New MN DNR deer leader wants herds eradicated

[Mallard_maniac]

You know why IL doesn't attract a lot of non-resident fisherman?

It's because they don't manage their resources well...

....oh wait, that's a phucking retarded thing to say since they don't have shit for water and fisheries, not even a wrinkle on a ballsack in comparison to us. .

Neither does south or north dakota, and look at the tremendous fisheries they produce. Look at how many MN residents, residing in the land of 10K lakes, travel to the dakotas to fish of all things.....

What are you talking about?

So the Dakotas have better bird hunting because they manage it better? Yup, that's it. It has nothing to do with having a 20% of the people as MN [combined] or soil quality far inferior to where farm programs like CRP or even just grazing and haying for livestock pencil out a lot better than here.

One of the many things you're missing is we live in a very affluent state...consistently ranked highest quality of living, lowest unemployment rate of any metropolitan area, better wages, etc., etc....

We export more hunters because we're wealthy and there's a lot of us. ND, a state with a population less than our two biggest cities, with great deer hunting, doesn't export a lot of their deer hunters here....no shyte....

Who cares?

Since I don't have a pop-up book I'll try and explain it like I would to a 4-year old.... My comparison deer hunting to fishing was simply meant to imply that sportsmen, no matter what genre and geographic location, are willing to travel if it means high percentage of success. Just like they come to MN to fish, they would to deer hunt.... if the resource was managed better..... You're correct that ND doesn't export alot of their hunters here, but nobody does... been my point all along. They do however export alot of hunters to other states......

I'm still waiting for that logic part of your 1st post?

[Trigger]

Having an actual hunter in that position is a good thing.

I remember when Tom Landwehr got his job with the DNR and everyone was happy because he is a fellow duck hunter, now they want to tar and feather the guy.... most of these jobs are a no-win situation job.......

Only If you suck at it.

[Fish Felon]

Since I don't have a pop-up book I'll try and explain it like I would to a 4-year old.... My comparison deer hunting to fishing was simply meant to imply that sportsmen, no matter what genre and geographic location, are willing to travel if it means high percentage of success. Just like they come to MN to fish, they would to deer hunt.... if the resource was managed better..... You're correct that ND doesn't export alot of their hunters here, but nobody does... been my point all along. They do however export alot of hunters to other states......

I'm still waiting for that logic part of your 1st post?

Look, there are a lot of different directions I could take with this post...I could retaliate to your retaliation of me going too far with my last post and being a dick....your comparison of the fishery resources of the Dakotas to those in the Land of Lincoln provides me enough material alone.....but you seem like a good sport and I've really enjoyed your contributions thus far....so I'm going to try be more civil.

You have my curiosity. Your take is new to me when it comes to the pro-APR/QDM guys arguing in support of APR/QDM.

The question I have for you is.....what do you want?

Beyond the obvious answer of "more big bucks."


I'm one of the few people that's actually agreed with you. We both think moving the gun season later so it's after the rut is a great compromise for all the varying types of deer hunters and should be done.

What else would you want done?


What has me the most intrigued is your main emphasis; MN should attract scores of non-resident deer hunters. Why do you feel that way?

Is it a matter of pride for the state, or a way to point out the failed management of the herd, do you have an economic stake in more hunters coming, is it more for being pro-tourism in general, etc?


I'm sincerely not trying to put words in your mouth but it seems like you want more big bucks so more hunters come here??? I'd like to know why, completely out of curiosity....not saying that more non-resident hunters is a good or bad thing or looking to discuss it (I'm ambivalent one way or the other), I'm only interested understanding why this seems to be a main sticking point for you.


Welcome to the site!

[Mallard_maniac]

Look, there are a lot of different directions I could take with this post...I could retaliate to your retaliation of me going too far with my last post and being a dick....your comparison of the fishery resources of the Dakotas to those in the Land of Lincoln provides me enough material alone.....but you seem like a good sport and I've really enjoyed your contributions thus far....so I'm going to try be more civil.

You have my curiosity. Your take is new to me when it comes to the pro-APR/QDM guys arguing in support of APR/QDM.

The question I have for you is.....what do you want?

Beyond the obvious answer of "more big bucks."


I'm one of the few people that's actually agreed with you. We both think moving the gun season later so it's after the rut is a great compromise for all the varying types of deer hunters and should be done.

