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To boost deer herd,MN hunters face conservative deer season.


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Question.. What do you guys consider to be 98 percent grade for quality of a shotgun....

Just had a epic fail, 6 hour roundtrip to look at a gun.. Saw pics online looked good, price seemed right for the quality the seller was saying over the phone... Get there not even close in my mind what a 98 percent gun should look like....Guy said he take 40 bucks off if i paid cash... Told him i just drove 3 hours for this!!!!Ive never done FFL before. IM thinking if i would of bought it paid for the gun then return the gun paid for all the shipping and FFl fees,tank of gas is probably cheaper...

GRRR vent over.....

for some reason,I cant click and paste from the red stars website any more.

It's the DNR "on/off switch" right on schedule. Been fully on for too many years. Now it's time to shut off the antlerless and bonus tags until the deer are severely overpopulated. Then they will flip the switch to full "on" mode, all you can shoot.

The Wisconsin DNR must read the same play book.

happening all over, SD cut their tags by 60%

remember all the muzzleloader deer I could shoot the last couple years? max tags was 10, this year = zippo. same for antlerless archery.
we do have it better in the regard that I can shoot a deer with each method of take (possibly), IF I draw.

Tjay - Did you see SD is allowing nonresident antelope hunting this year?

Michigan had their's reduced as well. The U.P. really got hammered with winterkill this year. Last time I remember a winterkill this bad was the winter of '95. We lost 250,000 deer in the U.P. alone. Couple this year's winterkill with the wolf kill and venison is gonna be slim pickens for hunting season this year.

This about sums it up. God forbid we, as a state, are proactive instead of reactive. I guess we'd miss the extremes......

Well I can apply for a permit at Chickenbuck, but bucks only north of Duluth.

So the MN DNR Big Game Coordinator is about a year or so into her job. She is NOT a deer hunter. Never has been. That doesnt give me confidence. Doesnt mean she cant do it, but it does throw up a red flag.

i talked to her at the Roundtable one on one. She didnt grasp what I was trying to say. I kept telling her to manage the deer herd for the overall health of the deer herd and the deer hunters will be happy in the long run. In other words, chop off the tops of the peaks and fill in the valleys of the deer population.

Some of the problem lies in the bellyaching of the average deer hunter. It is a subtle difference, but we shouldnt be screaming for just "more deer". It shouldnt be about numbers. It should be about a healthy herd for the carrying capacity of the area. If you manage to this, you dont get the wild swings like we are now seeing.

Now IMO part of a healthy herd is a decent age structure throughout. If an area slaughters the bucks, and only young bucks are out there as a result, we need to slightly put the brakes on the buck harvest to get into a better ratio. Not over 1 or 2 years, but just tap the brakes a little so as not to get a wild swing (and big opposition).

How to do this? Here is my thunk. How about a modified antler restriction where there is a lottery that results in 75% of the people can shoot any buck. Or maybe 50%. i dunno, someone smarter than me can figure out the number. A preference point to the people that have to shoot 8 points or bigger. The next year they get to shoot any buck. Tapping the brakes. Maybe only 1 in 4 years do you have to have antler point restrictions. Would the meat hunters go for this? I dunno, but I bet they like it better than antler restrictions for everyone across the board.

Oh, and get rid of party hunting. At least for adults. If a kid wants to fill an adult tag, fine, but adults should be content with filling only their license(s).

For the does, when we get back to a little more stable population, you ease back into extra doe permits and stay away from each hunter shooting 5 deer each.

If you have a healthy age structure, the herd will be able to withstand more of mother nature's winters and our hunting pressure.

Sorry for the long post. But just like ND, the DNR (mis)management of the deer herd really bugs me. Fire away boys and girls at my idea. Maybe someone can make them better.

Pulled an all nighter on a slab re pour for shop. The crew is cutting lines and knocking off the forms right now. It looks very good. Sleep coma soon.

Get some sleep and then post some pictures. I am excited to see them!

There was a firestorm in Pennsylvania when antler restrictions were introduced, but now we are starting to see the results of bigger bucks with larger antlers.

so,they tore out the first one,re-foamed , re-plumbed and
re-poured?

ditto on getting rid of party hunting. it's not allowed in most western states for good reason.

I really don't think party hunting is that big of a deal. You're not filling more tags than are available.

and what would those reasons be?
its allowed here mostly so people can make drives.Probably not much of that going on in the wide open west.

I agree with Tom. Party hunting is not the cause of these problems.

problem is Joe crackpot buys a tag for his sister, wife, grandparents and whomever else and goes out hunting, shoots a few deer, goes back to get the family and then they go out and tag them and head home. I knew several people who used to do this with archery. stick a deer and go home to get the family to help track. once they find it, anyone can tag it. he/she goes out to do it again. I know for a fact that happens up there.



I didn't know they had a limit on tags per area, I thought they were all OTC.

what if zones were limited to x number of licenses?
out here they go by county. take a population sample of the deer, figure out how many can be killed and still sustain a healthy population and allow hunters that many deer tags. how would you guys feel about a system like that?

not trying to stir the pot, putting it out there for actual conversation