Moving the Firearm Season

[lichen fox]

to answer your question on the "drive"... yes we patterned alot of deer coming out of that river bottom...but as "I think" I mentioned...they were hitting the edge of cover well after dark...my son lives right on this stretch of river and his father in law farms the land around it...small narrow river woods you mainly have to hunt right at the edge when bowhunting late in the season and when the deer aren't coming out until after dark...push em out during the day!! we make drives quite often in late season situations like this, other times... you just figure em out...and wait...you don't always get them on the first sit...sometimes it' 6-8-10 or more trys. As for the number of nice bucks? There's always some nice bucks in these areas...and some of the really big ones are almost always noctournal...even during the peak of the rut... you may spot em a time or two in august and september but once they're pressured it becomes a whole different game...our group and "most" of the groups in this area usually pass on smaller bucks unless it's a new hunter's first crack at a buck...I've bowhunted 40 years and we have always had nice bucks in these counties even though we didn't really start practicing let-em-grow until about 5 years ago...

[Musky Buck]

Thanks Lichen I'll send ya my t-cam pics and you can send me yours in a reply, MB

[Shoot2Kill]

The top 3 are south of MN. Don't deer go into rut when the temp drops? If deer go into rut when it gets colder therefor those states are hunting the rut also. I believe I saw on a hunting show they were hunting in Alabama in January and it was the peak of the rut.

What?

The past 2 years it has been the same temp if not colder in Iowa than MN during the rut (our gun season)...the peak rut in those states is NOT in December.

[Musky Buck]

James Walleye, I agree with you very much. The bucks cruising 24 hours a day is the way it seemed to me 10 years ago, the past 10 years I haven't seen much of this and we are hunting the rut. In the past 10 years all but 1 buck was a loner for me. I've noticed more hunters, less huntable land, and because of pressure way more nocturnal critters. Many of these bucks are staying bedded down with a doe and cruising mainly at night and I don't have an easy answer for that. A good question is think about your hunting ground right now. Do you have any deer on it ? A lot on it ? Any bucks probably on it ? Does the snow send the deer someplace else ? If the rifle season is moved about a dozen of us are going to start bow hunting and put an end to the guys we let bow hunt now.

[Shoot2Kill]

Help me out here. I was told yesterday that Iowa basically has no doe bag limit for residents the license costs $1 apiece and residents can harvest two bucks. The same source has a friend that is a professional hunter who owns 1 section and manages the adjacent section. He only has had to harvest 170" -200" bucks the past couple years on this land, but he harvested close to 100 does last year. If this is true, is this what we want deer hunting to look like?

Not all of Iowa has that many deer - the bonus antlerless tags are on a county by county basis and are $11 each. Yes, residents can harvest 2 bucks, 3 if you are a landowner, and even more if you participate in urban hunts and qualify. It is not uncommon for some sections of the state for people to shoot dozens of does every season, but I'm guessing your number of 100 might be a bit much, but who knows.

You ask...if this is true, is this what we want deer hunting to look like? Let me ask you this - do you enjoy seeing only a handful of deer ALL season, or like some groups - zero? Have you ever hunted where you have MULTIPLE bucks in front of you chasing does? Have you ever hunted when you had 13 bucks in one field in late December out in broad daylight feeding with half of them being wall hangers? Have you ever had it where you sat down in a stand and the deer movement was NONSTOP all day and you never got bored or even thought of looking at your watch? I had many hunts like those when I grew up in Iowa...if you haven't had a hunt like those then you don't know what your missing so I could see how you could ask if you want deer hunting to be like that.

This past weekend my old roommate from college saw an estimated 60 deer on opening day of Iowa shotgun season....passed 7 different bucks opening day from the same stand and shot a 170 on Sunday morning. I could see how one wouldn't want deer hunting to become like that and continue on with hoping you'll actually see ONE let alone have it be a shooter. Who would actually enjoy being able to shoot more than 1 buck a year too, dang that would be awful.

