Very few shots heard in 184 just north of Bemidji!

[Fishfanatic]

Spent all day on stand on Saturday and Sunday and again on Monday Morning. In an area that soulds like WW3, it sounded much more like my kid playing with a cap gun. Very few shots heard. At one time, I didn't hear any shooting for 3+ hours.

ANyone hunting just north of Bemidji? What was your take on the opening weekend? Are the deer numbers that LOW!

Fish fanatic wants to hear from you!

[eyefan]

our group (7) hunts 184 just north of cr 602 off of hwy 89. It's pretty dismal up there. The past winter was pretty bad. One of our guys did some scouting in the spring and he alone found 3 deer carcuses. There is no way that area should be management. Even the last few years it was intensive and there just in not the deer they say there is

[Musky Buck]

It was the same somewhat in my area. Very little shooting, many blame it on the standing corn, I blame it on a lot less deer around. Our group fired 1 round the first 3 days. We were like 1 for 17. A normal year would be 7-8 mature bucks the first 3 days, we are not seeing hardly any does or fawns or yearling bucks either. I'm almost worried because many patient groups of hunters are saying we are going to start hammering most anything soon. Well there's not much to hammer at the way it is only lowering already low numbers. We went from having the 5 tags for years to an early antlerless season to 2 tags to ? in the near future. I have not noticed the car vs. deer collisions that I was seeing tons of in the past, some but not like a few years back. I'd say the deer herd is in check in most areas with pockets of high density's especially close to unhunted sanctuary types of areas. I was in East Ottertail County for a reference.

[leech~~]

We hunt south of Brj off 64, and it was about the same for us this year. 1 small buck out of 6 guys. We were in a Bucks only zone with no Doe tag! With the full moon and nice sunny days, they were laying pretty low. We heard shots until about 9:00 am or so each day then almost nothing the rest of the day. It was the worst year we have ever had for our group!

[USPENAMC]

east bemidji chippewa national forest wow yeah the numbers sure did go down. Last year i counted 35 deer on the way to my hunting spot this year NONE. my dad and brother each saw a doe on saturday and I took a buck on sunday at 11:15 am. he made a whole lot of noise and had no care in the world splashing through waist deep water on a swamp. took him at 150 yards. small racked 7 pointer

[ducksnbucks]

We hunt 10 miles south of Bemidji and heard a fair amount of shooting but nothing like years past. Our group managed 3 does and a spike buck for 9 guys. Didn't even see any nice bucks, hopefully this weekend.

[big drift]

Hunt north of Bemidji on CR 9 by the S curves, not a lot of shooting going on at all. The boys got 2 on Sat and seen some does.

Sunday nothing moved until dark.

Sounds like the weekend may change things up a bit but we will see.

[Jmnhunter]

we hunt south of bemidji about 25 miles; very slow! i saw 1 deer all saturday to tuesday

[Steve Foss]

I was hunting public land in 184 up north and west of the intersection of Hwy. 89 and Cty. 22.

There were lots of shots at various times during the day on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. In the end, I saw 17 deer but only got shots at two of them. Nailed the 9-pointer in my avatar just after sunup on Saturday. Muffed a 40-yard standing broadside shot at a big doe that still has me scratching my head.

First time I've hunted that area. We have a family lake cabin on Beltrami (for over 25 years), so it was a lot of fun headquartering out of there. Over here by Ely the deer herd is way down and we're all in lottery units instead of managed. And it sounds like your units over there, some of them, went from intensive harvest to managed this year. The last couple of winters have knocked down the deer population a bit, but even if numbers are down around 'midji compared with previous years, I saw more deer in three days there this year than I've seen in any previous hunting season near Ely.