Hi everyone! This will be my first year bowhunting whitetail and I'm using the to hopefully take a buck and let the rifle season fill the freezer. I'm wondering if anyone knows when bucks start losing their velvet in North Central Minnesota or if it depends on a different reason than date range what that might be. Thanks in advance!
Same boat as Sota. I'm near Princeton, MN. They should already be shed or will be shedding any day. I will find out this weekend if the bucks have in my area. I did see a small road kill buck near Becker without velvet this morning.
I'm in SW MN but I've got a handful without velvet. I've never seen a buck during bow season that has velvet yet.
I'd say nearly all bucks in MN will have shed by opener. I've only ever gotten a couple spikes on camera in velvet after opener. I believe they start around the beginning of Sept.
I went back and checked the history here at my place seems like this next couple of days it should be all done, latest velvet I have pics of is the 13th of September. I used to be nutty and log last buck shed, first buck shed, when velvet was off etc.
I do love the trail cam pictures at the feeder when the velvet is on the bucks will defer to a raccoon eating feed, once the velvet is shed a buck takes zero crap and will push a raccoon off the feed, it is a interesting change in attitude.
Thank you all for your replies! I appreciate it and I hope everyone gets the deer they are going for!
Geez man, if you were that close you could have stopped and said hi. I'm just a little north of Becker. The trail cam pics I have it looks like primarily the first week or two of September, though a buddy I have always hunts hard the first week of bow season in hopes of getting a nice velvet buck.
We are all pretty close to each other Orrock Township for me on the east side, my back fence line is the township line.
I've seen very few in MN with velvet during season. I did have an opportunity at a velvet spiker back in 2000 when I was 17 years old or so.
