrr all worried about. We all are experienced Deer Hunters. We have permission on 3 farms that are next to each other. We have been hunting these same farms for 23yrs. So we know how things go down in this neck of the woods. Or so we think. LOl. Overs the yrs. we have put up 27 stands, Stands for all wind directions. This is prime deer country in the Rushford area. [Zone 3] Some days we had 6 guys in the woods some days only 2 hunters. But at least 2 guys hunted every day. I hunted the 1st 5 days of the season. Dawn to dark. I did not see one shooter buck that was in range. So I never fired a shot in 2014. Total for the group after 9 days, was One GOOD Buck. One adult doe and 2 yearlings for the table. Again E-NUFF said…rrr

Protourbaits1 wrote:

Changing the gun season is not for the betterment of bow hunters. It’s for the betterment of allowing more does to be bred by mature bucks. For example, Iowa’s gun seasons are in December. Their archery season doesn’t open until October 1st, whereas MN it’s the second weekend in September. So that means the Iowa’s DNR is kicking the bowhunters out of the woods. If you’re a meat hunter and clearly you are, why do you care when the gun season is??

…Ok so you go down and hunt Iowa in DEC. if you want. Myself my family and friends want to hunt the RUT in MN. Iowa kicking bow hunters out of the woods because mn. has a different season.? Come on you can do better that duh. Meat when its time to meat hunt yes. But Butt you want to see my buck mounts.? Even some from bow hunting. As far as the does getting bred.? Them SMART BIG OLD BOYS they do there best work at night.!! When no one is in the woods Just like you and I do when you are alone with that special lady..rrr

Re: the gun hunt during the rut –

I’ve always wondered about the MN gun season coinciding with the rut, not many (if any) states allow big game hunting with a rifle during the peak of the breeding season.

But I do think getting better quality and quantity stems from a cultural shift as well and it isn’t all the responsibility of the DNR. Take Buffalo County WI for instance, the locals have been practicing QDM there before most of us knew what QDM was. When I began rifle hunting 30 years ago in Richland County WI, we would shoot the first buck we saw and would be doing deer drives by noon if we needed a tag to fill. That’s what deer hunting was, filling tags. Things have changed and now we’re willing to go home with unfilled buck tags. 30 years later, you hardly see deer drives anymore and some giant, world class deer are taken from our area every year. Oh sure, there is still an old timer across the road that is convinced that a fork buck has the best tasting meat of any deer out there but for so many of us now, we are fortunate enough to know if we wait it out and let the younger bucks live, we might have the chance at a mature buck.

that type of thinking doesn’t come overnight, it evolves slowly. As for the overall numbers, continuing to put hunters with guns in the woods when deer are their most vulnerable…nuff said.

river rat randy wrote:

…Ok so you go down and hunt Iowa in DEC. if you want. Myself my family and friends want to hunt the RUT in MN. Iowa kicking bow hunters out of the woods because mn. has a different season.? Come on you can do better that duh. Meat when its time to meat hunt yes. But Butt you want to see my buck mounts.? Even some from bow hunting. As far as the does getting bred.? Them SMART BIG OLD BOYS they do there best work at night.!! When no one is in the woods Just like you and I do when you are alone with that special lady..rrr

That’s not what I’m saying, it was an example, pal. Wanna see my mounts?? By the way, because of your character, judgment of others, and lack of respect for me and other members, i will divert any potential walleye fisherman that i know from you that is looking for a guide in your area. Good job maintaining a good reputation for yourself!

Protourbaits1 wrote:

That was an overreaction….no one said anything about kicking gun hunters out of the woods! It’s about the TIMING of gun season. I bet you won’t reply to any of these posts…

…Ok bow hunters that want to change the gun seasons. Lets just say some special interest groups want to change YOUR.!!!! Hunting season. Lets just say some people think that a 100 plus days of bow hunting is WAY TO LONG. So they want to change the way you hunt.! They think that a 45 day season is long e-nuff for bow hunting. So try that shoe on. I won’t try to change your bow season and you won’t try to change my gun season all SHOULD GOOD. Right.?…rrr

Protourbaits1 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>river rat randy wrote:</div>

…Ok so you go down and hunt Iowa in DEC. if you want. Myself my family and friends want to hunt the RUT in MN. Iowa kicking bow hunters out of the woods because mn. has a different season.? Come on you can do better that duh. Meat when its time to meat hunt yes. But Butt you want to see my buck mounts.? Even some from bow hunting. As far as the does getting bred.? Them SMART BIG OLD BOYS they do there best work at night.!! When no one is in the woods Just like you and I do when you are alone with that special lady..rrr

That’s not what I’m saying, it was an example, pal. Wanna see my mounts?? By the way, because of your character, judgment of others, and lack of respect for me and other members, i will divert any potential walleye fisherman that i know from you that is looking for a guide in your area. Good job maintaining a good reputation for yourself!

… Well now that you want to go that LOW. I have some news for ya friend. I retired from guiding this fall. But I am going to do a LOT of just fun fishing with family and friends. If you want you could jump in the boat some day and we could talk this thing thru face to face. And maybe we can catch enough walleyes for a meal. …rrr

Protourbaits1 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>river rat randy wrote:</div>

…Ok so you go down and hunt Iowa in DEC. if you want. Myself my family and friends want to hunt the RUT in MN. Iowa kicking bow hunters out of the woods because mn. has a different season.? Come on you can do better that duh. Meat when its time to meat hunt yes. But Butt you want to see my buck mounts.? Even some from bow hunting. As far as the does getting bred.? Them SMART BIG OLD BOYS they do there best work at night.!! When no one is in the woods Just like you and I do when you are alone with that special lady..rrr

That’s not what I’m saying, it was an example, pal. Wanna see my mounts?? By the way, because of your character, judgment of others, and lack of respect for me and other members, i will divert any potential walleye fisherman that i know from you that is looking for a guide in your area. Good job maintaining a good reputation for yourself!

…You must be the worlds best for taking things out of CONTECTS.! Sleep well to night. …rrr

Randy,

Please refrain from any further name calling. Again, having a different opinion and stating your difference of opinion is fine. However, the name calling and implying others aren’t allowed to have the same rights to an opinion won’t be tolerated much longer.

John