I hunt 347 which butts up to the west side of the new 603, I have not seen 1 deer while I have sat in stand. 9 hours sat 7 hours sun and 5 yesterday. all the people around say way to much corn!! well have people forgotten the dnr had killed somewhere near 1100 plus deer to test? and 1% tested positive! does anyone else hunt near the 603? how have you done this far? we have gone 0 for 4 this year
Was north of you in the SE corner of 343, quite a bit of standing corn there too. Was worried about it but between my father in law and I we saw 16 deer and I took a nice 8 point around 4pm sat. Shooting in the area was definitely down, I’d say almost by half. I didnt think to ask how busy it had been when we took the deer in for testing.
We haven’t seen the people in the field this year. Of course Saturday and Sunday were raining to start each day. Still, hunter numbers seem to be down. Maybe they’re all going the second season. We got two tens over the weekend and this afternoon I saw 13 while filling my bonus tag, three of which were bucks.
There’s a lot of corn where we are hunting and both 10’s came from standing corn. Today all the deer were coming from heavy thicket. We’ve got deer where I am hunting but they just have to be waited out. 603 is a whole different animal and I want no part of that area.
I’m in 343 where the dnr shot well over their goal of 900 deer (by professional sharp shooters shooting over a bait pile which later found no deer with CWD 
) for cwd testing probably 5-6 years back. We didn’t see hardly any deer at all for a few years after that, even with a lengthened season. Good luck chief!
Surprisingly my hunting party as seen plenty of deer around, so all the corn still up hasn’t affected us too much. Not nearly as many shots going off, especially opening morning this year though.
Yeah I hunt 603 tween Preston lanesboro.
Lots of corn near our properties.
I saw 4 Saturday and 5 Sunday.
All of which were in the woods and not on the edge or in fields.
Little driving around seen a few more grazing.
Others in my group seen several.
One doe with bow one with gun, another guy missed one.
Pretty normal for our group.
I cannot comment on cwd, deer populations, or anything else worth ranting about… But I can say it is freaking nice not to be counting points!!!!
Not CWD related but sounds a little like something we went thru a few years ago in NE Mn. Our party went “0 for” two straight years. I didn’t see a single deer in 2014 from Sept archery thru Thanksgiving. Only saw 5 deer for that period in 2015.
It may take a few years but the numbers will come back.
Add corn to ANY hunting situation this time of year and that’s where the animals are going to be. They got food and cover all rolled into one and they know damn well in DRY corn, nobody is going to be sneaking up on them.
You have to keep in mind, the DNR may have killed 1100, but if you count last spring’s fawn drop you’re not “down” 1100 deer because of that. At worst, you’d have a small percentage fewer deer year on year compared to this time last year in that area.
As to the 1% that tested positive, you seem to imply that this makes the whole effort a waste. I totally disagree. That was the whole point of the killing and testing effort–to find out how big of a problem there really is with CWD and base management decisions on that data.
I cannot understand the people who just want to bury their heads in the sand on this issue and pretend that if the fields aren’t littered with dead deer, then there is no problem. Sorry, but the rest of the deer hunters in MN don’t want to the DNR to sit idly by and have a 1 area disease become a zone-wide or even worse a state-wide problem. IMO it’s a lot of damn selfishness driving people’s opinion on this. If I had CWD suspected in my section, I’d want the DNR doing a test like yesterday and I wouldn’t care how many animals have to be killed to do it. What guys seem to be missing is that if this thing reaches epidemic, there is NO CURE.
Grouse
grouse I was not slamming dnr or anything as far as my comment! was not a rant was just a question as to wonder what people thought as far as there opinion on why we didn’t see the deer? thanks! just wondered how others did around our area
There’s a 52 acre field of standing corn not 75 yards from my stand and between the weekend and Tuesday’s short hunt time I saw plenty of deer in the woods, not corn. We went up to bring out chairs and other comforts out of the stands today and jumped deer laying in the woods and on the drive to the ranch we saw two different bucks with does [plural]in the woods. Corn may have some bearing on things but it certainly isn’t a game changer. And if the general topography of the field itself is known a person can use the wind and walk corn successfully. When I toted a shotgun I walked a lot of corn and did real well in those fields.
I respectfully disagree with the grouse solution of extermination of the herd as a reliable solution. Cwd has been around for years and in wis as well as out west in western states. It is found in older deer. The funny thing here is that the state had a mandatory 4pt or larger on bucks. Now common sense tells me that older deer like older people get more diseases. Predators take out the weak and diseased, coyotes generally handle these animals. Older deer numbers way down from last year. We hunt near Preston and north.
Mike
I respectfully disagree with the grouse solution of extermination of the herd as a reliable solution.
I did NOT advocate for “extermination of the herd” as a solution for CWD. Please re-read my post.
My statement was in support of using an intensive testing hunt as a means of gathering data to determine the extent of the disease Any short-term reduction that this may cause, IMO, is completely worth it because of knowledge gained as to the extent of the disease.
Grouse
In talking with DNR yesterday they’ve got 7 suspect deer this far.
Hopefully the one in my fridge isn’t #8.
I hunted 347 very near 603 and saw plenty of deer. Corn would be my guess sad far as not seeing the numbers. I totally agree with Grouse. DNR knows more handsome you think.
…DNR knows more than you think.
It is up to 9 as of last night.
I’m done now with 3 in the freeze.
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