Could Minnesota be a better trophy state than we realize?

[lakevet]

How many Minnesota book bucks are there in homes, garages, shops or a box in the basement that have never been measured? I remember getting permission to hunt does on a farm in the central part of the state. When we pulled into the farm yard we saw antlers sticking above the pickup box of a parted out truck. The farmer said they would never be measured because he didn't want to be hassled by publicity. It is getting more popular to have them measured, but I know some hunters don't want the attention or it just doesn't matter to them. Some talk about pounds and points, other talk inches. It also seems that getting a buck scored is more popular in the southern part of the state, than up north. Using the number of book bucks to measure the trophy potential of a state may not be as accurate as we may think.

just food for thought

lakevet

[Jameson]

I would have to agree, and I am glad that not every record rack gets put in the record books. I know there is a rack in my family that would score 180+. The owner doesn't want it officially scored, or entered in any books.

[B. Amish]

I've only had one of my four measured and entered.

[mrklean]

Im sure some of the old boys out there have some big buck hidden some place, my guess there are tons of records out there in different states that no one knows about

[Bear55]

I'm sure there are many racks that have or never will be measured. I know of a few myself and I know if I ever shot a nice buck I would never enter it into the books. However this is also true for every other state. I would guess a certain % of the deer hunting population in every state just doesn't enter their deer so I don't think you can say our state is any different.

[alwaysonthemove]

I have three and I scored all three of them. 1 was entered cause the official scorer happened to be at the taxidermist. I feel that I just score my own for my own record. I do not really care to put them in the books.

[Bear55]

I would also say based on our history as the #1 B&C state for many years our state easily has the potential to be the best trophy state in North America once again. However until we turn things around our neighbors will keep shooting the big bucks and we will be stuck in neutral. If you look at the past 20 years that is when all the change has occured, Wisconsin and Iowa have rocketed past us. Now what to do they have that we don't? I would say nothing.

[Musky Buck]

In my fairly large family we have roughly 100 of our best racks on the wall and none have ever been scored, I personally have 14 and zero desire to score them. There are thousands of racks on walls that people haven't scored in MN and other states. Times really have changed, a new era of hunter is upon us. The small dairy farms are being bought up by hunters and many of the farms have had the land subdivided. I'm still plenty satisfied with the number of dandy bucks taken in my area every year, deal is I don't know anyone in our 4 sections of land that purposefully will dump an immature buck and that's a huge difference maker.

[Bear55]

You are one of the lucky ones Musky. The entire state could be that way if we all just let those little bucks walk.

Musky let me ask you, because everyone likes to use this line, do you feel like you have big bucks behind every tree and that they are too easy to kill? Does it mininish your experience?

[Musky Buck]

Not at all Bear, not easy to get and no way of knowing how the other hunters around me are doing. I am very lucky to not have to declare QDM or go-grow, it's just the way the groups around me are since I've known them for 30 years now, just none of us take any satisfaction in shooting a yearling buck, we would rather burn our tag trying to get a mature buck rather than have to fill it with a body. Each group police's there own meaning if they have a young hunter, they know when to tell the kid enough, time to be selective about the buck you hope to get. Having many large bucks around helps the younger hunter know to let the smaller ones go because that's how they get mature. The kids understand that. They certainly aren't behind every tree and they certainly are smart because they are generally 3 1/2 year olds and been through some bow,gun,muzzy,-winters and they get very nocturnal of course. It really is nice to drive around and see these brutes in velvet and know come season, might get a crack at one. Drive around other areas and see mainly small bucks and guess what, that is what other people most likely will get a crack at. I am certain that the last dozen mature bucks I've taken when they were yearlings me or someone passed him up and most likely as a 2 1/2 year old it was passed on. I think to where I hunt we have few if any outsider types that come into the area to hunt, these people live there year round and have for as long as they have been alive, meaning there is a lot of care and thought going into deer management in the area, I like musky fishing so like the 53 incher I caught last summer, I can only be thankful to the people that caught and released her successfully in the past. Same with the mature bucks I some years get, thankful to the hunters that scoped him as a young one and put the gun down and released him. Definitely not easy to get these big boys, but knowing they are around keeps a guy going.

