Opening weekend reports

[eyeguy 54]

Got a 9 at 7 am Saturday down in 347, the first time hunting here for me with SIL. He had a nice 8 almost run him over mid afternoon and he got exited and missed. His dad has passed a couple smaller does. They are out again now.

[ESSGuy]

183 Nemadji forest. 5 guys saw 1 fork. Trail cams for 2 weeks show 4 wolves and 2 deer.

[nitro640]

Brook park area saw 6 yesterday after 3 pm. And 3 so far this morning

[tunrevir]

Sat in a woodlot surrounded on three sides by standing corn last night and both my son and I did not see a deer. Hit the woods this morning and sat behind the house, heard a couple of shots nearby but no deer seen this am either. Nice morning out there. came in to get ready to head off to church. Keep those reports coming guys!

Tunrevir~

[MJ1657]

Seen 2 bucks and 5 does this morning. NW wind yesterday and today. Every deer was headed west yesterday morning and they were all headed east this morning

[Neighbor_guy]

Just south of Onamia, zone 157 side of the street-

Have yet to see anything but birds from the stand. Going to take a slow walk around the property this afternoon to see if I can find any sign at all or if I am truely in the Dead Sea

Things are looking bleak. With any luck the snow will hold this week and next week will be different.

[Archerysniper]

Had a doe and 2 fawns at 20 yards but all three were really small. The girl I bring out saw a big 8 chasing does and couldn't get a shot. Another guy in our group shot a decent 8.This is all not far from Stacy zone 227.

[BryanL]

Saw 3 does yesterday morning. First blasted by on the run and another was following behind. Was sure it was a buck chasing, but no. Never got a shot at the first and passed on the second. Another doe came in a little later in the morning. Nothing seen after 9:00 all day. This morning had a doe come through and bust my son and I in our ladder stand. About an hour later another big doe comes by and we decided it was time to put her on the ground. Big doe who did me the favor of running to within 40 yards of the road before dying. I have no idea how these deer do it. I put a 12 gauge slug through both lungs and turned her heart into hamburger. She went at least 150 yards before expiring. Looking forward to buck hunting the next two weekends. Heard quite a few shots yesterday morning and enough today to keep things exciting. Hunting 157 around Brook Park/ Mora area. Dropped the doe off at Corts processing in Braham. They seemed to have a lot of good sized bucks dropped off. I was surprised how big my doe looked next to all the bucks, not that much smaller.

[mrklean]

We headed back today lots of doe over the past couple days which is promising, saw one small fork horn doing a drive for my wife last night but he stood and stared at me instead of running toward my wife. We went 2 for 5 for the group one buck one doe.

[CaptainMusky]

My son and I were near Pine river. Didn't see a deer in the howling wind of the morning sit on Saturday. Trying to take matters into our own hands we set out to stalk since it worked before. Had one doe 20 yards jump out of the swamp but quickly Behind the nastiest brush and no shot. Walk another 40 yards and see the flag of another deer running off. The afternoon sit became more interesting. We sat from noon to 520. My son slept for 2.5 hrs of that lol.

I was looking HIS direction and I see movement. A deer. I wake him up and say deer over there. It ended up being a spike but he sure was smart. Wandered through the edge of the thick stuff and no clean shot eventhouth he was only 50 yards away. We lost sight of him then I turn to focus on MY SIDE. I had a window about 10 yards wide that I could see for 75 yards. Well an ENORMOUS Buck walks through. I nudge the kid and say "monster monster buck!" The grey haired beauty disappeared and I just told him to be quiet and not move as we positioned him to get a shot. 15 seconds passed and I told him be patient he is coming this way. He raises his arm up to demonstrate something I have yet to figure out and BOOM the deer takes off. Couldn't even see it!

That is the last I will see of that deer I am sure. He was a beauty. I didn't care that it was the biggest buck I had ever seen while hunting, I wanted my son to have the first chance. I could have shot that spike but waited for him to get a good shot. Didn't happen. Well that may be our season but I wouldn't have it any other way.