[Musky Buck]

I think population in Iowa is a part of their success as well as having large tracts of land and farms, the old MN farms are a thing of the past or becoming that. MN has a population of 5.2 million people, Iowa has almost 3 million. That means more towns, more people, more homes, more black top and asphalt. Throw in is it 84,000 square miles of water ten acres or larger. Our land is split up into such tiny parcels for the most part. What is a 40 ? Is it 440 yards by 440 yards and many times there will be 3-4 guys trying to rifle hunt it. There are so many factors involved that it is just the way it is and change will be tough to come by here in MN. I would add that I think Iowa has extremely fertile soil, the entire state has a rich nutrient base where Mn is a mess soil wise.

[Musky Buck]

How many hunting type ranch set ups exist in Iowa and what's the average acreage ? For that matter how many acres in MN are tied up in the ranch experience and what's the average acreage ?

[Musky Buck]

Trying to get the answer to that is they sure don't like telling you the "price".

[Black_Bay]

James I think you misunderstood. I was saying that it’s harder to hunt a deer that eats, sleeps, and poos in the same spot than it is to hunt a deer that has to move from a bedding area to a feeding area. For example it’s harder to hunt deer when corn is still standing in the fields. I wasn’t comparing rutting movements to feeding movements.

Bear55 wrote: “Many of those states and provinces (not all) that have rifle season during the rut have a much lower populations and hunter numbers than Minnesota.”

Ah good point. Hunting pressure is really what’s at issue. More people hunting more bucks, of all sizes, killed. Like Boozehound wrote “…last year Wiscosin's buck to licensed hunter ratio was 19.5%, whereas Minnesota's buck to hunter ratio was 16.7%. Looks like more buck were shot with a later season, hmmm.” Again, it doesn’t matter when a forkhorn is shot. Dead is dead in November or December. You guys are right in that to get bigger bucks we, as hunters, need to pass on the smaller bucks. Changing the season won’t do that. Antler restrictions are the only real way to do it.

The following exert is from Quality Deer Management Fall 2006. It is an article from Marrett Grund PhD. Mn DNR Farmland Wildlife Populations and Research Group.

What Influences Buck Harvests?

A very common question that I get from Minnesota deer hunters is “Why do we hunt deer during the rut?” Hunters are occasionally concerned that bucks are more vulnerable to being harvested during the rut because they are most active at that time. Research studies have shown that daily and seasonal movement patterns of bucks will be the greatest at this time of year, so these hunters are correct. However, most deer biologists will say that season timing has relatively little to do with buck harvests. Most deer biologists will say that hunter pressure and deer density are the two main factors that determine how many bucks are killed. I decided to briefly look into this by obtaining data from Midwestern deer hunting states and performing some simple analyses.

Conclusions

I will be the first one to say that this is not a perfect study design to look at what influences buck harvest densities. A better approach would be to take several study areas, alter each variable and examine what effect manipulating those variables had with buck harvest densities. However, this general approach does provide results that are logical. In order for buck harvests to occur, the bucks first have to be produced. Therefore, we should expect a relationship between deer densities and buck harvest densities. Using similar logic, for buck harvests to occur, the bucks have to be killed by hunters. Therefore, if deer densities are high and there are hunters willing to kill deer, we should also expect a relationship between hunter densities and buck harvest densities. Buck harvest densities were not really affected by season timing. What these analyses suggest is that Iowa, for example, had the latest start date, but it also had the lowest hunter density and lowest deer density. Illinois had the lowest buck harvest density out of all the Midwestern states. One would assume that the season start date was sometime in December, after Iowa’s start date, if there was a relationship between buck harvests and season timing. If Iowa contacted me and asked me to help them change their buck harvest density, I would tell them to first look at changing their deer and hunter densities. I would not tell them to alter the season timing because there does not appear to be significant relationship between season timing and buck harvest densities in Midwestern deer herds.

From a very well respected whitetailed deer biologist :” there does not appear to be significant relationship between season timing and buck harvest densities in Midwestern deer herds.”

