I agree the DNR mismanagement of the deer herd is very frustrating. "hey Frank lets let people shoot 5 deer a piece for 5 years straight." "Yeah good idea Bill" says Frank. 5 years later..."WTF there are no deer left Bill!" exclaims Frank. "I wonder why?" Bill says. (To be clear, I never took part in the 5 deer slaughter. We didn't have a population to support it. Not even close.)
Now this is a good question to ask the MN DNR is how many people did harvest multiple deer and how many per hunter?
I asked the local meat processor about intensive harvest and he said a lot of people took advantage of it the first year and not much after that. The people that process their own deer are the wild card, but they get tired of cutting deer up as much as people get tired of eating too much venision.
Speaking for my immediate area only. There is one party of up to 40 people that took full advantage of the 5 deer thing. If it was brown its down. Didn't matter whose land they snuck on to fill their tags either. And I've heard from more than one guy, whose got a friend or two in that bunch, that they threw out more venison each year than they ate. Their own land borders my uncles and we caught them driving all the deer off my uncles to their land well before daylight. When confronted, the elder of the group said "we didn't think you minded because we do this every year"
After 5 years of that it didn't take long to decimate a deer population that couldn't support a 5 deer limit in the first place.
Sounds like you need to build fences and put up some no tresspassing signs and work with your neighbors. Thats not really a DNR thing for the whole region. 5-wire barb is very effective because people know they are tresspassing and can't hide behind the fuzzy borders excuse. Back it up with traile camera footage and you have them.
Now to add fuel to the fire... and this comes from someone who grew up rural and now works in the cities and still owns property up there....
Is it "city hunters" tresspassing or is it the "locals" who know someone who is a friend so "its OK to hunt there"? It sounds like the later in your case. I've had more issues with the locals tresspassing than "city hunters" personally.
