NE MN deer hunting

Hey guys. I hunt in zone 178, near Meadowlands MN. Wondering if there is anyone on here around the area. I know crappie with a zip code user name has a hunting camp in the area. But I haven’t seen him active in awhile. I recently put out a trail cam. Past couple years with the trail cam, it’s been all bears and wolves. Just interested who’s all in the area. I run an off grid deer camp here using a tent. Back to basics camps are my ideal setup, especially historical camps with tradition.

I hunt near Shaw, 20 miles ENE of you. We have a shack with electricity but no running water. Camp has been in existence since 1961. All of the original guys have passed on. I hunt with sons and grandsons of the founders. Two of the sons have been friends since grade school in the early 1970s. Closing in on 50 years of deer hunting in the area. Been grouse hunting there for 50 years this fall. Deer success has been spotty and I have other spots I could hunt. Don’t want to miss out on the fellowship in camp so I’ll keep going back.

One of the crew runs a couple of cellular trail cams, he’s been sending pictures of deer, moose and turkeys. Only one wolf in 2024.

The tradition is what keeps us coming back. The deer numbers have been terrible lately, but bonding in camp almost seems more important. I have one life long friend that usually makes it up, but not always. Sometimes I’m solo. I do know the area is pretty notorious for decades long deer camps though.

I hunt just east of Floodwood in 181, so not too far from you Mike. I’m a part of a group of 5 people hunting a 90 acre farm right on the river. I’ve been hunting there for 5 or 6 years now and to sum it up, I’ve been watching a gradual but steady decline in deer numbers. We see less and less deer on cameras and more and more predators. I’ve seen one buck while in the stand since I’ve been hunting there. We’ve been improving and adding to our food plots each year. We’ve got 5 total food plots with a variety of different food, each plot is roughly a quarter acre. In addition to having the river, we have a nice mix of hardwood timbers, brushy/bedding areas, a swampy area, and open fields with really good soil (used to be an actual cattle farm back in the day), so we have a really nice blend of habitat.

Its been tough hunting and hard to stay motivated to do those long sits in the stand. Last year the only thing I shot while in the deer stand was a coyote. At least I helped take out a predator. I was hoping last year’s mild winter would help the herd but I can’t say I’ve seen any indication that actually coming to fruition.

As you said Mike, the big reason we keep going up there is for time at the deer shack with the crew, making meals, telling stories, having post hunt beers, watching the football games, etc. but it’d sure be nice if we had a legit chance to have a few deer hanging after 2 weeks of hunting. I don’t know what else to do besides start getting into coyote hunting.

Pretty sad what has happened up there, this article is from 2021 so not sure if St. Louis County is still #2 for B&C bucks, but at one time that was the place to deer hunt.

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/sports/northland-outdoors/st-louis-county-ranks-second-in-nation-for-record-book-bucks

Thanks for the insights, Gitchi. Sounds like a nice spot you have there. Maybe one day St Louis County will get back there, BigWerm. Not likely in my opinion though.

I’m between Sturgeon and Bear River, so a bit more North. I’ve got 3 different bucks on camera so far and several does. My first year up here and my Deer Camp/Camper is all set. I’ve caught 2 wolves on camera, but they don’t seem too bad. We will see…

Top of 130 for me. I never deer hunted until recently, this will only be 4th year I try. Maybe I’ll see one this year

I see deer on camera but not consistently. There’s no good food or agriculture anywhere around so I think they roam quite a bit and there’s no good spot I can expect to see one reliably.

I have kind of landlocked public land (nobody goes there anyways) on two sides and it seems the two neighbors have stopped hunting up there so there’s also nobody getting them moving.

I think it will just be complete luck if I happen to be out at the right time.

Reef W wrote:

Top of 130 for me. I never deer hunted until recently, this will only be 4th year I try. Maybe I’ll see one this year

I see deer on camera but not consistently. There’s no good food or agriculture anywhere around so I think they roam quite a bit and there’s no good spot I can expect to see one reliably.

I have kind of landlocked public land (nobody goes there anyways) on two sides and it seems the two neighbors have stopped hunting up there so there’s also nobody getting them moving.

I think it will just be complete luck if I happen to be out at the right time.

This sounds like a perfect place to establish a food plot on your ground. We’ve seeded clover in the yard at our cabin site. Often wonder if we’d even see deer up there if we hadn’t done the clover and put out salt/mineral blocks.

I feel for the guys that hunt up in northern MN. Between the wolves and their impact on the deer and moose populations. It’s hard for a buck to survive enough birthdays to become a booner. Throw in dryer than normal conditions and the amount of browse is severely impacted as well. It’s hard to grow big deer if they don’t have the good feed they need.

Michael Best wrote:

It’s hard for a buck to survive enough birthdays to become a booner.

a booner?! Heck, I’m just hoping for something with one legal antler > 3″ so I can harvest a fricken deer!

Gitchi Gummi wrote:

a booner?! Heck, I’m just hoping for something with one legal antler > 3″ so I can harvest a fricken deer!

Lol. I hunt a bit south of you guys in the middle of 159. We see a fair amount of does but not a lot of bucks. Since I have been going only two mature bucks have been harvested I got a decent non typical 8 and a buddy got a nice typical 10. We only got 3 out of 6 of us with doe permits this year which is similar to last year. Prior to that we were a hunters choice area. This year I did not draw a permit so just hoping to see a legal antler myself.

