DNR says tough deer season?

[bogwalker]

I don't see wolves all that often ( but I did see a very healthy pair of Timberwolves last week). Rarely see Bobcat. Never seen ( but have heard )Cougar. But I have questioned the wisdom of bonus tags where I hunt. You would think bonus tags would be made available when deer are plentiful. I have never seen this where I hunt.

[kelly-p]

This will be my 44th year deer hunting in Minnesota. About 30 in Northern Minnesota. I have never heard the DNR blame Timberwolves for a significant decrease in the deer population until now.

I've never heard of this before nor has my father. This does appear to be quite a change of positions for the DNR. You don't suppose that the DNR Is willing to say that some of us were right a few years ago when we said that we had a problem coming. I know that around here starting about 6-7 years ago the only deer around were clustered right up close to where people were.

[bogwalker]

I have never heard the MN DNR admit to making mistakes. They might have but I never heard about it. I would like to see a shift from politics to management for the wildlife sake.

[psepuncher]

speaking of political management...

I'll just throw this in the mix with to many bonus antlerless tags, cars, wolves, poachers, misplaced shots and honest injuns.

How about adding a free pass on hunter safety education.

Nothing like stacking up more carcusses in deer camp, eh?

Well that's another 4 or 5 tags to a guy and an added 5 or 7 years to bring back a herd.

Allbeit it's for one year, and once in a lifetime thing. It sure beats down the population of deer none the less.

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[mrklean]

when we were up north for bear hunting to i think i saw 2 deer from duluth to north of tofte, did see a wolf had him about 20 yards from my stand sad to see what has happened to the deer up there

[ANYFISH2]

Maybe its because north of Duluth isn't really deer country. Those populations will and should vary greatly over the years. the deer are going to move to the youngest of forests and away from the aging forests. Wolves are only one factor of many.

Also if a your bear season says that to you mrklean, then when I seen over 30 up the sawbill in late August over two days, i think there might be to many.

[lungdeflator]

I quess one way to fix the problem quick is to only have 100 doe permits. my guess is there will be more deer next year and the year after that...should be back to managed before to long. deer populations probably follow some type of S graph where populations go up and down continuously, rarely staying at a steady population for too long

[Musky Buck]

Why let the DNR tell you anything really, we noticed a few years back the population coming down so all land owners in our area were talking and we bought 0 bonus tags as a collective unit, we have plenty around for this fall, and talked some groups into a more selective buck harvest while we were at it. Too much opportunity for bow, rifle and muzzy so several of the deer that used to survive the hunt don't anymore as they are still hunted for many days after what would have been an already closed rifle season with 10,000 old school muzzy hunters, now what is there 80,000 muzzy hunters with in-lines that will kill and wound even more deer than past years, and "saving" their tags for late bow or muzzy, a few of the many reasons. My hope is there was so much standing corn last year my hope was that a lot more made the season, last spring for the first time found multiple wolf kills so it's unknown.