Quartering Deer (regs?)

A buddy of mine and I were talking the other night about shifting gears this November and trying to apply some of our elk hunting “backcountry approach” to our deer hunting. We hunt elk (archery) in Idaho by backpacking into remote areas for days on end. The discussion turned toward the long-distance deer drag that could result from such an endeavor, which got us to wondering – can a guy legally quarter/bone and pack out a deer in MN? Sure would be easier in some situations than pulling that critter behind you.

Yeah, I know I could have probably found the answer myself by digging into the online regs – but it’s more fun having an excuse to poke around on this site and ask you guys.

Good question. I always thought you had to present the deer at a Big Game registration station, intact with the tag affixed either in the ear, around a leg or around the base of horns. Not really sure, because where I register, they don’t even come outside, because they are too busy selling lottery tickets…

big G

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Yeah, I know I could have probably found the answer myself by digging into the online regs – but it’s more fun having an excuse to poke around on this site and ask you guys.

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You just described half the topics on the site. It is more fun to post! Very good question. I would say this, based on the conservative laws of MN, i’m placing my bet that a guy is not legally able to quarter.

It’s legal to quarter but in MN you need to keep the head attached to one of the shoulders. Used to do it when we hunted out of cars. We’d quarter them and put them in coolers. So if you were packing out you’d have one heavy quarter with the head attached.