[Musky Buck]

Now with 9 days vs. 6 and being able to muzzy after rifle really makes our area hunters selective. In other areas this might have a negative effect on the buck herd. MN is still a good buck state and don't be fooled by what you see on TV, the only MN deer show I've seen was Jackie Bushman way up in northern MN on a clear cut/powerline stand about 15 years ago. I was thinking maybe our seasons are too long, about 110 bow days, 9 or 16 rifle days, 16 musket days, but I realize that might save some deer, it probably wouldn't help the bucks to much. I'd like to see an end to cross tagging, although then those that wish to cheat that would buy the wife a license or a non or partial hunter, let her/him tag buck #1 and then allow the husband to hunt on for buck #2 so I'm not sure the answer. The key is age, bucks need to shed a few racks to get a nice rack. We apparently as a state have more hunters that need to get a buck because apparently we don't let enough of them get older. I think this a very complex issue and many factors are involved even more than the aformentioned.

[Cooter]

Quote:

Wisconsin and Iowa have rocketed past us. Now what to do they have that we don't? I would say nothing.

I would say in WI there is more good to great habitat, more deer overall. Toss in a gun season at the end of the rut and lots of QDM going on. Better hunters also Lots of factors involved, just my half cent.

[Musky Buck]

I think the habitat is better, we have half a state it seems with barely a tree on it. In areas such as that people can surround a section and drive every deer on it. We don't have a lot of large blocks of land, meaning a road boundary section might have 10 owners in it, lots of sharing of land payments and lots of rifle hunters then in the section who then feel they are owed a deer, especially a buck. We have old past mature forests in other areas, we have hundreds of thousands of our acres as water. Our land is too flat, when I drive into Wisc. Taylor Falls etc. and it's windy roads and hilly and these towns are like dropped right into tremendous deer habitat. We have some poor hunting philosophies engrained into our new era of deer hunting. There is much abuse of our tagging system. Iowa should take off, we have 2.5 million more bodies in MN than Iowa, put another 2.5 million people in Iowa and maybe some things would change. Iowa has larger tracts of land meaning more deer can survive the hunt because they don't travel off as much, here we have people putting 3 stands on 20 acres etc. Maybe in MN our run is done, I don't think Wisc. and Iowa copied our deer management plan too close when times were great. Some bad stuff from the glory years like did you limit out on walleyes, get a limit of ducks ? Get "your" deer, always get get get, too much measuring success by what's on your wall or on your camera, take that finger off the trigger when baby bucks come by and we'd have more and larger bucks, that is only one way to increase bigger better buck numbers, got to quit worrying well if he jumps that fence the neighbors are going to blast him. This is not directed at kids or the elderly, this is to the guy that yep got my buck again, 10 years in a row now and they are all 1 1/2 maybe never bred a doe even bucks.

[jerkbait]

And why shouldn't he shoot the younger buck on his side of the fence? It his(our) choice to shoot a smaller buck if we want. Why is it that because a % of people want larger racks that the other % that don't care a going to be forced to let the small bucks walk? And don't tell me we can just shoot a doe. I know 1 out of 4 years I may see a doe in my stand. I shoot what walks in front of me, I like to eat Venison, not chewey antlers.

[alwaysonthemove]

My belief is that mn. should ban cross tagging and give it a stiff fine. Party Hunting I am okay with other hunters making drives for other party members. Simple no cross tagging.

I also believe that if mn would open the gun season up to three weeks and stay out of the heart of the rut but try to include one weekend. so that the average hunter that is out for the one weekend has more time to select the deer they want. All to often the young buck walks by and gets blasted right away for they might not see another deer the following day. Then there done hunting for the year. Give them a little more time and they might shoot a fat doe instead. Granted this will not fit everyones views. But slowly but surely we will see larger racks.

Also a prime example is myself and my brothers. We grew up in the one weekend hunt. Shot everything that walked by. We started bowhunting and seeing what is actually out there. Bottom line we started letting small bucks walk cause we had three months to hunt. So in eight years time between us we have accumalated 8 trophies on the wall. Before that time there wasn't one shot. We also burn our buck tag if we do not get a trophy. We shoot doe fawns for the meat for they are the best when undisturbed and not stressed.

[Eskimoman]

Not at all. There are no big bucks in mn. I hunted 3 days 2hours each day this year. I walked 70 yards off of a road on public land and didn't see anything. The dnr is a bunch of lunatics that steal money.

There are lots of huge bucks in the state. People need to learn that shooting them is not easy and it takes some work. They are out there.

[DaveT]

Pertaining only to Iowa. The following are estimates, please correct me if I'm wrong. They have a deer herd estimated at 300,000. An annual harvest of 150,000.

MN has a deer herd of 1,000,000, an annual harvest of 250,000.

We kill 25 % of our deer each year, they kill 50 %. We kill 100,000 more deer than they do each year.

How do they do this and still put more bucks in the record books than we do?

