APR, QDM, Trophy Hunters, etc....

[Musky Buck]

I doubt it flipper, these good bucks are shot either way, not every yearling is an 8pt, they were culling them out long before apr. In my area it's so backward, 90 some % are bred by yearling bucks as there are so very very few 2.5 or older bucks and if there is I promise they are gunned down immediately and seen as a trophy compared to the yearling crop which is dwindling also because buck fawns are bigger than doe fawns so they get blasted first. I want something like APR just to get some older bucks in the discussion again and we're not even talking old at 2.5. I like that every other year by nonteepical, haven't thought it through but without thinking it sounds ok. I will say some areas of the state APR wouldn't work, if you live in spike buck alley where it takes bucks an extra year or two to develop it would be tougher, but my feeling in the farmland where it would be unusual to see large racked 6 pointers is different. Flipper the way it is now genetics means little in my area. The does are bred primarily by inferior 1st racked bucks.

[Wobbler]

Have the option to buy a buck tag or doe tag. In areas where you can shoot either or and you want that option pay $50 so you can shoot either or great. $50 gives you the option of either a buck or a doe. If you shoot a buck with at least 3 points on one side refund them $20 at Registration. The state can make some interest money and get out of this "new" budget problem and those who register a qualifying deer get "refunded" some of their money. I have a hard time believing that a rifle license at $50 will deter some from hunting versus what we pay now. That is the cheapest part of the hunt. For youth under 18 years of age your license is $30 regardless of what you shoot to recruit and keep kids in. If $50 is too much for the opportunity to shoot a buck and you just want to shoot a doe you pay $30 for initial license and you cannot shoot a buck.

[harvey lee]

One cannot expect the regristration station to refund the funds. It would tie up thier funds for quite some time and they really make about nothing for doing the regristration.

Then one also can register online.

I do not believe the general deer hunting public with be happy with a $50 license.

[kern]

What about some sort of lottery, kinda like turkey. The only difference is not if you get drawn but when. Split up gun hunters, with 4-5 day seasons maybe 3-4 seasons. It would spread out the pressure and permission would be a little easier to obtain. Less hunters in the woods at one particular time would mean less pressure keeping more deer hidden. Not saying it would work but just throwing ideas out there to see what people think.

[fish4u]

I have been reading all this info and I just had to give my $.02 There are two key words in all of these posts Everyone wants to go to there stands and SHOOT a big buck but nobody wants to go HUNT one

[InTheNorthwoods]

Have the option to buy a buck tag or doe tag. In areas where you can shoot either or and you want that option pay $50 so you can shoot either or great. $50 gives you the option of either a buck or a doe. If you shoot a buck with at least 3 points on one side refund them $20 at Registration. The state can make some interest money and get out of this "new" budget problem and those who register a qualifying deer get "refunded" some of their money. I have a hard time believing that a rifle license at $50 will deter some from hunting versus what we pay now. That is the cheapest part of the hunt. For youth under 18 years of age your license is $30 regardless of what you shoot to recruit and keep kids in. If $50 is too much for the opportunity to shoot a buck and you just want to shoot a doe you pay $30 for initial license and you cannot shoot a buck.

So, basically, pay people $20 to shoot 3+ point (on one side) bucks? That isn't a solution, it's a whole new problem.

Best bet, IMO, is to eliminate party hunting and better manage deer herds in zones by controlling the TOTAL number of deer to be harvested rather than the INDIVIDUAL number of deer EACH hunter is able to shoot. I.e., issuing a limited number of tags per zone, or setting a quota which would close the season once a certain number of deer have been killed in a zone.

[Wobbler]

The state charges $26 for a rifle license right now. If there is a refund to give the licensing agent or registration gets $2 and the state for the other $2 can figure out how and who will give out the refund. Maybe you have to send in a postcard with a sticker verifying it or better yet the computer acknowledges you get a refund and says you pay $30 next year for the same license. The technology is there.

The online people can still do it the way they have this year unless they shoot a qualifying deer and can go do it at a station and save some money. If they don't want to thanks for the donation.

I get people would not like $50 license. But with all due respect $50 is not outrageous. Shoot a qualifying deer it is the same price it always used to be except a $4 increase.

I don't want a buck lottery, I don't want to ruin others traditions. I want to offer choices that if you want to make them you pay for them and keep most of it the same for all.

My suggestion is not the perfect answer but a partial solution. After reading all of this most people are one way or another. Instead of just complaining I am offering a solution/compromise to everyone out there. Both groups win/lose. My idea is on the table do with it what you want.

