$26 (plus shipping I’m sure) for 5 lbs.? Okay

Here’s what the last round of public stakeholder meetings resulted in….do you trust this system to do the “right thing” the next time around? Better get involved and educate yourselves before 2015 and 2016’s meetings/process comes to town.

Signs available soon, if you want some get a hold of Brooks. I think they’re selling for $5 each, with $3 each going to help fund the MDDI’s educational campaign [email protected] or [email protected]

Short “tease” of Brooks presentation this week. I’ve seen the whole presentation…it is enlightening. Weather’s gonna suck anyway…show up at one of the meetings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIwTas4cIko&feature=youtu.be

Hope to see you there hop….I’ll be at the Little Falls meeting. I think most folks will find the information Brooks presents to be quite eye opening

Hope folks are seeing this stuff even though this forum has been dead lately

Deer hunters are invited to attend one of a series of listening sessions jointly hosted by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the Minnesota Deer Hunters Association.

All listening sessions will be from 7-9 p.m. Meetings are scheduled in:

Brainerd on Wednesday, March 19, at Central Lakes Community College, 501 West College Drive, in the cafeteria;
Cambridge on Thursday, March 20, at Anoka Ramsey Community College, 300 Spirit River Drive South, in rooms G201 and G202;
Bemidji on Monday, March 24, at Bemidji High School, 2900 Division St. W, in the auditorium;
Morris on Tuesday, March 25, at the University of Minnesota’s West Central Research and Outreach Center, 46352 Minnesota Highway 329, in the Ag Country Auditorium;
Nicollet on Thursday, March 27, at the Nicollet Conservation Club, 46045 471st Lane; and
Virginia on Tuesday, April 1, at the Mesabi Range College, 1001 Chestnut St. West, in the auditorium.
Online comments also will be accepted on this web page beginning Wednesday, March 19.

For those unable to attend one of these meetings, I sure hope you post comments on the page (hope its okay to post the link here)

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/mammals/deer/mgmt.html?tab=3#detailTabs

Make your voices/thoughts/whatever heard, either in person or online. Please ask everybody in your hunting party and/or anyone you know who hunts to do the same

Updated WSI map

http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/recreation/hunting/deer/wsi_dpa_map14.pdf

Got you to respond though…right?

Well good…at least I was able to agitate/irritate one guy enough to respond.

What a waste of time and energy this forum is…Typical MN response…i.e. staring at your shoes, afraid to make your voice heard. No wonder we’re in the mess we currently find ourselves.

So, I see next to no interest or input on this forum. If anybody is actually out there and reading this stuff..how about you sound off? Get off your butts…let’s hear your thoughts and opinions.

If you look the survey you’ll notice there are plenty of questions that are NOT specific to the SE. If you choose not to take it, that’s fine. I’d encourage anyone else who wants to do so.

Since the DNR won’t survey any area except the SE, this seems like the only way for the rest of us to give them any input.

APR’s are no more similar to a true QDM program than is the current traditional deer management system used by the MN DNR

current ad running

MDDI ad that will appear soon in MN ODN

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This is the perfect scenario for feeding deer. You are there every day, deer numbers are low. I am more talking about traveling to the farm 3 hours away. Not knowing how the feed is holding up and higher deer numbers in the area.

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I agree completely with you that if a person isn’t “present” on a daily, or at least every few days….feeding isn’t a good idea. I’d add that if you are near/in a yarding area that feeding could become an overwhelming and unbelievably expensive undertaking. I talked with a young guy awhile ago who lives north of me about 15 miles. His and his families’ farms are near a yarding area and they are going through a round bale of alfalfa every week or less. That’s pretty expensive “deer food”. They don’t mind as they love having the deer around (up to 30 at a time as I recall) and have the bales to spare. That’s a relatively unique situation though I’d guess.

I’ve been feeding deer since early January. I put out 25 lbs. a day. Deer here were eating corn all fall/early winter thanks to a neighboring farmer leaving a number of rows standing and the rest of the field unplowed. I haven’t seen any increase in the number of deer showing up (anywhere from 2-10 per night, probably an average of 5). That is likely due to the fact that in several square miles here they MAY be 15 deer or so. Not gonna pull deer for miles and miles to a few pounds of corn. I haven’t noticed any excessive browsing around my feeding areas. They do hit whatever young aspen they can get to, but they certainly aren’t eating things to “the ground”.

I’ll continue to feed until either the deer stop showing up, or spring green up. I can get 13, 50 lb. bags of corn for about 70 bucks. That amount lasts me 26 days. I figure I’ll spend at most around $300 this year. For that amount I and my wife get the entertainment of seeing deer each night. It is a heck of a lot less than I’d spend for the same number of hours of entertainment in a bar over the course of 3-4 months.

Fortunately, northern MN deer have at least another 42 WSI days before they’re considered to have experienced a “severe” winter by the MN DNR.

Meanwhile, in WI…they are already considered to have experienced a “very severe” winter.

Duluth, MN deer are apparently nearly twice as able to withstand deep snows and bitter cold temps than a Superior, WI deer.

Another video put together by yet another concerned MN deer hunter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LafbhIv7x8&feature=youtu.be

An article on winter severity in MN and WI. Note this quote from the article
In Wisconsin, several DNR stations in northwestern counties already have surpassed the “severe” category in WSI readings, according to Kevin Wallenfang, DNR big game ecologist. As a result, Wallenfang anticipates either zero or extremely limited numbers of antlerless deer permits in many northern counties for the 2014 hunting season.

http://samcook.areavoices.com/2014/01/30/winter-severity-indices-rising-in-minnesota-wisconsin/

Then look at the densities in WI and MN above ^^^^ Why is it that WI’s DNR is already responding with strong statements about antlerless allocations while ours is “readjusting” the WSI? Why are MN deer so much “tougher” than WI deer?

MDDI’s first ad ran in the MN Outdoor News this week

They have a lot of “spin” to do before next season rolls around. They’ve already changed the Winter Severity Index so that now we need to have 180+ days to be “severe”…last year it was anything over 120.

I am still hopeful that the MN Deer Deer Density Initiative has an impact on the DNR goal setting for 2014.

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That is CRAZY! The habitat in central MN is basically the same as most parts of WI. Glad I hunt in the lone permit area that has the highest deer density. Hopefully the rest of the state can catch up.

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Exactly. The habitat I have here in central MN is far superior to the habitat on my folks’ place in central WI.

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So frickin sad!

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No kidding. It would sure be nice to have a DNR who is interested in improving our deer herd. It sure seems to me their only interest is revenue generation.

One more reason to hate WI…they actually have a deer herd

Readers should note that no data from MN is included in the report….because our DNR doesn’t think collecting data on buck age structure is a valuable exercise

For those without a fb account

http://fishingminnesota.com/forum/file/userpics/2014/01/full-15169-41855-adultdeerperhunterbyzonefinal.jpg

http://fishingminnesota.com/forum/file/userpics/2014/01/full-15169-41854-firearmhunterdensityfinal.jpg

http://fishingminnesota.com/forum/file/userpics/2014/01/full-15169-41853-deerdensitygoalssqmifinal.jpg

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that said it will be handy for the hunter can’t wait to get stopped with a deer that was called in and the warden has to verify it

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Don’t you think that’s part of this move? Reduce warden hours for that type of possible violation? Walker is about a smaller state government, I’d think some of the current changes to the deer season and deer management in WI have a lot to do with shrinking the DNR.

If you have a facebook page, check this out from Northwoods Mapping based in Bemidji. May be enlightening for some
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Northwoods-Mapping/271038809668330