Earn A Buck

[Musky Buck]

Right on stick and string, but some of course buy a tag if they can for any able bodied relative filling them first and there own last if at all, how do you police that ? Party hunting is probably because you can't enforce it or I don't know, I agree you shoot it you tag it, there are just lots of hunters who don't want to be done at 7:00 opening day, they want to continue on and see what else is in the area and almost prevent others from having success by shooting additional deer and bucks. Nighttime is when the deer criminals come out as well to poach, drag it to the barn, get someone elses tag on their deer etc. It is so hard to police deer hunting.

[96trigger]

Quote:

Exactly. Get rid of the party hunting! You shoot it, you tag it.

I have party hunted almost all my life, and for the life of me, can't see why we need it now. It used to be nice to shoot a doe when their was a lottery and you never got drawn for a tag, but now its working in reverse. People are using it to shoot multiple bucks, not a doe, and it is not helping the deer (buck) population. I don't know how they would enforce it, but I really think that one should only be able to harvest one buck a year, I think then more people would be happy and we would start seeing a few more bucks if joe-blow had to let that one pass because his buddy wouldn't give him his tag. How on earth would you enforce that???????

[96trigger]

Wow, MuskyB, you and I were thinking the same thing, at the same time. SPOOKY...............

[Musky Buck]

Very spooky, I hear ya trigger, it is working ...backwards. I know some guys who have taken 5 or 6 bucks a season alledgedly "party hunting", I even know some who if they can't hunt anymore leave their tags for the rest of the group to use, lots of registration stations don't question a thing or they have family members or friends they try to help out in regards to registering. Pretty sad. but true little Metallica reference

[Wanderer]

What say you 'bout the hunters that travel to different areas of the state? Say, North, Central, and South. Different hunts with different groups of people.

Tag does where legal and a buck if lucky. Leave one with the party who only hunts that locale for one season and didn't get much.

On to the next hunt.

Is this an example of party hunting that some would like to see end?

Just asking....

I'm thinking the anti party hunting people are thinking of the other people who happen to have the hot spot and take more deer out of one concentrated area than some would consider acceptable.

So, again, what about one here - one there?

[96trigger]

I'm not saying that its wrong to do it, its legal so there isn't much we can do about it. All I'm saying is that I don't think that was the intention of party hunting. I think that if you shoot a buck, you should be done shooting bucks in Minnesota no matter where the area. You want to shoot 4 more does, go ahead.

There is a minority voice that is screaming for things like EAB, Antler restrictions, and buck lotterys. Maybe if some people would quit shooting 2,3 or 4 bucks a year, there might be more that live to maturity and less of the "we need trophy regulation" idiology.

[BuckKiller]

i agree with three out of the five... keep party hunting no earn a buck and i could live with the antler restriction.

[BLACKJACK]

Having the rifle season the same as WI, could impact numbers of hunters in the woods.

And my guess would be that people are going to choose WI over MN in a lot of cases.

So in essence you lower deer hunter numbers in MN, and I dont think the DNR is going to flirt with that issue.

Less hunters and less competition sounds good to me!!!

[BLACKJACK]

There is a minority voice that is screaming for things like EAB, Antler restrictions, and buck lotterys.

Exactly!! Luckily the DNR has done surveys of all hunters and realize that the majority of hunters just want to see deer and enjoy the hunt with friends and relatives.

The DNR has a thankless job, the state has such varied habitat, from black farmland in the SW to big forests in the North, its implossible to please everybody. At least by doing surveys they can please the majority.

[jkcmj]

I have and do party hunt, but we are in a intensive zone so I have tagged all 4 does I shot this year. In our party, we all usually tag our own, since you shoot it, you butcher it. Also in our party, no one would allow you to shoot their buck for them. That is everyone's big hope is a shot at a bruiser buck. We usually drove the woods after sitting the 1st couple days, but then the last few years our success has been great just sitting and we never chase deer into the neighbor's guns like we used to. It does take some of the excitement out of the sit, but the shots are cleaner and you have time to judge the deer and let the little bucks pass.

[slimngrizzly]

The state will not want to risk loosing revenue or taking away opportunity from hunters. The spineless DNR will not risk any getting people fired up any more than they have to.