Wish our state government would compromise or at least offer something instead of bickering and not finding solutions and putting it on the backs of the future.

[lakevet]

The no buck party hunting solution just seems so obvious to me, I don't understand what people have against it? If you shoot a monster buck the first day, continue party hunting for does. If you can't shoot does in your area, then become camp cook, grab a shotgun and go grouse hunting, or just sleep in and enjoy the rest of your time off work. Or, better yet, find a kid and take them out hunting....your season has already been a success.

Thats about all I have to say about that. I used to be more passionate about this topic. Now that I found a very large area of public land to hunt with zero pressure, it's become less important. I've implemented my own rules, and in the last 3 years, I've shot the 3 biggest bucks of my life. I have no doubt this success will continue because I know for a fact no young bucks will be shot in this area as long as I'm there.

I really would like to maintain my choice to GIFT MY TAG to someone else I legally party hunt with. We have hunted as a family group for over 100 years in Minnesota, making drives, tracking and standing in a part of the state with historically low deer numbers, wolves, severe winters, and many square miles of thick swamps and brush in addition to woods and some farms. Banning our GIFTING OF TAGS to those we hunt with legally is something that favors the hunt by yourself hunter style.

Secondly, banning cross tagging of bucks is a "I don't like your style of hunting" law that saves at most 5% of the bucks. It is not necessary as IOWA and WISCONSIN BOTH ALLOW BUCK CROSS TAGGING. And it is easily circumvented by having another hunter in your party fire an "insurance shot" cause they thought it was still alive. That is wrong, but fact is that the law is weak at best.

Third you talk about if you are in an area where you can't shoot does, the go BY YOURSELF and be camp cook, grouse hunt, sleep in, enjoy the rest of your time off work WE hunt as a family and that is THE MAIN reason we hunt the way we do, working as a group, covering ground as we have for generations with single shot open sighted muzzleloaders in a season that is AFTER the herd has been shot up by everyone else. Now you want to have a family member who gets a buck have to go off by themselves/leave the field??

Fourth, glad you are experiencing low pressure hunting. Muzzleloading season is that, worse than it was but better than regular firearms. In this age of 4 wheelers, GPS and satellite photos, enjoy your area because it may not last as long as you would like.

I propose that us crazy, old style family hunters with a long standing traditional hunting style be allowed to purchase a "muzzleloader only license" that required that you CANNOT hunt regular firearms and in exchange can party hunt one deer of any kind anywhere in the state. There are many years of records proving this type of season in Minnesota has no significant effect on the deer population, including the big bucks so coveted.

lakevet

[TruthWalleyes]

Musky Buck,

There are apparently very few deer in your area.

I'm going to guess that anywhere in the state of MN, there is a ratio of deer to nice bucks that stays fairly constant throughout the state.

For example,

Your area has 100 deer, and 1 nice buck.

Another area has 10,000 deer, and 100 nice bucks.

Your going to think that the area with 10,000 deer has a bigger ratio of big bucks, but i frankly just don't believe it.

I used to hunt SW MN where everything is a fork horned buck. There are some nice deer taken each year, but very few. Now i hunt in SE MN, and ther are lots of nice deer taken...There are also a ton more deer in the population too.

How is APR going to make your area of few deer and increase the ratio of big bucks? I just don't see it, and i don't see the craze behind big horns either.

You don't know which 1.5yr buck has the best genes, so will letting them all breed and live to 2.5 yrs really increase the ratio of big bucks to inferior bucks. It might increase the over population of deer due to the success rate declined.

I'm just not for categorizing deer into two categories...Trophys, and everything else. The younger ones taste much better anyway.

How many big horn fans don't even eat their deer each year? But just go out to shoot and mount? Sounds like we want to change the deer hunting culture we have today to what we see on the telivision...the pursuit of horns and nothing else.

[InTheNorthwoods]

I really would like to maintain my choice to GIFT MY TAG to someone else I legally party hunt with.

lakevet

Thats the crux of it. Many of us don't think party hunting should be legal.

It doesn't make sense to me that each person needs to buy their own license (with their name on it, when they are old enough and have obtained their hunters safety certificate, and which they can only get if they have not lost their hunting privileges and met the prior criteria), that each person can only take one deer per tag, that you can only buy a certain number of tags per person, BUT...you can transfer that tag to someone else? Why even have the restriction then? A license is a privilege granted to YOU by the state, and we aren't purchasing the right to a deer, we're purchasing a right to try and fill that tag.