What else would you want done?


What has me the most intrigued is your main emphasis; MN should attract scores of non-resident deer hunters. Why do you feel that way?

Is it a matter of pride for the state, or a way to point out the failed management of the herd, do you have an economic stake in more hunters coming, is it more for being pro-tourism in general, etc?


I'm sincerely not trying to put words in your mouth but it seems like you want more big bucks so more hunters come here??? I'd like to know why, completely out of curiosity....not saying that more non-resident hunters is a good or bad thing or looking to discuss it (I'm ambivalent one way or the other), I'm only interested understanding why this seems to be a main sticking point for you.

I appreciate the tactful insight and apologize for my last post.... you didn't deserve it. I read it and responded when I had very little time for a thoughtful civil response.

You asked a lot of questions here and instead of answering them all in linear fashion I'll somewhat summarize: The main question is WHY DO WE WANT MORE BIG DEER?

First off, Nobody can argue that taking our gun hunters and pushing them post rut would grow bigger deer. It's not my opinion, it's a fact. Iowa, Wisconsin, Kansas (to name a few) all have post rut gun seasons. Other states like ND mirror ours w/ season dates, however, tags are HEAVILY restricted to both non-res and residents. Going further than that look at elk seasons out west. Virtually no state would ever, EVER!, consider placing unlimited rifle tags during the heart of september rut. Colorado has unlimited gun tags (in something like 75zones) but it's for 2nd rifle, 3rd and maybe even 4th. And people SPRINT to that state to hunt @ $629 (this years prices) per tag. Can you imagine if they did what MN does to their most precious money making game animal. There'd be 2 or 3 years of ridiculously fantastic elk hunting before the impending ghost town feeling in all their national forests, wilderness areas, blm lands, etc... Then non-res would go somewhere else and CO would lose big money. So to answer your "what do you want" question that's it. Move the gun season, nothing more/nothing less. Nature will honestly take care of the rest. On a normal year, younger bucks will be done, or close to done rutting and be much less vulnerable, allowing them to grow and mature.

The answer to your question "WHY?" isn't overly complex. I have a few personal reasons I'll get to in a minute but the three obvious reasons that benefit the overall population of MN are simple:

1) Revenue. As sick as it may seem to weigh lives of animals to a $$ figure, it's not something we can ignore. The almighty dollar speaks. I read an essay a while back (circa 2011'sh) where the author figured just on license sales alone MN was losing to the sum of 18 million dollars by having gun season where it is. You ask why would we want non-res to swarm to MN to hunt deer I'd ask why not? I mean look at the economic impact a poor fishery has on one giant pond in the middle of our state? The entire state of MN is like the equivalent of mille lacs on the deer side, only instead of a dozen or so communities, resort owners, etc.. It's state wide.. The only reason it's tough to grasp is because we've never seen the "hay days" of deer hunting in MN, at least not like what other states have/are currently experiencing. Like I said, now more than ever people are willing to travel and pay in hopes to shoot big deer. If whitetail deer in this country is thought of as a pie, states like Iowa are getting a huge portion, why wouldn't we want the same? As a side note, I don't work in a field whereit would benefit me to have scores of non-resident hunters oming to MN. I do have friends and family it would benefit in the hospitality and food/restaurant industry it would help but not me personally.

2) Recruitment and Retention. This one is a little more subjective but needs to be considered. It's not a secret that we're losing hunters in droves. The DNR has some clever new programs aimed at fixing some of that but a large of kids turning to adults and so on are walking away from hunting. A large number of adults are stopping because it's gotten so bad. Hobbydog's experience is one I've heard hundreds if not thousands of times over the last few years. "I didn't buy a tag for the first time in "X" number of years because it's not worth it". My cousin grew up in SE MN on one of the best farms I've ever seen and walked away from hunting. Class mates I graduated with, kids I went to college with, etc...In-laws aren't going to their cabin up north anymore to hunt deer. ALOT of people are walking away from deer hunting. I used to think it was just me and the people I know but it's not. Talk with other folks at QDMA, SCI Banquets, etc... and many have similar stories that I do. So what's that mean? Quite frankly there's some we won't recruit, we'll lose them to every day life, apathy, etc... But like waterfowl hunting, the deer hunters that are out there are getting far more serious, spending whatever it costs to shoot big deer. They aren't (however) doing it here.

