MORE DEER COVERAGE • 2004 Deer Outlook, Part 1 • 2004 Rut Report in North American Whitetail Forums

By Tim Lesmeister

There are a lot of Minnesota deer hunters wondering if the record harvest of 2003 is going to have adverse effects on their 2004 season. Let me replay a conversation I had with an avid deer hunting friend of mine so you can get a feel for his concerns. I think his anxiety reflects much of what I've been hearing from others as well.

Adam Johnson is a professional angler and an aquatics biologist, but he is also an avid deer hunter and spends quite a few hours in the woods. Last season he hunted at the family cabin in west-central Minnesota and shot a nice buck before filling a bonus tag with an antlerless deer.

"When the Department of Natural Resources changed the regulations to increase the harvest, I knew there were going to be lot of additional deer killed," said Johnson. "I'm impressed with the amount of deer that were taken by hunters. I just wonder how that will correlate to the 2004 season and if hunter opportunities will be lower?"

According to Mark Lenarz, DNR group leader for the Forest Wildlife Populations and Research Group, a lot of hunter success in 2004 is going to revolve around where they're hunting, and less on what happened in 2003.

"It depends on the permit areas," said Lenarz. "In some areas we have brought the numbers down to a level where we'll want to stabilize those numbers at that level. There continue to be some permit areas where the deer population has increased, primarily in the Arrowhead Country. There are a number of blocks in the southern part of the forest stretching from Detroit Lakes to the Hinkley area where we have a long ways to go to get that population down."

And in the farmland zone?

"It sure looks like we're going to have another great season," said Bob Osborne, DNR researcher for the Farmland Wildlife Populations and Research Group. "Down here we did have something resembling a winter in the southern part of the state, but it certainly wasn't a hard winter by any means, so I would imagine it will be another great year this season.

Photo by BillKinney.com

"I think there was good carryover in the farmland area," Osborne continued. "We did get a lot of snow last winter, but it was that light fluffy snow and so that isn't very difficult for the deer to find food in. The only time you really have problems is when you have bitter cold temperatures, which we didn't have for an extended period of time.

"The other time you can have trouble is when you get snow that crusts over, and that does a couple of things. It makes it more difficult for the deer to get down to any available food source. The other thing it does is makes it tough for the deer to get around. When those deer are breaking through the crust about every other step, it increases the amount of energy they expend in order to move around. That increases their locomotion costs and means that they have to find much more food to counteract the cost of moving around to find it to begin with. This year that wasn't an issue. The snow we got was light and fluffy. It didn't hang around on the ground for extended periods of time."

Lenarz agreed with Osborne that winter weather plays a significant part in how well the season shapes up.

"I think that the deer numbers haven't suffered from the past winter," said Lenarz. "I look at it as the most important determinant in deer numbers - the weather, especially winter weather."

This has to ease the minds of hunters like Johnson who had the benefit of bonus tags to allow him more time in the woods.

"I saw plenty of deer last year, more than in a long time," Johnson said. "I attribute that not only to a great population of animals, but getting to spend the entire season in the deer stand. I wouldn't say we were spoiled last year, but it sure is nice to have a lot of opportunities. A season like we had last year could lead some hunters to be disappointed if things aren't as good this season."

The good news is that the permit process is much the same as last season, with some changes that will make it easier for hunters to fill a bonus tag in a broader region. Will every tag get filled? That will never happen. But fortunately the people who are familiar with the deer numbers are optimistic that Minnesota hunters will have plenty of opportunities again in 2004.

"It's hard to look in a crystal ball and know what will happen," said Osborne. "Although we had a good harvest last year, most areas, at least in the farmland zone, still have a good population of animals and the potential is there to have another good year. Whether it's as good as last year, who knows, but I believe the potential is there.

"Will the weather cooperate? Will all the crops be out of the fields? There are a lot of factors that could potentially affect what the harvest is. But the potential is there for another good year," he concluded.

Always on the top of the list is Permit Area 172. In 2003, this 450-square-mile permit area east of Hackensack produced over 15 deer per square mile. This is a testament to the high-production qualities that a mixture of swamp, timber and lakes can have in a zone that is not overly developed. You have to wonder, with all that water in this area, how so many deer can load up there, but this likely serves to concentrate the whitetails and provide some nice shooting lanes for hunters who have access to land there.