Seems to me, people would laugh if someone wanted to transfer their drivers license and privilege to drive to a buddy if they can't find their drivers license, don't have a valid license because they had their limit of speeding tickets or driving infractions, etc.

[psepuncher]

One thing to consider is that APR actually causes hunters to cull the very genetic traits out of the deer herd that they consider desirable. If you are in the cattle breeding business and you want long horns then you wouldn't send all your long horned bulls to slaughter, you would instead cull out the short horned bulls.

Flame on.

Yeah I agree, if you're a deer farmer keeping them behind a high fence.

[john skarie]

If you are going to compare what you percieve as "better" deer hunting in other states that allow party hunting, and then try to claim that in MN party hunting is the problem, than you've lost all crediblility with me.

JS

[psepuncher]

What about some sort of lottery, kinda like turkey. The only difference is not if you get drawn but when. Split up gun hunters, with 4-5 day seasons maybe 3-4 seasons. It would spread out the pressure and permission would be a little easier to obtain. Less hunters in the woods at one particular time would mean less pressure keeping more deer hidden. Not saying it would work but just throwing ideas out there to see what people think.

This is the step in the right direction. I was going to wait and see if anyone else would go with the thought of a lottery.

The key is having people willingly pay for that coveted quality hunt.

Don't move the general season, just close it on certain WMA's.{so to speak}

Aprove the lottery at an affordable rate that has no limit of entries.

Have those WMA's noted seperatly on the application, and allow only a selct number of hunters per selctable WMA.

MN has alot of land that could be better controlled during the rut. This is the option that would do it for me.

Now to think how a free youth hunt can be generated with a free doe tag.

good luck

[Musky Buck]

Truth there isn't a 100 deer in the 6 sections combined anymore and with 50 deer stands that 1 buck is in huge huge trouble if it isn't bow shot before rifle or poached. The DNR says I hunt the most populated per square mile area in the state, section 240, more deer taken per square mile than anywhere in the state, more muzzy deer taken by far than any other zone in the state so bizarre, glad my dad and uncles had to quit deer hunting because what they want they aint gonna get anymore, everything has been scaled back to very very few decent bucks per square mile and it's not recovering at all. The state of deer hunting in MN is crumbling in some areas and crumbled in others and decent in others and poor in others and so on.

[nolte]

I find it quite interesting that as a fishing community we have readily accepted slot limits with fishing but are dead set against any sort of similiar restrictions with deer.

I've never heard one person in my life complain that they've seeing too many nice bucks. Probably because it never happens.

Thinking about genetics is so far away that it's not even worth discussing. Many bucks just don't get the chance to get old enough to even see what they've got. Passing up on smaller bucks isn't just about getting deer with big racks. It's about getting a balance age structure with the deer herd. That's pretty tough to find anywhere now with any sort of hunting pressure.

Why not give everyone a deer tag, good for a doe or a buck with 4 on one side. If you shoot a buck that doesn't make it, you pay a $75 penalty. If you want to hunt other seasons then you get 2 tags, mix and match however you like. If the herd count is up, issue more doe tags. If it's down take the doe off or cap it at one doe a year. Anybody under 18 can shoot whatever they want. I believe MI does something similiar now with your first buck being anything and afte rthat it needs to be 4 or better on one side. It's just one year fellas and we're back to the same harvest. I don't think anyone can tell the difference in backstraps between a 1.5 year old buck or a 2.5 year old.

[TruthWalleyes]

PSE,

I'm not against your suggestion, but i must point out there are some pretty huge ares with next to zero public land (SE MN) and there are areas where you can't go a mile without running into public land (SW MN).

I know in murray county where i grew up, there are atleast 30 WMA in one hunting zone. Most of which is tall grass land, but deer habitat none the less.

Now move over to zone 348/347 where i hunt now, and there is ONE 300acre public hunting spot attached to forestville state park...Luckily i've got access to 40acres of woods that butts right up to forestville so the pressure of the hunters blasting away in the public land pushed deer to us. But public land hunting is just not an option in certain areas of the state, such as SE MN. I'm quite lucky to be able to hunt in that area of the state.

Murray:

Fillmore:

[nonteepical]

[quote=TruthWalleyes

How many big horn fans don't even eat their deer each year? But just go out to shoot and mount? Sounds like we want to change the deer hunting culture we have today to what we see on the telivision...the pursuit of horns and nothing else.

[nonteepical]

[quote=psepuncher

The key is having people willingly pay for that coveted quality hunt.

[TruthWalleyes]

LOL.