Where I am I KNOW Earn-a-Buck would decimate the population in short time! EAB is desinged for killing numbers of deer no matter what. Lots of Button bucks would be killed and too many does in area that dont have them to begin with.

EAB or antler restrictions are going to take away opportunity from hunter. The elimination of party hunting would still give hunters the freedom to shoot "THE DEER" they want! In areas with large enough populations, bonus or intensive tags could be available.

Next move the season out of the rut, to prevent the overharvest of young bucks, and still you would not be taking any opportunity from anyone. Mature bucks would be tougher... until all of a sudden theres more of them!

I believe there are a few small steps the state could make to HUGELY increase the quality of the deer herd without taking ANY opportunity from the hunters!!!

[Brownie77]

Why do all the states around us have huge bucks taken every year, and are know for this? No one seeks MN as a great white tail state. The EAB is a great idea to increase the number of big bucks that will be around in a few years. There are tons of deer just because you do not see them does not mean they are not there. How many mink do you see in a year or yotes but they are there in huge numbers. I spend a lot of time roaming the woods during rifle/shotgun season, and have all kinds of people telling me there are no deer around and I will see 15 in a day, heck I watched a nice buck run right behind a guy this year.

[Musky Buck]

Brownie, we have huge bucks taken every year, we just don't glamorize them on the Outdoor Channel. The average hunters in our state do not have the amount of acreage needed to be as selective as they should be. The outdoor news last week had about 5 boone and crockett bucks from Mn this year and that is a tiny sampling. Most hunting parties keep it pretty quiet as to what they are taking buck wise. I'm glad they don't seek MN for whitetails and lease up huge tracts of land for their shows. What do you determine to be a huge buck ? My hunting group routinely takes 3-4 200+ pounders per season and of course the racks on them are exellent. So do many other hunting groups in our area. Some areas of MN aren't able to or going to produce like that, I'm just fortunate to be in a great area where almost everyone practices go/grow, let the little ones go so they can grow. EAB would fail in many areas of MN, if you hold that belief get the neighbors and your group together to do it without regulation, we already have many trophy animals in our area, how many can an area hold, we already have them. I think we are seeing that some pockets of the state have a lot of deer and other areas have way fewer, the way I know they are way fewer is in the snow when they are herded up, deer tracks don't lie and they can't eat tamarac needles all winter, in my 25 years of experience our numbers are definitely in check in the areas I scout most often, if they are too thick you guys need to buy extra permits and help control it, 1 doe is equal to 3 deer because of mild winters they often have twins. If you are seeing 15 in a day brownie you should be probably shooting some of those. I certainly am not trying to rip ya Brownie, I think I'm getting at MN is diverse and what is going on in the bluff country of winona to the CRP of Marshall and edgerton vs. the arrowhead vs the Kittson county areas and the farm land etc. and everything in between is so different, isn't that why we used to have 4 zones and different season lengths and doe application stuff etc. Anyway, I took 1 of our 200 pounders, a 14 pointer Nov. 9th, my uncle Dale took a 10 pointer weighing in at 221 pounds. Because of work I haven't found out what we got the last 7days, I'll find out on Thanskgiving. It's letting the young bucks grow, the ones that are already physically on the ground, we also have a trophy rack/200 pound dressed minimum or you are done hunting with us, we all agree and we don't break the code,we haven't had any rookie hunters in our group for several years, they could take what they wished, now with muzzleloading we'll take some antlerless deer out of the flock.

[Wanderer]

I'm not saying that its wrong to do it, its legal so there isn't much we can do about it. All I'm saying is that I don't think that was the intention of party hunting. I think that if you shoot a buck, you should be done shooting bucks in Minnesota no matter where the area. You want to shoot 4 more does, go ahead.

I don't necessarily disagree completely with "shoot one buck in the state and you're done shooting bucks". It should save some for next year or for someone else this year. But party hunting has been around for a loooong time in MN. I feel the DNR realizes (contradictory to their registration stats) there is a minority of hunters that shoot the majority of deer consistently. My guess is they feel it is worthwhile to keep the law in place to achieve their management goals primarily and allow more hunters to enjoy some venison secondarily.