I would take metro public or southern MN public over any northern MN ground. A lot of that southern public holds some pretty solid options.

Youbetcha wrote:

I would take metro public or southern MN public over any northern MN ground. A lot of that southern public holds some pretty solid options.

well duh! No offense but I think anyone with half a brain would take southern MN over northern MN for deer hunting. Pretty obvious differences there – most notably is agriculture/food and predators. Apples to oranges.

Its not like you can just pick up the deer shack/farm and move it down south. A lot of what I get out of deer hunting has nothing to do with what deer I see or shoot. Its about time spent with the crew at the shack and all our traditions. If all I cared about was shooting a big buck, I’d have a completely different approach.

Gitchi Gummi wrote:

well duh! No offense but I think anyone with half a brain would take southern MN over northern MN for deer hunting. Pretty obvious differences there – most notably is agriculture/food and predators.

You do realize that’s a recent phenomenon and prior to about the turn of the century it was the exact opposite, correct? Everyone went north, and the northwoods produced the most big bucks, and it could happen again (meaning it’s not a food thing).

Ya, I get it. I live in the present BigWerm! We’re talking about hunting this season, right?

BigWerm wrote:

Everyone went north, and the northwoods produced the most big bucks, and it could happen again (meaning it’s not a food thing).

Correct its a wolf issue mostly, food would factor some I would say but agree with you.

Gitchi Gummi wrote:

A lot of what I get out of deer hunting has nothing to do with what deer I see or shoot. Its about time spent with the crew at the shack and all our traditions. If all I cared about was shooting a big buck, I’d have a completely different approach.

I hunted in zone 172 just east of Leech Lake (Chippewa National Forest) for 25 years because of that reason. It was where my great grandfather and his friends initially started deer hunting 65 years ago, and it simply got passed on to the next generation and then the next generation for years. The hunting was never that good. Some years it was decent, but some years it was awful. I went because it was a deer camp tradition. There was 10-12 of us every year that would stay in a big lodge, hunt, drink beer, play cards, etc for days.

Sadly, that tradition died 5 years ago because it got whittled down to 4 people and we could not justify renting out a 10 man lodge anymore. I think a lot of these bigger deer camps up north have suffered the same fate in recent years.

We also used to conduct drives in pieces of land too, which I really enjoyed. Sitting in a stand gets pretty old so doing drives was a nice change in pace. I never hear of people doing drives anymore. Everyone stand hunts now.

My comment was more in reference to BigWerm and the amount boone and Crocket bucks that have came out of the north woods in the old days and why I don’t think those days will come again unless there are some major changes.

As for feeling for you guys that still hunt up there. Yeah I feel for you. What was once a great place to hunt and enjoy the traditions is slipping away.
I know what it’s like to loose a tradition when it comes to deer hunting.

I think I’ve posted this before but this is why I started deer hunting. First year I had my place I was sitting at kitchen table during deer season, but not hunting, and looked over my shoulder to a buck standing in the yard. Thought wow this would be easy, I should give it a shot next year. Well, maybe year 4 will be the year

Jimmy Jones wrote:

This sounds like a perfect place to establish a food plot on your ground. We’ve seeded clover in the yard at our cabin site. Often wonder if we’d even see deer up there if we hadn’t done the clover and put out salt/mineral blocks.

I’ve wondered about clover on the trails I have. Did you overseed what was already there or is it just clover only? I have two big long trails (see one in video I posted) that are some grass but mostly mowed weeds. What do you think I have to do to get a useful amount growing?

We also used to conduct drives in pieces of land too, which I really enjoyed. Sitting in a stand gets pretty old so doing drives was a nice change in pace. I never hear of people doing drives anymore. Everyone stand hunts now.
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When I hunted with my last group there were between 9-11 of us and we put on miles doing drives.(public land) second weekend we only sat the mornings for a couple hours then drove the rest of the day. Sometimes we were quite successful doing that other times it was just exercise

Stanley wrote:

We also used to conduct drives in pieces of land too, which I really enjoyed. Sitting in a stand gets pretty old so doing drives was a nice change in pace. I never hear of people doing drives anymore. Everyone stand hunts now.

When I hunted with my last group there were between 9-11 of us and we put on miles doing drives.(public land) second weekend we only sat the mornings for a couple hours then drove the rest of the day. Sometimes we were quite successful doing that other times it was just exercise
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Haha, my experience was the same.

I will say that ahead of time we always established safe shooting lanes too. Obviously you wouldn’t want to fire at a running deer willy nilly when there’s 10 other hunters around in the same piece.

We never harvested many bucks doing this. They always seem to escape the drive using another route than the anterless deer did. I can recall one nice buck even swimming across a lake to evade us.

We got to know the land very well and even had names for every part of it. We did drives the same way every year so it almost got routine and everyone knew where to post and safe shooting lanes. The biggest buck we got on a drive came from an island and he hunkerd down tight as to not be seen and let us walk by. At first the guy who shot it thought it was dead then he saw it blink. Like you it was mostly does or small bucks that we saw.