Stereotyping really gets us nowhere, I know i'm guilty for that as well.

I LOVE venison...so the more meat i can get, the better. Thats why i travel to areas of the state where multiple deer can be taken. I've never understood the hunters that pull the trigger on animals for pleasure to gift the deer meat away; who use phantom tags to shoot more deer, only to gift the deer meat away...I JUST DON'T GET THAT!

I've been drooling for fresh tenderloins since shotgun season last year...I have not drooled for antlers once in the last year. I'm a meat hunter, and come summer, you won't find any vension in my freezer.

Geese are fun to shoot...I haven't shot one in years because i don't enjoy eating them!

[harvey lee]

I say lets dump party hunting next season.

Shoot your own deer. So many say it's all about the time together and the tradition of hunting yet they let another shoot thier deer. Or, some purchase a license and do not even go out. They just have another shoot it for them.

Then, you get one license.

Then lets have a lottery for bucks also.

Now we will get somewhere.

Let's here all the negative on this now.

[john skarie]

You guys want to dump party hunting because you don't like it, or are you claiming that it is ruining the deer herd??

If it's ruining the deer herd, than why are the other states that allow it so much better than MN??

I hunt off the beaten path. Normally at least a days travel over water and over land to camp. We have 3 to 4 guys and whether or not one of us shoots all the deer or we all shoot one we don't care. We don't go through all that work to not get our deer.

Just because a few bad apples may abuse party hunting doesn't mean it should be abolished 'cause some of you feel there aren't enough trophies for you in MN.

JS

[Whoknows]

This debate has been a great read the last few days. Albeit unresolved. There is no quick fix here. The way I see it, there is a reason Minnesota used to be top producer of large mature whitetails. We have some of the best habitat and largest tracts of unbroken public land, of the big deer hunting states. Now how did we get into the situation we are in today? Well due to a string of severe winters and over harvest from poor management. The troubled deer population started the for a lack of a better term "if it's brown its down" mentality. Many hunters during the lean years were lucky to even see a deer. Well the deer population eventually rebounded with better dnr enforced management practices. Keep in mind they were managed for population. As the herd grew these same hunters that were shaped during the lean years filled there legally obtained tags. As you can see, it pretty obvious how we got the poor age structure and poor sex ration. Boom and bust population swings over a relatively short time frame (50years) really throw things out of wack. Time along with better population management and educating more and more hunters is the only fix.

There is hope for Minnesota deer hunting(as long as we don't allow politicians to end it.) Nature is very adaptable and resilient. I have noticed major mentality changes in the last 5-10years. Every year I hear of more and more hunting parties deciding as a group to better manage "their" herd. Mark my words, Minnesota will one day regain the top spot for large bucks. It might not happen over night but i can bet the house, it will. And did I mention it wont be done threw APR's and lotto buck tags but just through better education.

[jabug]

i to fail to see how party hunting is ruining the deer herd. let it be the choice of the hunters. we have enough govt control now. if five hunters hunt together and on guy shoots three or three guys shoot one it is still three dead deer. if you choose to shoot just trophy deer then let that be your choice not one forced upon all by more laws. there are more trophy deer out there then many think. they just have alot more cover then most states. every year we see trail cam picts and succesful hunting trips with some real nice deer. everybody is not going to get a trophy most might not even see one but that dont mean they are not there and i really dont think it is a reason to come up with more rules. leave the choice of what size is a trophy to the hunter. i dont think any hunter needs to be told what is a trophy and not a trophy that is a personal deccision that should be left up to the hunter

[john skarie]

Maybe some of you could enlighten me with some facts about how the trophy bucks used to be here and aren't now, or never were, or whatever exactly the claim is.

I live north of Detroit Lakes, hunt here some and a lot up north of Ely.

My neighbors and friends around DL seem to do real well with big bucks.

My brother has shot 4 deer in the last decade that went Pope and Young on my parents farm and neighbors land.

I see many big deer on friends cameras in Becker and Ottertail County, the vast majority of pics taken at night.

I know of 3 deer within an hour of my house that went over 170 this year.

I just can't help but think there are a lot more big bucks out there than some of you realize. Does anyone have real proof there is a problem or is it just talk??

JS

[surewood]

I don't want to see any changes other then moving opener to the second weekend of November which I stated in another post so there are more bucks to breed does to help prevent late fawning. Other then that it should be our choice. People shoot what makes them happy. I've also said before I think it's becoming more of a trend for hunters to pass on immature deer. Just a matter of time without having more restrictions.