Photo by Mark Werner

On the day after Thanksgiving, over one million Minnesotans rush out to the shops and malls to do some holiday shopping. Only the heartiest of individuals escape the crowds. Even fewer opt for the outdoors to chase late-season whitetails and take advantage of one of the best -- and most overlooked -- hunting opportunities in our state.

Among those hunters will be Mark Cook, who has been a blackpowder enthusiast since 1977. Cooks owns Bluewater Bait & Sports in Bemidji, a premier fishing, hunting and blackpowder shop that stays busy throughout the year and keeps him occupied. For this reason, Cook enjoys the solitude of the woods during the muzzleloader season. He has hunted all over Minnesota, and said it is not unusual for him to move hundreds of miles from day to day depending on the conditions.

Another hunter in the December woods is Jim Luttrell, a bowhunter from Woodbury who likes the late-season hunt because the deer are easier to locate, track and stalk.

"I also like the fact that when you are out there, it feels like crunch time," said Luttrell. "With only so many days or weeks left of the season, I hunt harder and more intensely than the leisurely days of autumn."

BLACKPOWDER & BOWS
With the firearms season long since passed, the month of December is reserved for hunters who like the more traditional methods of hunting with a bow and arrow or muzzleloader. Some hunters are pure traditionalists, using either long bows or smoothbore muskets, respectively. A few even don traditional clothing and jump back a century or two with their equipment and deer camp setup.

Most muzzleloader and archery hunters take full advantage of modern technology and opt for all the latest gear and gadgets, especially in December when the conditions are rougher than any other time of the year. A traditional bow is great unless you have to hold it bare-fingered for more than five minutes in below-zero weather. Likewise, keeping your powder dry is very difficult without modern materials during a cold December rain.

Either way, the great thing about hunting in December is that you can cater the hunt to your needs and desires without having to worry about running into a lot of other people in the woods. Ask anybody who spends a lot of time in the woods during the late season and usually one of the first words out of their mouth is "solitude."

The 2005 muzzleloader season begins Nov. 26 and continues through for two and a half weeks covering three weekends. Last year, 10,512 hunters purchased muzzleloader licenses, though there were many more smokepole hunters in the woods thanks to the All-Season License.

The All-Season License has really caught on with deer hunters looking to begin their hunt in mid-September and continue on until the end of December using a bow, firearm and muzzleloader. In 2003, the first year they were available, a little over 22,000 hunters bought an All-Season License. That number jumped to 46,008 in 2004 and this year could see another increase.

With the extended period of time to hunt, it also makes sense that All-Season License hunters have been very successful over the years. A total of 26,340 deer were killed by these folks in 2004 for a whopping 57.3 percent success rate!

The success rate for muzzleloaders in 2004 was 39.4 percent, which is typical compared to years past though it is significantly lower than the total success rate of all hunters last year, which came in at 49.5 percent. Bowhunters, firearms hunters in Zone 3A, Multi-Zone Buck hunters and free landowner hunters were the only license-type groups that had lower harvest rates than muzzleloaders.

A quick check of the 2005 regulations reveals a number of special hunts around the state for bowhunters and firearms hunters. Muzzleloader hunters are not left out of this category and can take advantage of several unique hunts.