"Dad now I know why you tell me not to move and be quiet" YUP!!!!

Today we didn't hunt much. Wife out of state and needed to get ready for snow so left early only saw a fawn. Still fun maybe another chance next weekend.

[laker1]

Good dad story.

[CaptainMusky]

I have to tell ya my trigger finger was itchy. Lol it would mean way more to me if one of my boys shot a deer any deer even if that means a bigger one than I have shot. I was sure hoping the big dog would make a mistake and we had a chance but like I told my son "that's why they call it hunting not shooting". He felt bad and was all apologetic. I said I have been there and done that but I was much older. I hope you are now better prepared. :-)

[nitro640]

Saw 9 more deer since my report this morning. Still waiting for Mr right.

[pascooter94]

did not see a deer for this weekend,we were south of brezzy point.

[laker1]

So shooting,number of shots up or down that you heard opening morning.

I would say down 35% in southern Crow wing county.

What did you hear?

[ESSGuy]

Area 183 near kerrick in Nemadji forest. 5 guys, 1 fork horn seen and 1 wolf. Deer herd here may be in serious trouble, put 12-20 inches of snow here tomorrow and it will only get worse.

[leech~~]

Zone 172, heard maybe 15 shoots around us all weekend, Slow! Cold, windy, snow on Sunday. Went 0-7 guys. I did pass up two spikes at 5 and 10 yards which were the only deer our whole group had seen but we have two more weekends and no one wanted to party hunt in or group. Talked to 3 other large groups in the area, big O zero for all of them. Did hear Yotes and Wolf calls mornings and evenings.

Son did have about 25 Turkey's feeding around him for a few hours which gave him something to look at and we had lots of Swan's flying over head and one Bob Cat did a walk by.

[hockeybc69]

Area 240. Had my daughter with for her first hunt.

We saw 1 deer in two days. Not even sure what it was, just saw a deer in the brush and watched it disappear.

We shot no deer in a party of 5 this weekend. 3 does were passed on as we decided prior to the hunt that we would take none this year. Hoping trigger restraint helps whats become very poor hunting the past handful of years.

[ANYFISH2]

Nothing for the weekend for us 0-4. Area 246. We did get some does and fawns around this morning, no doe tags though.

Talked to the nearest two camps(16 people) and nearest private owner (5 hunters) 1 young man (youth) shot his first deer, a doe. No other deer shot, between all groups.

Number of shots Sat. Was higher than I anticipated but well below normal. Today nearly non-existent.

[laker1]

SNOW STORM COMING BE CAREFULL

[tunrevir]

We hunted the Forest Lake area and finally saw some deer on Sunday evening. Ended up seeing two smaller bucks both wandering through the area, one at 430 and another at 5. My son didn't get any shots. Neighboring hunters got one of the two judging from the proximity of the shot. Snowstorm should get them up and feeding if not this morning then Tuesday night after the storm.

Tunrevir~

[harvey lee]

I saw many deer, from Friday afternoon through Saturday I saw approx 50 deer with 10 being bucks. Was going to wait and go back up this week but plans changed with another chance to hunt elsewhere. So, I the the next 8 pointer that strolled by. Far as the rut, bucks were moving a small amount, few scrapes around but the majority of the does still carrying their fawns. This next week at least for the area I was in in North Dakota should have the bucks moving very well. Every year it seems the rut does not get going strong till mid November.

[harvey lee]

As far as the weather Friday afternoon, wind was 30 plus with gusts to 50 but I still saw deer moving. Saturday morning was approx 29 with 8 mph winds. Saturday aft had winds of 10-12mph. Overall for the winds blowing, I though the deer moved very well. The North Dakota Game Fish have out very few tags due to the low deer population but I can say that with the deer I saw, numbers have to be much better than they realize. Soft winter or two and our area will have more than enough deer.

[BLACKJACK]

SNOW STORM COMING BE CAREFULL

Saw a couple pickups this morning sitting in approaches on my way into work. About 2-3 inches on the ground so far but starting to blow pretty good.

[FISHINGURU]

What did you hear?

A War Zone.