New MN Deer Advocacy Group

[smsmith]

I saw nothing in that article where Merchant says 200K will be the goal...only that that number generally keeps his phone from ringing. I also saw nothing in there where the DNR acknowledges there is any problem....other than their phones are ringing

edit...for any MDHA members what are your thoughts on the org. pushing for average annual kills of 225K in a few years? My understanding is that the resolution asking for that as well as a state wide deer management plan to be developed passed overwhelmingly. I see no "hue and cry" against that number getting tossed around

[mntatonka]

I saw nothing in that article where Merchant says 200K will be the goal...only that that number generally keeps his phone from ringing. I also saw nothing in there where the DNR acknowledges there is any problem....other than their phones are ringing

edit...for any MDHA members what are your thoughts on the org. pushing for average annual kills of 225K in a few years? My understanding is that the resolution asking for that as well as a state wide deer management plan to be developed passed overwhelmingly. I see no "hue and cry" against that number getting tossed around

I'm pretty sure most people on here said that was an acceptable average. Somewhere around 200-225k is what has usually been stated.

I personally believe 225-235k is probably the max we should be looking for, with an average closer to 210k. 210k+/-20k seems like it would be fairly acceptable to most parties involved.

[smsmith]

Geez...seems every time I or anyone else advocate for a return to those numbers I see all kinds of posts about why that can't or won't happen.

I'm all for sustained, annual harvests around 225K. I just don't see it happening in 4 years. Love to find out I'm wrong though.

Heard through the grapevine that Engwall is going over Merchant's head on the 225K number. Only reason I can come up with for that happening is that Merchant said "no" to the idea.

[Getanet]

Maybe the MDHA isn't as spineless as you think?

[smsmith]

Maybe the MDHA isn't as spineless as you think?

Time will tell..I'd love to find out that the ex DNR guy they hired to run MDHA is willing to fight his long time former employer for the betterment of the deer hunters of MN

[mntatonka]

Time will tell..I'd love to find out that the ex DNR guy they hired to run MDHA is willing to fight his long time former employer for the betterment of the deer hunters of MN

I talked to Craig quite a bit over the weekend. it didn't seem like he was going to be afraid to make some waves. He still seems to be getting his feet under him, but he's had a pretty hectic first couple months on the job.

[smsmith]

I talked to Craig quite a bit over the weekend. it didn't seem like he was going to be afraid to make some waves. He still seems to be getting his feet under him, but he's had a pretty hectic first couple months on the job.

I can only imagine. I have no doubts of his abilities and capabilities...what I doubt is his willingness to buck the DNR when necessary. I truly hope he proves me wrong. If under MDHA's leadership our state can resume average annual harvests of 225K starting in 2019 I will be impressed.

[O.T.C.]

If we get to where that 225K is happening the first investment I make will be a brush/deer guard for the front end of all my vehicles. We'll have some strange years tag wise cuz we just might get up there again only to have a brutal winter bring things back down again and so on. Time will tell. Spare the does if you want the herd to climb as fast as possible.

[BLACKJACK]

If we get to where that 225K is happening the first investment I make will be a brush/deer guard for the front end of all my vehicles.

Or maybe you could slow down when going thru known deer travel zones??

My neighbor 'brags' that hes hit 7 deer in the last ten years (I've hit one, and that was in SoDak), he drives like a raped ape, when I see a dust cloud coming up behind me I know its him. Slow down a little so when you hit the brakes you can stop in time. Thats why I hate tailgaters but thats another post....

By the way, its interesting to note that where we hunt in SoDak a lot of their personal pickups have the brush guards on them. And of course 70mph is going slow...

[smsmith]

I drove in an area of WI with 3-4 times the density of deer for 30 years. My folks lived and drove there their entire lives. Number of deer hit? One...that ran out in front of my dad, never saw it coming.

Slow down...watch the ditches...use your brights whenever you can...unavoidable deer/vehicle accidents happen but a great number of them can be avoided through attentive driving...which BTW is supposed to be the only kind of driving any of us do.

[O.T.C.]

If you rode with me you'd say speed up please lol. It's more than just watching the ditch, 2 of the 4 I've hit t-boned me and both were fawns on a dead run with the sun directly over the hwy to where it's almost pull over for bit, my eyes are soaked with tears, one was a mirror shot with standing corn way too close to the edge of the road, 1 hop and bang, the other was on a curve doing 40, my headlights never caught her, anyway I hope for the many who want some sort of better deer numbers, hopefully with more doe protection that will begin to happen sooner than later. Checked some wintering grounds, scary, 1 doe and 2 fawns in one place and zero in the other, made it easy to not shed hunt unless one of those fawns shed his nubs. That's my concern like as soon as we switched from zone 4 to 2 the wintering herd dwindled and has been gone for maybe 5 winters now. It will be a sight for sore eyes to see them in there again, corn on the east side and south, swamp in between, and nada. Was my best shed spot for 20 years or so. That stinks.

[hockeybc69]

You complain because you see no deer, but in order to see deer, we need the populations up. If the populations are up then you complain because deer are hitting your vehicles....

... but you are spot on.... the demise of the quality deer hunts in 239 and 240 correlate exactly to when we switched from zone 4 to zone 2.

More people in the woods, for more days.... gee what does that do to the deer herd?

DNR called it more hunting opportunity.... More opportunity results in a lot more deer killed too. And it worked well for them.

[SmellEsox]

It used to be too that you just threw a slug barrel on the old 870. Now you have specialized slugs and more guys with scoped shotguns. Or now you can use a scoped inline muzzy during gun season. Bows are better. Technology also has made us more efficient hunters resulting in more dead deer.

[BLACKJACK]

... but you are spot on.... the demise of the quality deer hunts in 239 and 240 correlate exactly to when we switched from zone 4 to zone 2.