3rd) Biology. I think we all can agree having a diverse age structure benefits all facets of nature, including whitetail deer. When the vast majority of bucks harvested don't reach beyond 1 1/2 YO it's a problem. I don't see any other way to look at it, we have a young deer herd that's staying young. All this ties into each other as a perpetual cycle, older deer means better diversity means better hunter recruitment/retention means more revenue.

Lastly from a personal standpoint why do I want to see bigger deer? As selfish or little-man syndrome sounding as it may seem I want worthy adversaries in the deer woods. It's human nature to continually set the bar for themselves and achieve goals. It's not for bragging rights, my trophy wall most would deem pathetic. I could care less about scores, I mostly use them as a point of reference. I much prefer skulls vs shoulder mounts so I can pick them up every day and admire the character of each individual rack vs. stappling them above my mantle and peering at them from a distance. When I take a deer, most of my friends or family don't know about it until they ask. I want deer in MN that are worth sitting for 2 mos almost every day in the stand for. I could go out most evenings and shoot 1.5YO's all day but the pursuit is what intrigues me and keeps me going. I mastered pursuing immature deer decades ago, but I barely even have the opportunity to hunt older deer in my home state. Again this one is purely selfish and isn't a reason I ever use as an argument as to why we should have bigger deer in MN, it's more a goal/accomplishment thing than anything.

[deet]

Maniac,
Your main points all have merit. But the last thing... I know you admit the selfishness behind it, but it just doesn't make sense. You want to shoot a bigger deer for the sense of accomplishment. BUT you want for it to be easier to do so. There already are deer in MN for which it is worth sitting 2 months, just not as many as you'd like. If it's purely for PERSONAL sense of accomplishment, then you have to look at what you've shot relative to what's available. If you consider 120" deer VERY rare, and you've shot a 120" deer, then that's a great accomplishment. If you want for 120" deer to be common and 160" deer to be rare but attainable, then shooting a 160 isn't as much of an accomplishment anymore.

So I'd say drop the whole "personal sense of accomplishment" part. You just want more bigger deer. So do I.

[Mallard_maniac]

Maniac,
Your main points all have merit. But the last thing... I know you admit the selfishness behind it, but it just doesn't make sense. You want to shoot a bigger deer for the sense of accomplishment. BUT you want for it to be easier to do so. There already are deer in MN for which it is worth sitting 2 months, just not as many as you'd like. If it's purely for PERSONAL sense of accomplishment, then you have to look at what you've shot relative to what's available. If you consider 120" deer VERY rare, and you've shot a 120" deer, then that's a great accomplishment. If you want for 120" deer to be common and 160" deer to be rare but attainable, then shooting a 160 isn't as much of an accomplishment anymore.

So I'd say drop the whole "personal sense of accomplishment" part. You just want more bigger deer. So do I.

I get what you're saying... Like I said I never, EVER, use that as an argument one way or another. I'm not arrogant enough to think the whitetail herd should be built around my sole personal goals. It's just as simple as "he (fish felon) asked" so "I answered".... Full disclosure.

As far as wanting it to be easier I'll respectfully disagree. I don't care if there's 20 P&Y per square mile old deer will never be easy to kill. I simply want a little older deer than what we currently have. I actually enjoy stacking the odds in their favor. I hunt with a stikbow (traditional archery) about 50% of the time and if it weren't for archery elk, i'd probably hunt 100% with traditional bows. As cameron-hanes-cliche' as it may sound, for me it's about trying to be the most effective predator I can be and that means hunting mature deer, not 1.5 YO's.

Your response would make total sense in a different situation but you cannot use scores. Scores are not a good reflection of age (which is really what I want, like I said scores don't really get me excited). Also keep in mind the avg age of adult bucks in MN is 1.5 years old..... Think about that... Anything other than a fawn is considered an adult by MN standards. That's a whole seperate thread by itself though...Genetics in this state have proven time and time again that if deer are allowed to grow here, they'll get big. So to simplify just because the state is full of 120's doesn't mean we're meeting our potential, Infact its the exact opposite. A 120" Deer in Texas or Mexico might mean a 5, 6 or 7 YO whitetail.... In most cases it doesn't here. I've had 1.5 YO deer before close to the 110" mark and know of deer on other farms that have exceeded 120". That's another HUGE reason why I'm against APR's. At 1.5 YO you're very best genetics are still targeted, and even encouraged to be harvested.So in response because we might have droves of 100"-120" deer, we still have a young unhealthy herd. Again, having an older herd has numerous benefits outside my personal beliefs, I was just trying to be 100% honest.

