Gun season in peak of rut

[wally243]

Right on Kwassy1. Sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for. Luckily I will always have private land to hunt, but many that I know will not if this "billion dollar industry" roles in.

Good luck, shoot straight and be happy in your harvest whatever it may or may not be. Just because a four point doesn't do anything for some people doesn't mean you can't enjoy harvesting one.

[Musky Buck]

ACDC sings it best "listen to the money talk " I've lost goose ground to similar deals, oh well you move on and sway the odds in your favor the best you can.

[JIvers]

I've lived in southeast Iowa for over ten years, but I still come back to SE Minnesota to hunt deer.

For the record, a lot of Iowa hunters believe the IDNR has mismanaged the deer herd there. The most common complaint is that the IDNR gave away too many doe tags and "decimated" the deer herd to the point that it is difficult to find deer in some areas of Iowa.

I am more than a little skeptical of this complaint, but it does show that not every Iowa hunter agrees that the state is a deer hunter's paradise.

More generally, no matter what regulations you have in place someone is going to complain, because not everyone's vision of the "ideal" deer herd is the same. I do not envy the DNR of any state for trying to find a balance among the different parties involved.

[Musky Buck]

No doubt, we have North Dakota west of Perham MN, south Dakota to the sw of I94, we have Ontario to the north north, some wisc look in very east central MN and iowa to the south south and anything and everything inbetween, tons of acres in water. Lob in 60K deer killed by wolves each year and this state is a mess lol. My only complaint is party tagging and the move from zone 4 to 2. They had the farmland recipe just right and ruined it. They spread hunting pressure in zone 4 over 2 separate weekends and in such wide open kinda country. It turned a beautiful wintering ground by my house into there hasn't been a wintering herd there since the 2nd year of zone 2. Hard to believe used to get 2 days as my gun season and now it's 25 actually 32 days long because I have zone 1 areas, 32 days compared to 2 geez.

[phorn]

Its all about the money generated from all the days afield.There are less hunters so they have to make it up somehow.

[hunter322]

How did this topic get so far off of its original intent? I vote we bring it back to where it should get it back on track.

[PurpleFloyd]

OK

I will start by saying that as a freezer filler I would love to see the hunt moved out of the rut because as it is when the season starts the first part of November it is always a crapshoot in this area when the corn will get out of the fields and in years like this where there are hundreds and hundreds of acres of standing corn you are much less likely to see a deer at all and the odds of seeing a wallhanger are going to be slim to none. If they moved the season to Thanksgiving there would be very few years where the deer had corn to hide in and we would have a much better chance of whacking all the big boys that hang out in the corn once the first shots are fired.

Plus it would give me a few more early weekends of pheasant hunting before slug season interrupts it. So yeah, mark me down for the late hunt. Thanksgiving week would be great as far as I am concerned.

[Rippinlip]

This year it seems that the bigger bucks could be locked down with a doe.

We have seen a real hot and heavy rut for a while now.

Our observation of seeing alot of smaller bucks and limited sightings of mature does tells me some of the big boys will not be seen and make it through the initial weekend.

I am all for moving the season, but overall I think the DNR is doing a good job.

[shortfatguy]

If they move the season back a couple of weeks many bucks will have shed their antlers. It happens every year during muzzle season. Guys shoot antlerless bucks. Plus many years we have a lot of snow up north by that time of year. It would be harder on the deer to be chased around in deep snow.

[waligators]

Here you go to all the folks that say Apr's, moving the gun season back a couple weeks, and throwing out party hunting is a bad idea. This pic was taken tonight, and 3 more fourkies they ended up shooting aren't even in this pic. As the original poster in this thread, I'd say I pretty much nailed it right on the head about 1.5 year olds getting slaughtered this weekend. Something needs to be done to protect these yearlings. I have nothing to do with this party of hunters, and I don't hunt close to them but I still just have to shake my head.

[drakes247]

borderline Ridiculous

We in Minnesota have the potential for raising world class deer, this will never happen though because everyone and their mother is out in the woods killin the first deer that walks by. Unless you have a huge chunk of private land, or you can get all the people around you to sign up for QDMA you cannot manage for trophy deer in mn. To be honest I’m a bird hunter and don’t really care about deer but I would rather shot a nice tender fawn or her mother, and go back to geese, than shoot a six or a basket eight, but every time I let one of these deer walk the guy next to me pulls the trigger, happened four years in a row… so what is a guy to do?