You guys are right in that to get bigger bucks we, as hunters, need to pass on the smaller bucks. Changing the season won’t do that. Antler restrictions are the only real way to do it.

[Shoot2Kill]

I think population in Iowa is a part of their success as well as having large tracts of land and farms, the old MN farms are a thing of the past or becoming that.

[Shoot2Kill]

How many hunting type ranch set ups exist in Iowa and what's the average acreage ? For that matter how many acres in MN are tied up in the ranch experience and what's the average acreage ?

No idea...I would guess far more acres are tied up in Iowa because people actually want to come there and deer hunt which leaves a lot less land for the average Joe who still seems to be able to get out and see more deer than the average Joe does in MN. You'd be hard pressed to find an Iowa deer hunter that said they saw only a handful of deer during their entire gun season even with much of the ground tied up.

[Bear55]

Black Bay you may be right but getting antler restrictions passed is going to be much harder than moving the season back or eliminated party hunting. I still feel moving the season out of the rut is going to save more of the younger bucks. Wisconsin could have a higher % buck harvest because they have that many more bucks than us. If only some of these guys could see the light and even if half of the guys out there passed the little bucks I think we would see a dramatic change.

[BeezeHound]

IMO, selective harvest, antler restriction, etc. would seem to be the most logical way to increase the numbers of mature bucks. If younger bucks are less vulnerable after the rut I'm assuming that means they aren't moving much. Well, what do party hunters do when the deer aren't moving? Make 'em move. Like many have said in previous posts, the same fork walking by the stand unpreassured during the rut will by the same fork running through the woods when people are out pushing the deer around because they aren't seeing anything in the "post rut".

[Big Dave2]

Originally Posted By: InTheSchool

Help me out here. I was told yesterday that Iowa basically has no doe bag limit for residents the license costs $1 apiece and residents can harvest two bucks. The same source has a friend that is a professional hunter who owns 1 section and manages the adjacent section. He only has had to harvest 170" -200" bucks the past couple years on this land, but he harvested close to 100 does last year. If this is true, is this what we want deer hunting to look like?

Not all of Iowa has that many deer - the bonus antlerless tags are on a county by county basis and are $11 each. Yes, residents can harvest 2 bucks, 3 if you are a landowner, and even more if you participate in urban hunts and qualify. It is not uncommon for some sections of the state for people to shoot dozens of does every season, but I'm guessing your number of 100 might be a bit much, but who knows.

You ask...if this is true, is this what we want deer hunting to look like? Let me ask you this - do you enjoy seeing only a handful of deer ALL season, or like some groups - zero? Have you ever hunted where you have MULTIPLE bucks in front of you chasing does? Have you ever hunted when you had 13 bucks in one field in late December out in broad daylight feeding with half of them being wall hangers? Have you ever had it where you sat down in a stand and the deer movement was NONSTOP all day and you never got bored or even thought of looking at your watch? I had many hunts like those when I grew up in Iowa...if you haven't had a hunt like those then you don't know what your missing so I could see how you could ask if you want deer hunting to be like that.

This past weekend my old roommate from college saw an estimated 60 deer on opening day of Iowa shotgun season....passed 7 different bucks opening day from the same stand and shot a 170 on Sunday morning. I could see how one wouldn't want deer hunting to become like that and continue on with hoping you'll actually see ONE let alone have it be a shooter. Who would actually enjoy being able to shoot more than 1 buck a year too, dang that would be awful.

What you are talking about here is having a way larger overall deer herd, not just mature bucks. I think that a deer herd that size here would create more problems then it would solve.

With that many deer, how would you like to be a farmer trying to eek out a living and the deer are eating a large % of your crop before you can even harvest it? My former boss tried to get anyone who would listen to hunt his land in Wisconsin that he farmed and managed for pheasants, because the deer were eating him out of house and home.

How about as a homeowner trying to keep the deer from ravishing your plants and garden. People all over already complain about this.

How many more car/deer accidents would there be?