More people in the woods, for more days.... gee what does that do to the deer herd?

DNR called it more hunting opportunity.... More opportunity results in a lot more deer killed too. And it worked well for them.

I agree with with this 100%!!! Big bucks and the deer in general only had to evade hunters for two days, then it was back to five days of normal rut. Then four more days of hunting and that was it, and even that last Monday and Tuesday, there were very few hunters out. Throw in some bad weather days and the deer didn't get hounded near as much as they do now.

[creepworm]

I agree, I wish we would go back to the pick a weekend for zone 2. Not that a whole lot of people hunt during the week but it does put extra pressure on the deer.

[SmellEsox]

I agree, I wish we would go back to the pick a weekend for zone 2. Not that a whole lot of people hunt during the week but it does put extra pressure on the deer.

Do you think the deer saved would just get shot during muzzy season? Remember, muzzys were restricted to just a few areas in the state back then. Now it is statewide.

[mntatonka]

Do you think the deer saved would just get shot during muzzy season? Remember, muzzys were restricted to just a few areas in the state back then. Now it is statewide.

there's usually an average of 10,000 deer harvested during muzzleloader, and I don't think that would increase very much regardless of what changes were made to the standard firearms seasons.

[SmellEsox]

I suppose.

[hockeybc69]

Just to clarify with people what happened when we went from zone 4 to zone 2.

The season didnt just get longer.... You used to have to chose a weekend to hunt.

Either you hunted 4A(which was 2 days) or you hunted 4B(which was 4 days).

--- yes, there was an all-season license a few years, but very few people bought that.....

If you look at the DNR reports, there was about 66% of total hunters that hunted the 4A season(Saturday and Sunday). 33% of hunters chose the 4B season(Saturday thru Tuesday the following weekend).

The hunter density in the woods was leaving a LOT more space for deer to survive in the Zone 4 days.

Fast forward to zone 2 and I was an opponent from day 1.... Now every guy with a gun could(and I am sure most did) hunt opening weekend..... You just added up to 30% more guys in the woods on opening weekend as compared to when it was zone 4.

That is a HUGE increase of pressure on deer. Less free space, more people moving around. LOTS more deer killed.

And now here we are.

[minky]

Would most deer hunters support going back to having a zone 4 with A and B seasons?

[creepworm]

Would most deer hunters support going back to having a zone 4 with A and B seasons?

It seems as though we have a consensus on here, which is something I never thought would happen.

[PurpleFloyd]

Actually the best solution would be to have a statewide split season for all forms of hunting including the north zone , Muzzy and Bow season. Give them 2 days or a 4 day weekend and that's it. Since the population problems are basically from 94 north it seems the deer north of there would benefit more than in the south where we have no population problems. But doing that would take the pressure off of the herd for sure. I would be behind that as well because it would give me fewer disruptions to the ditch parrot season.

[PurpleFloyd]

Just to clarify with people what happened when we went from zone 4 to zone 2.

The season didnt just get longer.... You used to have to chose a weekend to hunt.

Either you hunted 4A(which was 2 days) or you hunted 4B(which was 4 days).

--- yes, there was an all-season license a few years, but very few people bought that.....

If you look at the DNR reports, there was about 66% of total hunters that hunted the 4A season(Saturday and Sunday). 33% of hunters chose the 4B season(Saturday thru Tuesday the following weekend).

The hunter density in the woods was leaving a LOT more space for deer to survive in the Zone 4 days.

Fast forward to zone 2 and I was an opponent from day 1.... Now every guy with a gun could(and I am sure most did) hunt opening weekend..... You just added up to 30% more guys in the woods on opening weekend as compared to when it was zone 4.

That is a HUGE increase of pressure on deer. Less free space, more people moving around. LOTS more deer killed.

And now here we are.

That didn't happen everywhere though. If you get down to the southern part of the state what happened was this. The addition of the muzzy season picked a few parties away from the slug season and there was a noticeable drop in the number of opening morning shots fired. We have always listened to the number of shots fired opening morning from the river valley and in the old split zone it was like a war zone. When the season was integrated there was a noticeable drop both in shots fired opening morning as well as trucks full of blaze orange driving around glassing fence lines and ditches. Fast forward and now the shots fired are farther between and the deer are not getting pushed as hard as guys are more content to put up a stand and wait for a deer to come to them knowing they have more than 2 days to do it.

But yeah, like I said above, a statewide split weekend season for all types of hunting including bow, rifle,muzzy and slug would certainly reduce the pressure on the deer and I would be for it as long as it was implemented for everyone.

[Jameson]

Would most deer hunters support going back to having a zone 4 with A and B seasons?

not this hunter, and I am not sure what most think. Seems a fairly 50/50 split in opinions from the people I hear discuss the issue, online and in person. Maybe more of the hardcore hunters that talk hunting online are in favor of A/B seasons, but more of the weekend warriors are in favor of the 9 day season.

One thing that has changed other than the deer herd is how hunters are hunting now with more days to be afield, less deer drives. Should added hunter safety be a factor in determining deer season length?

[creepworm]

Should added hunter safety be a factor in determining deer season length?

This statement confuses me for 2 reasons.

1. Are you saying the season should remain 9 days because you believe drives are dangerous?

2 . If deer hunter safety is a big concern then either we should have no season and let government "sharpshooters" take the correct amount of deer, or at the very least ban stand hunting. When comparing the amount of hunters hurt by falling out of a deer stand to hunters hurt during drives, you will see which method puts hunters at greater risk.

Also, archery hunting should be limited to a week or less if hunter safety is a concern. The more time spent afield the more likely an injury is to occur. By shortening all seasons and having them occur simultaneously, hunters would be at the least risk due to shortening the amount of time afield.