[deet]

Maniac,
Your main points all have merit. But the last thing... I know you admit the selfishness behind it, but it just doesn't make sense. You want to shoot a bigger deer for the sense of accomplishment. BUT you want for it to be easier to do so. There already are deer in MN for which it is worth sitting 2 months, just not as many as you'd like. If it's purely for PERSONAL sense of accomplishment, then you have to look at what you've shot relative to what's available. If you consider 120" deer VERY rare, and you've shot a 120" deer, then that's a great accomplishment. If you want for 120" deer to be common and 160" deer to be rare but attainable, then shooting a 160 isn't as much of an accomplishment anymore.

So I'd say drop the whole "personal sense of accomplishment" part. You just want more bigger deer. So do I.

I get what you're saying... Like I said I never, EVER, use that as an argument one way or another. I'm not arrogant enough to think the whitetail herd should be built around my sole personal goals. It's just as simple as "he (fish felon) asked" so "I answered".... Full disclosure.

As far as wanting it to be easier I'll respectfully disagree. I don't care if there's 20 P&Y per square mile old deer will never be easy to kill. I simply want a little older deer than what we currently have. I actually enjoy stacking the odds in their favor. I hunt with a stikbow (traditional archery) about 50% of the time and if it weren't for archery elk, i'd probably hunt 100% with traditional bows. As cameron-hanes-cliche' as it may sound, for me it's about trying to be the most effective predator I can be and that means hunting mature deer, not 1.5 YO's.

Your response would make total sense in a different situation but you cannot use scores. Scores are not a good reflection of age (which is really what I want, like I said scores don't really get me excited). Also keep in mind the avg age of adult bucks in MN is 1.5 years old..... Think about that... Anything other than a fawn is considered an adult by MN standards. That's a whole seperate thread by itself though...Genetics in this state have proven time and time again that if deer are allowed to grow here, they'll get big. So to simplify just because the state is full of 120's doesn't mean we're meeting our potential, Infact its the exact opposite. A 120" Deer in Texas or Mexico might mean a 5, 6 or 7 YO whitetail.... In most cases it doesn't here. I've had 1.5 YO deer before close to the 110" mark and know of deer on other farms that have exceeded 120". That's another HUGE reason why I'm against APR's. At 1.5 YO you're very best genetics are still targeted, and even encouraged to be harvested.So in response because we might have droves of 100"-120" deer, we still have a young unhealthy herd. Again, having an older herd has numerous benefits outside my personal beliefs, I was just trying to be 100% honest.

Totally understand, great response.

Not that I hunt anywhere near as hard as guys like you, but for what it's worth I don't believe I've ever seen a buck older than 3.5 on the hoof. Some years I shoot the first buck I see, if I really want meat and don't have a doe tag. Often times it's the only buck I see for the season.

I'll admit it would really hurt me to move the season out of the rut, but I'd adapt. I'm not a hardcore QDMA mostly because I haven't looked into it much, and as stated above, I'm not at all a trophy hunter. Maybe it's my ignorance that associates QDMA with trophies in the first place...?

[Mallard_maniac]

Totally understand, great response.

Not that I hunt anywhere near as hard as guys like you, but for what it's worth I don't believe I've ever seen a buck older than 3.5 on the hoof. Some years I shoot the first buck I see, if I really want meat and don't have a doe tag. Often times it's the only buck I see for the season.

I'll admit it would really hurt me to move the season out of the rut, but I'd adapt. I'm not a hardcore QDMA mostly because I haven't looked into it much, and as stated above, I'm not at all a trophy hunter. Maybe it's my ignorance that associates QDMA with trophies in the first place...?