FWIW, I have crossed tagged bucks. I hunt until the end of December usually so its nice to have an open buck tag in case I see that deer of my lifetime when I am out solo and have no other legitimate party tags to fill. Occasionally I do not take any buck in a given year even if I see some, but usually I stick to one buck, then if given the opportunity at something great later in the season, I can take advantage of it. That's when I favor the party hunting priveledge.

I do realize the angst toward shooting anything and everything with antlers though.

Good luck, all.

[Musky Buck]

I wish earn a buck meant letting immature bucks walk by, if so I have earned a buck 80 some times over.

[Tipup101]

Earn a buck thats crazy. I live in sothern mn and there is more does getting killed this week than I ever seen. I've talked to guys who have let small bucks walk so the could shoot the big doe behind them. There is plenty of guys like me that love shooting does and letting small bucks walk. You want bigger bucks start putting more money into your property. Mineral blocks, food plots, and fertilize your natural food sources. It's proven Buffalo county has much higher mineral count in there soil than here. Thats a big reason why they have bigger deer. Thats my two cents.

[Sportland_Bait]

I would love to see the deer quality improve over the entire state. I think that there are pockets in which landowners or hunters have managed the herd for quality. I am all for that, but I am not so sure that earn a buck would work all that well in Minnesota for a variety of reasons. I think that the easiest management change that would benefit trophy hunters would be to move the gun season back a week or two. I also think that it is a little overboard to allow 4-5 bonus tags in some areas for hunters. Maybe an early doe only gun season is the answer in those areas.

Jason

[Burnham]

where i hunt in wisconsin is earn a buck and has been for 3 years. there are no more freakin does because of this. this weekend i saw one stinkin deer and it was an 8 pointer i drooled over but couldnt shoot. i do think it is a good idea, but can only be around an area for 1 year as it really has killed our doe population

[WaveWacker]

I rifle hunt in an area that has the early antlerless season (tons of deer right). I shot a buck on the second day. Didn't see a doe Sat. Sun or Mon. So my .02 is no to earn a buck.

[bigbucks]

What you have to realize if MN went to EAB it wouldn't be thw whole state it would be in the really high population areas. A lot of WI isn't EAB either. I'm sure just like here there's parts of the same management areas that have too many deer, while another part doesn't have enough. All habitat isn't created equal & all areas aren't pressured the same.

I'm guessing there will be less early antlerless areas in MN next fall, as I know some of them the population is definitely not out of control at this point. I've hunted it the last two years, but it could go away around here as far as I'm concerned. I enjoyed it, but I don't think the numbers really support it any more.

[skee0025]

Our Wisconsin area is an Earn a Buck. In the 3 years Ive been hunting there i've seen "deer" registered that still had spots so the shooter could get their Earn a buck stickers and this year listened in as 3 young hunters planned on where to dump the small does/fawns they took because all they wanted was the ability to shoot a buck come rifle season. IMO earn a buck is not worth it, they will also pick up and register road kill as long as it hasnt been marked by the DOT. No the DNR wasnt called..Their parents were......

[Wanderer]

That's too bad Skee.

I would have a hard time calling those hunyucks "hunters".

Your story just brings up a point I thought about posting: With the number of registration stations that couldn't care less if you had a deer in your truck when you register one, what's to prevent people from burning a $15 doe tag on a mythical deer that doesn't exist to get an EAB sticker?

I realize that against the law - but thats never happened before....

[archerystud]

I just got back from my first WI hunt and I was hunting in an EAB area. I thought it was great. The number of large bucks I saw on trucks was incredible. I shot my doe on Sat night. So our party was set for buck hunting and we didn't go over for the early season doe hunt.

If everyone starts shooting at does they will get harder to shoot. Just ask a lot of guys in the Twin Cities where you have so many tags. Those does smarten up after they get shot at. It was the same way over in WI.

[candiru]

I suppose it would help get the road kill cleaned up. In Wis. there are also a fair number of hunters that will not shoot a doe. They were brought up that way and just will not shoot one. I believe it is more of a tool to increase doe harvest than grow big bucks.

[skee0025]

We have taken 3 Doe's since October and am heading back over tonight. I saw many Bucks in truck beds but didnt see any while out. There was still to much corn standing, but when I was leaving tuesday morning the farmers were out in force taking it down. Maybe this weekend will be better. I'd like to get a buck but theres always room for another doe in the freezer.