Just remember that we hunters exist to keep the herd in control and there are a lot more non-hunters than hunters. They see us as a necessary evil to keep the deer herd in check. If we don't want to do that job they will just tun to other alternatives.

[00rowe]

Iowa's landscape creates the illusion of many more deer than there is. With much of the open land in corn throughout the summer, you don't see many deer, however after the corn harvest all the deer are forced into river bottoms and small lots of timber, which is what you see when you are watching hunting shows on TV and there are 30 deer piling into a field. I read that the average size of an Iowa farm is 3000 acres, 90% of land in Iowa is paid for, and if you figure land is worth an average of 5000/acre I don't feel sorry for any of them. The "poor" farmers managed to keep there farms when corn was below $2/bushel for many years, so I'm guessing they have done fine the past few years with corn prices. Deer yarding up in a small cornfield can be disastrous, but that's why most farmers in high deer density areas make sure there corn is out before the snow flies, even if it means drying it.

Mike

[fish flop 20]

First, I haven't read all of this thread. So, maybe this has been mentioned already. I think all things considered having the season spanning the Nov. rut makes sense. Question, how many hunters would have been out there the last few days or even the last two weeks hunting? With the temps. the way they have been and tend to be at this time of year, maybe it would be a good way to limit the number of hunters. Is that what is desired? Enjoy the outdoors.

[96trigger]

Quote:

IMO, selective harvest, antler restriction, etc. would seem to be the most logical way to increase the numbers of mature bucks. If younger bucks are less vulnerable after the rut I'm assuming that means they aren't moving much. Well, what do party hunters do when the deer aren't moving? Make 'em move. Like many have said in previous posts, the same fork walking by the stand unpreassured during the rut will by the same fork running through the woods when people are out pushing the deer around because they aren't seeing anything in the "post rut".

You are combining deer drives with party hunting, they are different and shouldn't be lumped together. Party hunting shouldn't be allowed for bucks. One buck, and your done, that alone would help the buck population, but would be very hard to enforce. Also, lets look at the land and terrain of Minnesota versus Iowa. Iowa has a relatively flat landscape and is mostly agricultural. Minneosta is half agricultural, mixed with rolling hills and bluffs, the other, northern half is, big woods. Where are you going to see more deer, glassing a 50 acre picked corn field in iowa, or Minnesotas 10 acre corn field. Where on the other side of bluff there is another 10 acres, half the deer in one half the deer in the other. You will never see all the deer at once. I often wonder how many deer are on just around the corner, or in the fields on the other side of the bluff, If there was only one big field, I might see 20 deer a night.

[jltimm]

fish flop 20 wrote: how many hunters would have been out there the last few days or even the last two weeks hunting? With the temps.

If your actually a hunter you would be out there no matter what the temp. Most peole have such fancy stands now, they just turn there heater on and shut the windows.For those people that can't take the cold, stay home or start bowhunting.

[96trigger]

Two years ago, it was 0 degrees during the 3B season. It didnt' seem to slow it down much. I just remember how cold it was. I went out last Sunday for the Muzzy Season, O degrees, again, it was cold, first time I can ever remember the cold coming through the whole sole of my boot, not just at the toes. I think you might lose some, but for many around here, we already hunt towards the end of November.

[james_walleye]

In the last 5 years its been more the norm opening morning to see 5 or 6 bucks cruise by me in the first hour of season. We always see young bucks cruising during the midday during the slug season. If our season was not in the rut i seriously doubt that seeing 5 or 6 bucks in the first hour would be the norm. Like I said the bottom line for big bucks, you have to get people to voluntarily pass the young bucks first and foremost. I realize this after hunting some new permission that i have now. Its a good area, people in the area let young bucks walk.

[BeezeHound]

Trigger, I'm not sure about other parties, but I know in my group everyone keeps their buck tags for themselves, no one is allowed to shoot another buck for somebody else. It's a pretty common practice within groups that my friends hunt in also so from the majority of the people that I know, the buck party hunting is a frowned upon. I suppose party hunting and deer drives shouldn't have been lumped together like I had mentioned, but thats pretty much the norm around my area. Works good for me because all the deer get pushed into our woods and head right for a 20 acre thick patch we have designated as a sanctuary where no one is allowed to step foot unless trailing a deer, and then after dark only.

