yeah the minnesota deer herds arnt looking to hot i hunt southeast minnesota and alot of spikes and forkers not to many big bucks saw 1 huge buck this past season and a bunch with some really messy racks and very uneven and almost looking inbred
I have a firm belief that every hunter that buys a tag wants to shoot a trophy buck, either thru knowledge, experience or tactics they do not have the ability or odds stacked in their favor to shoot a trophy buck and blame the system when it does not happen for them.
Most of the MN deer hunters can cry about how bad the deer hunting is and even though the DNR is incompetent and hasn't done anything to help the situation they have no one to blame but themselves. Their greed and need to kill every deer they can has made this state the worst in the area. The brown it's down and the if I don't shoot it the neighbor will mentality has turned a once GREAT deer hunting state into a piss poor one. Granted their are areas that are still great like SE MN but that is because most of the hunters down there know the potential the state has and have been killing only mature bucks, not party hunting and trying to let the bucks get to an older age long before the DNR changed the rules down there. Granted you still have the greedy hunters (just not as many) you could tell by the pictures of the special CWD hunt where they posted pics standing by a pile of deer. Although chances are guys who don't usually hunt that area came to put their normal attitude of kill everything in effect.
When they announced the CWD hunt I got calls from a lot of guys who don't hunt in SE MN asking if they could come down and kill a bunch of deer because they all said you can shoot as many as you want including as many bucks and it's only $2.50 a tag. Others I talked to down there were getting the same calls. I said the same thing every time we pay a decent amount to lease this land for the chance at hunting mature bucks why would I let you come hunt for free (no one ever once offered anything) and ruin what we have worked so hard for the last 20 years? Are group was down during the hunt as much as possible to make sure no one was going on the property to help themselves. We did not hunt and did not try and kill a single deer. We wanted any deer in our area that were being pressured a place to go and hopefully stay. The trail cameras have shown we have at least the same number of deer as most winters so I am hoping that even with being in the CWD area we have even better hunting than normal and I believe that is possible. But you have to be willing to eat your buck tag until you get a chance at a 4 1/2+ year old buck.
I think we need to educate the hunters on why its brown its down for every intensive harvest permit put out by the MDNR does not need to happen. In zone 157 the DNR had us at 5 extra permits per year, for years. We have a great area that can handle more than 7 DPSM that the DNR along with insurance, forestry and Big AG wants us to have. If WTU, MDHA, QDMA and others would acknowledge there is a problem with our shrinking deer herd like MDDI has done, we could maybe get back to the great deer hunting across the entire state of mn, not just a few pockets like we see now. Instead, what we see is banquets to raise money for a pile of youth shooting sports, to keep the youth interested in hunting, then we put the kids on stand to not see a deer all day. That way of thinking by the 3 major groups needs to end. Or you can kiss deer hunting in mn as a tradition good by!
Could the MN deer herd be managed better? I'm sure it could. But, I have no complaints about the number of mature bucks where I hunt. There are also millions of acres of hunting land available to the public in MN....something you cannot say about a lot of other states.
Obviously we would all like others to take the approach many of us do and wait to shoot a mature animal and to avoid the brown it's down mentality, but that just will not happen. You can't teach someone something if they are not willing to learn. Most people who are allowed 5 tags, and kill 5 deer, are likely not going to want to change their mentality.
So he went to a state so that he sees bigger bucks easy. Let me hunt there. You hunt Missouri so that I take my time hunting on your property. What do you say?? Never know I might tag a beuty buck there.
Yep, MN, the land of idiots that cant think for themselves. Glad there are a few of us that can think straight. Just took me 25 years of banging my head against the wall before i figured out there is much better deer hunting in another state! Another state where the property taxes are $3/acre instead of $30/acre. Where the neighbors consistently work together on deer management. Where the state deer herd managers constantly ask the hunter their opinion on the deer herd, instead of the deer herd managers in mn doing what they want and never looking at a deer hunter satisfaction survey. I bet some of you have no idea actual good hunting is! lol!
Mobuck, making blanket statements regarding the quality of hunting for an entire state makes little sense to me. Some areas are obviously better than others. There are Counties in MN which are among the best in the country at producing very large bucks. Also, the number of record book bucks entered in recent years does not correlate with your notion that MO is superior to MN. http://www.realtree.com/deer-hunting/articles/top-10-booner-states-for-deer-hunting-since-2010 http://www.realtree.com/deer-hunting/articles/top-10-pope-young-deer-hunting-states
You do realize there are a lot of guys that don't put our names in record books. Those numbers mean nothing! Lol
In all seriousness, I have seen, video taped and let go more daytime P&Y bucks the last 5 years in Missouri than a lifetime of hunting in MN. Glad you guys have great spots to hunt in MN because most hunters in MN don't.
Let's be honest. just because some mn hunters cant tag a big buck at home. They end up tagging alot of big bucks from Iowa, Missouri, and kansas. They bash alot about how Mn doesnt have big bucks. Just does and yearling bucks. Alot of it is that They lack knowledge of knowing where the big bucks are at and Lack how to kill em in the right spot. It's either that or they want whats more than a big buck with putting less effort. I'll say this Missouri is a better place to hunt than MN in big bucks. But if were talking how to kill these big bucks in MN. you got to challenge yourself hunting these big bucks in MN. It's either you hunt a easy state like MO that has alot of big deer every day or hunt a difficult state Like MN that has sheer deer numbers and scout and hunt till you see a beuty buck in bowrange.