[tunrevir]

Back to the original post. There was a picture on the wall of a large racked buck in Mikes bait this year and I inquired to when, where ect. I think it was either 14 points or something like that. Large palmated thick rack. The owner asked if the guy was going to score it and he said nope, mount it? nope. I got three or four bigger at home that I never had scored is supposedly what was said. Looking at the photo and the antler mass and spread I'd put that deer in the 165-175 inch class. I think there are more trophys out there then are published just because guys don't care to know the score or care to have the deer measured. I can respect the fact that they just want to enjoy the memory's of the hunt without outside publicity or interference. So, yes I believe there are alot of trophy animals out there that have never been discovered or scored. Just my .02.

Tunrevir~

[tonkapat]

nutrients + habitat = big racks. Some good dirt down there with lots of farmland. Not that many farms up north in minnesota. But I agree with eskimo man, put your time in and you have great opportunities here in mn.

[HNTNBUX]

AGE...AGE...AGE...There are big bucks in northern MN and farther north regardless of agriculture.

Lots of deer are never scored or put in the record books in my opinion. I wouldn't and haven't researched where the big bucks come from. I hunt where I can get permission, plain and simple. If after hunting it the best I can, I will know if there are bucks around that I can harvest. That is the way I like to research an area.

That being said I would think that statistically it should be about the same across the country with perhaps the exception being areas with lots of outfitters pushing to get their county in the books to draw more clients.

[Bear55]

nutrients + habitat = big racks. Some good dirt down there with lots of farmland. Not that many farms up north in minnesota. But I agree with eskimo man, put your time in and you have great opportunities here in mn.

I would argue our habitat is just fine. We must have something here to be the top buck state for all those years. I have also seen some massive bucks come out of northern Minnesota so lets not pretend we are handicapped in any way when it comes to nutrition or habitat. We just plain old shoot most our bucks before they are mature.

[Musky Buck]

1st off, I could care less what anyone chooses to shoot, my area is QDM by the hunting parties in our area, we don't need the DNR to help us produce big bucks. If enough hunters are selective in a given area those yearling bucks will be back or at least some of them the following fall. Look at how the Hillview QDM is going, leaving the yearlings and now every year they have better bucks on their ground. Biggest habitat change in my area, the death of the small dairy farm and a lot of that farmland is owned by big operator cash crop people who turn it black immediately after harvest. For curiosity sake, Iowa allows 6,000 non-resident licenses which are going way up in price and they are talking about doubling that number to 12,000, how many non-residents deer hunt the archery,rifle,musket seasons here in MN ? Not to imply that is any part of our problem. The Iowa thing to, realize MN is probably 2x larger than Iowa with almost double the population with 10 degree cooler weather on the average and Iowa is farmland, we have mass water and mass forests and diverse cover. But, MN produces lots of big mature bucks every year, we just don't care about a pat on the back or a picture in the paper, if you do thanks for sharing it, if you don't I understand that to. A buck simply needs to shed a few racks to get mature, we as a state don't allow enough of them to get there, right on Bear55.

[certified jumbo]

AGE = Biggest factor by far in producing big bucks on a yearly basis, of course this is just my opinion. You could have the best everything (genetics, nutrients, soil, water, swamp, woods, fields, whatever). If the deer doesn't see its 3rd year, you aren't ever gonna have a decent buck. Thats why I believe AGE is number 1.

[Musky Buck]

Bingo Jumbo- How did we have all these big bucks when food plots weren't up and running ? If you have food plots and still shoot immature bucks the cycle will never get broken, so age is right at the top, although it doesn't guarantee a huge rack in some locations or for some deer. ex. Friend shot a 220 pound 10 pointer near Hackensack, 4 1/2 year old. I shot a 10 pointer in Ottertail county that at 2 1/2 years of age had a larger rack then his. But, age is crucial, they need to shed a couple racks.

[lakevet]

Ask any biologist. Age is number one, number two and number three. That's all you need to do to a Minnesota buck. That's how NE MN could produce the bucks it has historically. Poor soils, big woods, swamps, long winters, wolves plus outstanding genetics plus TIME = bucks that first put Minnesota at #1. It may take a few years, but they will get big headgear AND big bodies. Next most important is good winter habitat ( thermal cover like cedar, balsam, spruce) to over winter effectively. Food plots, minerals, etc. started in states less blessed with trophy potential, mainly the SE US. It seems all those who first were telling us we need to buy their nutrition programs, minerals etc have marketed to us very effectively. Deer need just need time and winter thermal cover, not more groceries. Plant more cedar!

lakevet