Southeastern Minnesota is home to a unique blend of fields, forests and river valleys. It is geographically very conducive to producing trophy white­tails and the counties of the southeastern corner of the state produce multiple trophies every year.

"We are still well above our population goals and would still like to get the herd down in several permit areas down here," said Don Nelson, the MDNR's Rochester area wildlife manager.

There are many archers who take plenty of deer with a bow down here, but there's a lot of land and numerous opportunities, he added. That includes several large stands of state forest and the large Whitewater Wildlife Management Area, as well as plenty of private land.

There is also a refuge around the city of Rochester that is open to archers, but the city limits were restricted a few years ago by the Rochester city council. Rochester has three WMAs immediately adjacent to the city including the Gordon W. Yeager WMA's Southeast Unit, a 159-acre area within the Rochester Game Refuge and home of the Rochester-area DNR offices. The Eastside WMA is open to hunting, but the Haverhill WMA is closed from Sept. 1 to March 1, making it off-limits to bowhunters.

At the opposite end of the state, in northwestern Minnesota, there are issues of a different variety. The MDNR has been trying to prevent the spread of bovine tuberculosis in a small portion of the northwestern corner and eradicating deer in a select area. While the overall health of the herd is at stake, there are some who don't support the actions as the best practice.

With the exception of that small portion of northwestern Minnesota, the deer herd is healthy and in good shape. That's even after a rough winter that had a severity index twice as high as it was the winter before last.

Many of the permit areas remained in the "intensive harvest" category last year, but a few changes have been made for the 2009 season. "The intensive harvest seems to be having an effect because the harvest was down a little bit last year and driving us to the goals we wanted in those heavily populated areas," said Ted Dick, assistant wildlife manager in the MDNR's Baudette office. "But there are still plenty of deer and the deer hunting has been good."

"Permit Area 161 is the biggest permit area around here. It butts up against the TB area, and that has an influence on how we manage," Dick said. "We are still trying to keep the opportunities open to keep the TB in check and eliminate that which is another factor in how we can issue permits in the region."

HUNTING LOCATIONS
Certainly the Baudette, Aitkin, Rochester and Twin Cities metro areas are all good places to hunt, as we just outlined, but most hunters have a region of the state they favor either close to home or close to their traditional hunting grounds.

Private landowners have the opportunity to hunt and manage their own land, giving them more opportunities to bring deer onto their land and providing them with a reason to stick around.