9 Day Season-Old Zone 4 hunters only.

[Musky Buck]

I'm sure this may have been a post before, but, how do the old zone 4 hunters like the 9 day season ? Did you prefer the split, allowing the deer a little time to forget about the first weekend and for some it means a lot more hunters in your area where it split us up some although multi-zone and all-season put the hunters back in the tree. Personally, I liked the old zone 4, like almost having 2 opening day Saturday's. I've been calling the 9 day..... Nocturnal Nine Day, they seem way more nocturnal in my area then a few years back.

[Meat-Run]

Musky Buck,

you might have a point regarding the nocturnal but it just so happens to be a full moon this past week so the timing on the full moon, pressue, and corn doesn't help the cause. In a perfect world I think some time off in between the weekends might be a great solution to the pressure and let the deer continue there normal fall rut rutine. Who knows but I do like the option of 9 days to hunt, unfortunelty it hasn't helped us fill our tags any easier.

mr

[archerystud]

I preferred it in my area of zone 4.

I do think there are getting to be other factors to consider as to why the deer weren't moving. I'd love to fly over a couple of the big corn fields and know what the deer count is in those corn fields right now.

[sticknstring]

Lets get a dozen guys together and put half up on post and push the field... cheaper than flying over it!

[buckeyes08]

I like the 9 day hunt. In the one area that I hunt the guy next to us are running around opening morning by 8 and pushing the deer deeper in the thick stuff. I also notice that the ones that did a lot of drives don't do it. It help move deer around. The nice part about the 9 day if you take 1/2 days off during the week the deer are moving. This past week I didn't get out on time I think it was 2:30 or 3:00 and I notice the had move though about 2hr before, so I don't think the 9 day is that big of a deal. Plus a lot of corn still in the fields don't help.

[Stratosman]

I hate it, it eliminated my hunting season, the landowners and a group always hunted A, we hunted B, now they hunt the entire season. I think it's a crock of you know what. Luckily I can hunt another area, but what if I couldn't.

[james_walleye]

I know a ton of people who dealt with this same scenario. Alot of people did hunt both weekends as the DNR said, but they would hunt 1 piece of property the 2 day season because the landowners hunted the 4 day. When the 4 day came around they hunted another property where the landowners had already hunted the 2 day. Now both sets of landowners hunted both weekends and all these hunters were left out.

[Jameson]

I hunted up north sat-wed then started hunting old zone 4 on Thursday. Got in the stand about 2 pm. at about 3 pm I watched a buck work a scrape 120 yards away before presumably laying down out of my view. I had hunted hard up north sat-wed and not seen a buck, now one hour into my sit there is one in front of me. Thankfully at the end of the day my shot was good enough when he decided to walk 25 yards from me broadside in a shooting lane. This was much to the dismay of my buddy who hunted the same land each day of the new 9 day season. He had seen deer, no doe tag, bucks at different times but always out of range. Through party hunting I continue hunting the rest of the season and our party continued to see does, but no more bucks. After not seeing the neighbor after he shot about 1:00 the last day I'm thinking he must have got a deer. This is about par with past years, the neighbor usually gets a buck, and we may or may not get one.

I liked the new 9 day season in place of the old split seasons.

Their were a few unique things this year. The corn was up for the first time in the 5 years we've hunted this land. I did not see some other neighbors that usually do deer drives. Not really sure if that is because of the corn or if perhaps they were not given permission to hunt some of their lands with the new 9 day season.

[Gissert]

I like it. It allows me to be more patient. I get to spend more time in the woods, and see lots of neat stuff. Drunken robins (feeding on fermented berries), muskrats, mink, beaver, fox, and a determined skunk draggin a set of deer lungs off a gut pile.

I got a nice, old doe on the third day, and that was my only decent chance.

The deer were just not moving much this season, probably for a number of reasons. Lack of pressure, tending phase of the rut, TONS of standing corn, high winds, and full moon.

I still have blackpowder season left to see more neat stuff.

[archerystud]

Gissert,

You can be patient?

I coach a youth hockey team so I won't be doing any muzzleloader. But I did stick my IR camera out over my food plots. It will be interesting to see what is still out there.

I agree with Gissert that there were other factors which caused the deer to not be moving. Deer counts seem down a bit in my area but not by a huge number.

[Musky Buck]

I certainly didn't have a problem with the way it is now, I took care of a 14 pointer on opening weekend Sunday, which if it was zone 4 would've got him either way. It just seems in some areas with a lot of hunters after the first 2 days you might as well call it a season if you aren't driving them out. The full moon is an issue every year. The corn crop was a bigger issue and the way our climate is, could be a problem here and there for years to come pending. The Lac Qui Parle goose refuge managers claim the goose migration through that area is about a month behind where it used to be, just read the outdoor news, makes me wonder if that's also having an influence on the corn moisture although it was pretty wet for awhile. There is no doubt in the area I hunt that deer numbers are way down from about 4-5 years ago yet we still can get up to 5 tags, those 5 tags and easy to hunt in weather amongst other things is why we have way fewer deer. We used to see between 20-40 deer in our field regularly, in the past 3 years we haven't seen more than 4 deer at a time in the same field, nothing has really changed so much they'd not be there, it is there isn't too many around.

[lawdog]

The weather and the corn really threw things into a strange pattern down here I think (Pipestone and Rock Counties). The wind opening day was just brutal and the deer went nowhere in it. The VAST fields of standing corn provided large sanctuaries too I'm sure. We struggled to kill two does over the weekend and my brother shot a very nice 10 point Thursday morning hunting by himself in a corn field. The kids did miss a couple chances the second weekend. Those three deer were all we managed to tag for 11 hunters. Our lowest total ever I'm sure.

[buckeyes08]

The thing is if you don't own land it can be hard to hunt so way not lease land from a landowner or hunt state land thiers a lot of them and have seen big deer on them. Ya hunting state land takes time to find the spot to hunt. I have privite land to hunt a 40, 75 and 130 acers and so other areas, but I still hunt state land and have seen just as big and as many deer on them. A lot of people don't have a clue how to hunt them pound the [PoorWordUsage] out of them hunt different areas or state land. So the 9 days is not big issue its how you plan your hunt.

[honker23]

I think was a bad idea. Same amount of land and twice as many hunters. This resulted in more pressure and more arguments over land. The corn saved the deer as well.

I think in long run this will discourage more hunters and they will quit hunting due to lack of land and not wanting to fight with others. Which is the opposite effect the dnr is after.

[jigging-matt]

I liked it. We thought we might have a little more pressure around us. We were hoping we would see more deer moving. Almost seemed like fewer hunters (Murray County). Our group still did good. If I wouldn't have filled my tag opening weekend not sure If I would have made it out more, but it was nice to no that the opportunity was there if I wanted it.