[PurpleFloyd]

We harvested a mature buck, a 1.5 year old buck and 2 does yesterday. Sounds like a balanced herd to me.

[candiru]

Here you go to all the folks that say Apr's, moving the gun season back a couple weeks, and throwing out party hunting is a bad idea. This pic was taken tonight, and 3 more fourkies they ended up shooting aren't even in this pic. As the original poster in this thread, I'd say I pretty much nailed it right on the head about 1.5 year olds getting slaughtered this weekend. Something needs to be done to protect these yearlings. I have nothing to do with this party of hunters, and I don't hunt close to them but I still just have to shake my head.

Really nice. Posting pictures like this is tactics PETA would use. Along with the constant use of terms like the "slaughter" of young bucks. If you are in western MN a later season would mean that the corn has been harvested in more years which may end up being worse than the current situation. Like someone said earlier, if you are going to move gun season out of the rut, close it for bowhunters as well.

[2thepointsetters]

Huh nice pic.... I read it on the Internet is must be true.

How do we know that pic wasn't taken at a processor or that its even from MN? I am using a smart phone but I don't see blue tags on them.

[Jameson]

blue tags on the legs.

Looks like there is one 2.5 year old buck in the pic, behind a deer, middle right. One fawn, too, far right.

That pic is so typical of what I am used to seeing from farm-country SW Minnesota. Glad I am choosing to hunt elsewhere now.

[waligators]

A guy I know posted it on Facebook last night. His exact words were" a good days work boys". Now I am no means a PETA supporter at all, nor back them. Come on, taking this many 1.5 year olds the first day of the season is ridiculous. Blue tags are on the legs.

[PurpleFloyd]

Looks like a good harvest to me. No reason to feel guilty for harvesting healthy, legal deer.

[mntatonka]

I'm guessing lottery area? If I was in a lottery area and didn't draw a doe tag I'd take the first buck I saw as we'll regardless of size. At least then I'd have some venison for the year.

[J_D]

Mntatonka is right on. We are rebuilding the herd up here due to TB. Hunters saw and passed on a lot of does fawns yesterday due to the lack of doe tags. But since most want some meat for winter the yearling bucks are getting harvested. Not sure why there is an issue with this, it legal and a lot of hunters are out the to fill the freezer. Which I did yesterday evening on a yearling that came out with a doe.

[bigsam]

Isn't the point of deer hunting to provide food for your family? Blows my mind the # of guys that just hunt to put a head on the wall and not take the meat. Hopefully, they are giving it to a food shelf! Leave the seasons the way they are. I hunted all weekend in prime areas and saw very few mature bucks. Only deer I had a shot at was a doe that looked to be about the size of a yellow lab, and I passed. Meat hunter I may be, but I do have SOME morals!

[skee0025]

APRs protect young bucks and give them an opportunity to survive the rut hunt as an silly-me 1.5 yr old full of hormones. I think it should be state wide, not just in areas with large populations. It makes sense to have a more restrictive season in areas with less deer.

Just curious as to how limiting the number of bucks taken by antler size benefits areas with smaller heards? Logic would dictate that it would increase pressure/hunting mortality on the already smaller Doe population resulting in less fawns being born the following spring further decreasing the deer population.

[RuddyDuck]

So if they were all 8/10 pointers and does hanging, then the term Slaughter wouldn't be used? Just looks like a good deer hunt and some good vension to eat for the group. I do swear that some on here are or should be members of PETA. Oh well, I guess everyone has the right to their own opinion on this subject.

[Jameson]

Logic would dictate that it would increase pressure/hunting mortality on the already smaller Doe population resulting in less fawns being born the following spring further decreasing the deer population.

Your logic must not be using all the variables such as an antlerless lottery. Fairly easy to control the pressure/mortality by limiting the number of tags available. Or even go as far as what happened a couple years ago in some areas when all adult hunters were limited to bucks, and only a limited number of antlerless permits were given to the youths.

[PurpleFloyd]

So in other words limit the ability of the many to harvest a deer for the benefit of the few.

[Jameson]

"the few"

Who is this select group. Please describe them. Are they only white people? Only black people? Only men? Only women? Who are these select few that will benefit?