I get it, you're not alone..... what I've found is that MOST of the guys I come across share your sentiments. The thing is.... would it really hurt you? Really give this some thought once. See your response here is VERY typical of MN rifle hunters, or guys that simply don't have a ton of time to archery hunt. I get it, life happens and the narrow window in fall is just that. If you're like me your trying to fit in bear, deer, out of state elk/mule deer, waterfowl, upland, etc... Into a short time frame so to many hunting the rut seems to be the largest benefit.... to them...but give it some honest open-minded thought.

going further into the biological benefits to have our gun season out of the rut... currently the state of MN experiences gigantic influxes and reductions in numbers. If you look at our populations on a graph from year to year, it has steep peaks and dramatic declines. Largely because winters, predators, overharvest, etc... play a major role in numbers. By having an older herd you flat-line that out much much more. Instead of jagged mountain peaks and valleys that graph will look much more like rolling foothills. The brutal honest truth is that a 4.5 year old deer will survive harsher winters, predators, and hunters or have a far better chance than a 1.5YO.... pending they aren't hunted hard when they are vulnerable. A couple years ago Iowa had a bad bout of EHD, but did it really affect numbers and hunting..... Not much, because their herd was healthy. They saw a slight drop and then a year or two later were right back at producing world class hunting. So you increase your age structure (which lets face it, wouldn't take place overnight. We'd need an honest 3-5 years to start really reaping the benefits) and meanwhile you start taking pressure of your "adult bucks" and putting it back on does, using doe harvest as a means to control your population, which appeases the farmers, timber industry folks and hunters alike. That way when hard winters hit, you don't see as dramatic of a drop in numbers and the DNR doesn't go into panic mode that spring to completely restructure many of their zones to take away doe hunting. The disheartening part (and glaring discrepancy) is the state's deer management plan only addresses putting pressure on adult bucks, and even more sadly defines any buck 1.5 years old and beyond as an adult. It doesn't address age structure beyond that so in their eyes a 1.5 YO is the biological equivalent of a healthy mature buck.

Meanwhile for those that still want to hunt the rut, they can pickup a different weapon and do so, or if you're just looking for that deer camp setting you can still have it..... just later in the year.

The thing is, if you go to any of these trophy states and despite making millions of dollars on non-resident hunting, most of the good old local boys still get out their firesticks every gun season and go afield. And hypothetical studies have shown, they still take (in terms of numbers) close to the same amount of deer as they would have during the rut, just instead of being spikes and forks, it's doe's....

[Fish Felon]

Thanks for elaborating Mallard_maniac, I like a lot of your points and ideas.

Recruitment is another one I haven't heard before but after giving it a little thought it makes sense to me. Ultimately the downward trend is inevitable. Is it possible to curb it some? You bet. Hypothetically speaking what if a younger hunter (or older for that matter) that shoots or sees a halfway decent buck once a decade got a crack at one once every five years instead? Or the guys that get that opportunity every four or five years got it every two to three, and so on? Would that be enough to keep significantly more in the ranks at a higher rate than without those few additional chances? I think there's some merit to that. Especially when factoring recruitment in amongst the real young hunter demographic. Is a kid that tags a decent buck one of their first seasons more likely to catch the bug and be a lifer? Absolutely.

Ultimately though I think the average guy that buys a tag in MN would like to shoot a deer regardless of whether it's a fawn or booner but even more than that---they just want to see deer. There's no doubt the herd is down but the majority of that isn't from improper management, in my opinion. We had two bad winters in a row where there were drifts 8' high in central MN and much worse than that going N and NE. The DNR could have sold unlimited tags prior to those two winters and I don't think it would have made much of a difference. It's hard to stockpile a herd that's about to get wiped out by Mother Nature.

As far as other states I get where you're coming from but out of curiosity I looked up some numbers and IA only has 15K NR's and shoot 100K in deer. ND is much more restrictive than that issuing 1% of whatever tags they issue to NR's. SD is a little more open but has more deer, not sure what their numbers are. I was curious what MN takes in and they didn't list it but it the info it did pull had revenue from overall license sales and MN DNR takes in a little over $20million on all deer licenses combined (almost equal to fishing license revenue) so I think that $18Million figure has got to be really high. I didn't look at WI but I'm guessing they're the most similar to us....most states aren't. We definitely have a lot more issues from weather, to different biomes and habitat, wolves-bears-other predators, human population and high relative participation....lots of things that set us apart.