Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Mule Deer in Minnesota??

Alaska gets a wandering mule deer from Yukon Territory at times.......several hundred miles.

A mule deer buck got hit by a car near Prior Lake several years ago. The sheriff's deputy had to finish it off. It happened near Murphy Hanrehan Park.

Seeing a mule deer is the last critter on my Minnesota Critter bucket list.

Couple weeks ago I saw two elephants standing in a big field, maybe a mile from my homplace.
Big suckers, definitely not pink.

There is some in north and west Texas. They aren’t real big.

Obviously a misidentified house cat. (Prompted by the usual 'fire comments regarding mountain lion sightings in Iowa.)

I have seen a mule deer a handful of times in southeastern Nebraska over the last 30 years.

🙄 John, a DNR official told a lady we know, a frequent camper in the state grounds near the Little Sioux river also near the Peterson, IA area, not to let her grandkids run the trails alone. Seems they have trail cam evidence of two, maybe three lions, running the area.

My, how the DNR can change their tune when facing irrefutable evidence.

Back to the thread.

Would that be legal? The regulations say whitetail deer.

On a side note, a friend and I were talking about this and he brought up that he remembers there was a section in the regs about identifying hybrid and mule deer years ago. I think he is right but I don't remember it exactly.

Critters wander sometimes. Northern Missouri has had several moose over the years that probably came from Minnesota. In the last 10 - 12 years three confirmed wolves have been killed in Missouri. DNA traced them back to the upper Midwest wolf packs, Wisconsin I think. Missouri deer regulations state whitetail or mule deer. I don't know when or if any mulies have been killed in Missouri but apparently the conservation department wants to cover the scenario just in case.

George - I tried to send this as a PM, but it kept saying "user not found". A few years ago, my hunting partner and I headed out to wait for deer (who declined our invitation). He went north and I went east (sort of like "Ringo" by Lorne Greene). When we met up after dark, he said that I wouldn't believe the tracks that he saw in the snow. I replied that I probably would, since I bet that I had seen the same tracks (large cat). A few days later, someone shot a female lion out of a tree to our SE.

We used to fish below the dam at Peterson.

My first PeeWee baseball coach (and the husband of my first-grade teacher) drowned in the Little Sioux at Peterson one spring.

Best, John

I searched the PDF version of the regulations and "whitetail" isn't mentioned, just "deer". My guess is that shooting a mule deer would be legal, but still a guess.

You're right, it says "deer" so I guess it would be legal.
Remember when they wanted to outlaw shooting "white" deer. Albinos are just to cute to shoot...

A fellow I worked with who lived maybe 10 miles NW of Tyler Texas shot a Mule deer buck. The Texas dept. of parks and wildlife magnanimously didn't charge him with shooting a Mule deer when there is no mule deer season in Smith County. I think it was because a person could reasonably expect not to see one there
The closest Mule deer to smith county are probably in the Childress are, that's about 350 miles away. It was speculated somebody brought a fawn they found home and that's had it got there.

Ha! I just saw this now. How in the heck do you know that???

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was legal. I don't recall the hunter getting in any trouble.

When I was in high school back in the '60s it seemed they killed one every year--one at Franklin,MN on the river.
The Viking sword was found in Beardmore, ON the Runestone in Alex

I've been looking at photos of whitetail-Muley hybrids. Every photo I've seen shows a tail like the 1st pic, totally different than the muley in the 2d pic. The OP's photo is much more mulish. Besides, to get a hybrid, you still have to have both species in the neighborhood.
I haven't seen a hybrid that I know of. They say that they can't really escape. Whitetails and muleys use different methods of escape and the hybrids can't do either. A whtetail will run while a muley will bounce away. A hybrid apparently will just jump around without getting anywhere. Here's a good video of a muley bouncing. That's not saying they can't run, though. They can run like crazy when they're in the mood.