Permit Area 245 jumped into second place in the 2003 harvest-per-square-mile results. This 580-square-mile section north and east of Park Rapids is not only known for producing large numbers of deer, every season there are some truly impressive bucks that are downed by some lucky hunters. I asked Lenarz why some locations are notorious for providing hunters with quality bucks.

"It's so hard to say why certain areas consistently produce big bucks," he said. "Large-sized antlers are a function of, number one, the age of the deer. There's a part that is genetics, and a part that is the forage quality they have access to. I think from what you read and see on television, you might think it's primarily the forage, but I don't think we have all the answers to why some areas produce larger deer."

Maintaining the third spot was Permit Area 243. This productive area is a mixture of agriculture, wetlands and timbered river bottom with enough public-hunting access to put some higher numbers of hunters on the ground and in the trees. One of the beautiful things about having a lot of hunters is that the deer are always on the move. Some people don't like all that company, but it does create opportunities for patient hunters who can stand to sit long enough to let other hunters push deer toward them.

When you look at the top 25 as a whole you'll notice that 15 of the spots are from Zone 2 and only two are from Zone 3. This might make you think that the timbered country up north is where the deer hunters have the best opportunities. That may be the situation now, but just a few years ago the hard winters made finding deer in the forest region much tougher.

"My impression is that for the first time in several years the harvest for the forest exceeded that of the farm country," said Lenarz. "There were just more deer in the forest range."

"Since 2003 was the first year that we tried the new management, it's tough to say if that was a factor in the forest area harvest being higher than the farmland region," contributed Osborne. "It could be the case, but it could also be the weather cooperating and lining up, and that's just the way it worked out.

"Traditionally the way Zone 3 worked was that 3A was the buck season and 3B included antlerless," he continued. "This last year we opened it up so that a small number of antlerless permits were added to 3A."

It was Zone 3's Permit Area 346 and Permit Area 349 that made the Top 25, and this is always amazing to me because I figure with Whitewater WMA outside of these area boundaries, all that's left for hunters is swamp and Mississippi River bottomlands, which is obviously enough to produce plenty of deer. That southeast corner of our state is another spot that always seems to produce some of the biggest bucks of the season.

Permit Area 409 moved up into sixth place in 2003, and that's not surprising. This area borders Permit Area 243 and Permit Area 244. In fact, if you draw a circle with Park Rapids at the center you will discover that most of the top area's borders will fall into the radius no matter which direction you go.

Of the top 25, there were 15 permit areas in Zone 2 that made the list. Five from Zone 1 made the list. Zone 4 had three permit areas, and Zone 3 came in with two.

The governor is holding the Minnesota Deer Hunting Opener in Grand Rapids in 2004, and I spent much of the 1980s hunting the Chippewa National Forest. This is a pretty substantial media event, so expect a few more hunter-orange-clad hunters in the public-access woods. If you typically hunt on private property in the Chippewa, you might welcome the additional hunters because they move deer to you. If you're hunting public land in this area, get to your spot a little earlier than usual in the morning.

I spent much of the early 1990s hunting the corn country of southwestern Minnesota. The mounted head of a deer that my son shot has been a wonderful reminder of how many big bucks roam the shelterbelts and tree groves that split the plowed fields from the swamps. Every year there are a few more WMAs and WPAs added to the landscape, and these are great spots if the crops are out and there is a limited amount of cover. The key to hunting one of the smaller management areas is to get there real early and stake out your spot. Chances are you might push the few deer out of the cover as you enter before the sun rises, but in this agricultural region the deer are always moving, and it won't be long before more come your way.

There are plenty of lucky hunters who have access to private property. When I asked Adam Johnson what he thought his odds were of filling a tag or two this year he replied, "Even though I don't shoot the first deer that walks by, if I get a bonus tag or two I'll shoot the does right away. Then I can wait for the right buck to come along. I would venture to say that we'll have does on the lodge pole the first day, and it might take another day or two to spot the right buck."

Johnson has discovered that if you don't shoot the smaller bucks they do get bigger the next year, and he has had some opportunities for some trophy-potential animals since he started to carefully choose what bucks he shoots.

"People often think that if they don't shoot the smaller buck, then someone on the property next to them will," said Johnson. "The truth is, we're seeing a lot of bucks that survive from one year to the next. Sure, some will move to the hunters nearby, but the ones that do make it into the next season just keep growing. If you want to see big bucks, you have to let the small ones get big."

One more prediction. By the end of 2004, many of the areas that have been targeted for substantial herd reduction will have been leveled out and the 2005 season will be more like we're used to. Here's hoping you get your deer this year.