[Black_Bay]

Black Bay you may be right but getting antler restrictions passed is going to be much harder than moving the season back or eliminated party hunting. I still feel moving the season out of the rut is going to save more of the younger bucks. Wisconsin could have a higher % buck harvest because they have that many more bucks than us. If only some of these guys could see the light and even if half of the guys out there passed the little bucks I think we would see a dramatic change.

Actually maybe not as hard as one might think. Pennsylvania is in a similar situation we in Minnesota hve found ourselves in. Both states have long traditions of deer hunting and large deer populations that exceed DNR population goals. They actually have statewide antler restrictions. Read through the Pennsylvania Game Commission site http://www.pgc.state.pa.us/pgc/cwp/browse.asp?a=465&bc=0&c=70124. There are quite a few parallels to Minnesota. BTW they have a December deer season too.

The first step should be at least to stop buck party hunting. The next should be antler restrictions. Something like 3 points per side in Zone 1 and 4 points in the rest of the state since deer mature earlier in the farm areas. One exception I would make would be that kids under a certain age (14?) could take any buck. The exception would address the hunter recuitment retention issues the DNR is worried about.

[Shoot2Kill]

First, I haven't read all of this thread. So, maybe this has been mentioned already. I think all things considered having the season spanning the Nov. rut makes sense. Question, how many hunters would have been out there the last few days or even the last two weeks hunting? With the temps. the way they have been and tend to be at this time of year, maybe it would be a good way to limit the number of hunters. Is that what is desired? Enjoy the outdoors.

If you want to hunt bad enough, you'll go. Iowa's 1st shotgun season started last Saturday and the 2nd starts tomorrow...they have the same temps there as we do here and there are still thousands of hunters in the woods. I spent many below zero days shotgun hunting in December in Iowa...that's the way it is. December of 2005 - 16 inches of snow opening morning of 1st shotgun season there and it was negative 15 and the woods were full of hunters. I'd say if the weather kept people out of the woods...good! Maybe more little bucks would live another year that way.

[Bear55]

Originally Posted By: Bear55

Black Bay you may be right but getting antler restrictions passed is going to be much harder than moving the season back or eliminated party hunting. I still feel moving the season out of the rut is going to save more of the younger bucks. Wisconsin could have a higher % buck harvest because they have that many more bucks than us. If only some of these guys could see the light and even if half of the guys out there passed the little bucks I think we would see a dramatic change.

Actually maybe not as hard as one might think. Pennsylvania is in a similar situation we in Minnesota hve found ourselves in. Both states have long traditions of deer hunting and large deer populations that exceed DNR population goals. They actually have statewide antler restrictions. Read through the Pennsylvania Game Commission site http://www.pgc.state.pa.us/pgc/cwp/browse.asp?a=465&bc=0&c=70124. There are quite a few parallels to Minnesota. BTW they have a December deer season too.

The first step should be at least to stop buck party hunting. The next should be antler restrictions. Something like 3 points per side in Zone 1 and 4 points in the rest of the state since deer mature earlier in the farm areas. One exception I would make would be that kids under a certain age (14?) could take any buck. The exception would address the hunter recuitment retention issues the DNR is worried about.

I certainly wouldn't be sad if we did have antler restrictions even though I'm not sure if I would go that route myself. I had read on another HSOforum that everone was very upset with antler restrictions over there the first year or two but now everyone seems to love the great hunting and no one is complaining.

[Big Dave2]

I'm just curious and probably wrong, but if you had an antler restriction of 3 points on either side wouldn't you still be killing all deer 6 points and over? Would they still have a chance to grow into these monsters that everyone wants. Trophy hunters would still be complaining that everyone needs to let the 6 pointers grow up to be 12 pointers.