Where I hunt in the extreme eastern part of the arrowhead deer numbers show be low. My group of 7 guys hunted the whole season and saw 5 deer while hunting. A spike buck has been lucky as most have seen him and chose to let him walk. My dad took a 6 pointer that was chasing a doe. It’s not about killing a deer for me it’s about spending time with my family and it was a great year.    The population is where it it should be in the arrowhead. I am excited to see a possible wolf season coming again up there as it’s fun to have a wolf tag in the pocket just in case one slips up and comes out by you. My season was great would I have liked to see a few deer yepbut it was the relaxing I needed and provided me the stress relief I needed.   Taking out wolves would help the moose population so that is my stance!!!

Thanks for checking and the report 

Well I went out and checked the lake Friday am. All locked up. I walked out a bit and it looked like 2 inches. It froze over even which is good. Hopefully it's 2 inches out in the middle too. More info to come!

No I haven't. I just know it's there. Sorry

I have never seen as many deer as I did this season. I had several sits that I had 6-9 deer around me at a time.    We are currently doing our post season buck inventory and things are looking good. 

Now that our firearms season is over, I have heard various comments of how our deer herd and overall season has gone.   My personal observations have been that I was slighted by the deer this year! Through bow season to date and firearms I have seen a total of 12 deer from stand this year. 4 antlerless deer and 8 bucks, none of which I would guess were older than 2 1/2 yrs old.  This has been one of the slowest years for deer sightings I can remember recently. This development has been a suprise to me, as over the course of the spring and summer the deer in my travels seemed to be very visible and numerous.  I tend to believe that my stand sits were not indicative of the deer population.   A complaint I am again hearing, and am sure will continue, is that there are not enough mature bucks.   My goodness, this is getting old.  From what I have seen and read, if the hunters score and register thier deer Minnesota probably produced 5 different deer over 200" this year.  Morrison county has produced 4 deer that have green scored over 170" that I know of!  And have seen pics of numerous deer I would guess would score over 140".   This state produces 100's of trophy sized deer every year.  There will never be enough for everyone to get one!   Again wolves have been blamed for poor hunting again.  I had one on camera as well.  I am not one to blame poor hunts on them, so I won't.  Hopefully legislation is passed so the state can get control again.     Hunter numbers seem to be decreasing noticeably since I started hunting.  Not a bad thing for me directly, however, may not be good for the future.   What have your observations been?   How has your season gone?   How is population in your opinion?   Anything need fixing in your opinion?

Some guys were on Baxter but I had Finn with me so I did not check the ice thickness and it’s going to be cold tonight so I will try tomorrow to check

Moose any reports?  May check Baxter or  Chisago channel tomorrow.  Was just fishing open water Missouri River two weeks ago.  We limited on walleyes two days in a row.  Ready to fish some ice. 

I bought a bunch of polka dot jigs from widow maker booth at the ice institute in Sioux Falls last weekend.  Was really nice to meet and chat with them in person.

Lake pretty much locked up I think two nights ago. Haven't seen anyone out yet in the Buck Point, Battle Point, Schultz's Bay or Moon Bar area yet. Still to early I think. Haven't been over to Manthey"s Bay so don't know if anyone is venturing out there yet. That area usually locks up early. Usually there are a couple of spear houses out early in the Town Bay, Peterson's Bay, Two mile area but didn't see any out there yesterday. More often than not there is a ice heavy early in the season that stretches from Battle Point, kind of WSW across to the rushes on the west side of the lake. It pop by Battle Point yesterday morning but only went about a quarter of the way across. Looked healed up this morning.