early season antlerless reports

[chuckwagon]

anyone have a good weekend of early antlerless hunting? where? and what?

[picksbigwagon]

I was down scouting for 3B, and squirrel hunting, wished I would have had my EA permit, had a big doe and two good sized yearlings play "what is that orange thing sitting on the stump" for about 10 minutes. Mom came within 17 yards of me. Never winded me turned and walked back the way they came in. Hung a tree stand about 20 yards off the trail, had to take the bottom section off of the ladder stand since the tree V'd at 12 feet. Heard a buck absolutely destroy a tree for about 15 minutes down hill of my stump as well.

[Code-Man]

I was hunting 244. 7:05 first shot of the morning. Saw a deer about 5-10 minutes later never had a shot. Never saw a deer after that. This morning if I did my math right legal hours were +-5 minutes of 7am...first shot this morning was East of Me but not far and it was 6:41 when I heard the first shot. Today once in a blue moon a shot but not too much activity. Just didn't see anything

[Bobb-o]

only saw three all weekend, a doe and two fawns. only problem being that they were walking through some thick brush 60 yards away and I never had a shot.

[Jameson]

Worked, or maybe it was just luck, for a deer in the last hour of the weekend.

Nothing sighted Saturday. Sunday morn, say 7:30, missed one. No blood, nothing, think I got deflected by a stick. Searched for a long time in nasty, nasty stuff looking for any sign, nothing. 5 pm saw one, no shot. 6:15 stand up in the stand, and see the deer I would shoot standing 50 feet from me. That deer didn't take another step.

Others that I talked to had poor results for the weekend. Area 225/157

[chuckwagon]

anyone have luck in the 610 metro zone

[luckey]

Area 221. Three of us gun hunted and two with bows. We saw around 25 deer and shot two. Saturday was a beautiful day to be out hunting.

[Mark Melius]

3 of us hunted west of isanti got 1 fawn only saw 1.we saw no tracks compared to other years. i hunted sunday night just south of isanti here again only a few tracks nothing like even last year.

[gizmoguy]

Area 225. Got our does. Passed up on fawns. Pattern; bean fields at dusk off of bedding areas. Mornings not productive. Too wet to pick crops in our area. So much food that our food plots are not being used much. Yet! Hopefuly the crops can get out by the main season. Just so nice to out in the field Sat.

[DRH1175]

I hunted 225 near Almelund. The crops are still in and very wet. He started his beans and got about 50% picked this weekend. Though doesn't look too good for getting the corn out before rifle season once again. We shot 2 for the 2 of us. A nice doe and the bigest of the 2 fawns another doe. I am not sure if it was a good idea that my father in law who shot both left 1 of the 2 fawns. Which spent the next day and a half bleating for Mom. I then saw 2 bucks sunday morning morning one a 6 or small 8 and the other I didn't see the rack before it hit the brush. The most deer we have seen the last 3 years so a good season I thought with lots of promise for the Nov. Season.

[northerndave]

area 101.

we got skunked. 2 hunters, my wife & my nephew. nephew shot & missed one, wife saw nothing

[big drift]

We got 3 for 4 in 15 minutes,just took some hair off number 4 and I located the branch it defelected off of, no blood for 50 yards around and a guy across the road took it.

We had lots of deer moving around last night hunting was better when I did not have the two older kids in the stand with me...lol. Had four come across the field at 7:10 on opening when my oldest boy started to wave his arms at them and yelled "Stop Deer" after that I was laughing to hard to shoot. All in all a great time and two familes getting some groceries donated that they really need and one being cooked up tonight.

[ruster]

Filled both my tags by 7:45AM on Saturday. 2 adult does, 1 dry, 1 wet. Private land in the Bemidji area. Tenderloins for dinner on Saturday.

[bigbucks]

5 for 8, but it was kind of lopsided. The deer were focusing on a cornfield I was sitting near. Had a hot air balloon go over the field about 5:00 Saturday night & scare two fawns out followed by a fox. I got shot at one of the fawns & nicked it, my brother shot it about 3 minutes later about 300 yards away. Right before dark a fawn came out & I shot that, then a doe about a minute later, & then another fawn came from a different direction about 5 minutes later. I could hear at least one other deer in edge of the woods that didn't come out. Had 3 deer laying in a triangle in that hayfield in about a 50 yard area. The cornfield's been getting hammered, there's sign everywhere & close to half the corn's been eaten by deer already.

[northerndave]

a hot air baloon?

what are the chances???

[bigbucks]

Actually I bowhunt out there & have seen them a few times in the last couple of years. One of the other guys said they'd seen a different one in the morning too. I also saw the truck drive by pulling the trailer to pack up the balloon in. The sound of that blower they use to make it rise coming from a ways away, when you can't see it, really has you scratching your head at first. It sounds kind of like a grain auger or a combine until it gets closer.

[lcornice]

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Actually I bowhunt out there & have seen them a few times in the last couple of years. One of the other guys said they'd seen a different one in the morning too. I also saw the truck drive by pulling the trailer to pack up the balloon in. The sound of that blower they use to make it rise coming from a ways away, when you can't see it, really has you scratching your head at first. It sounds kind of like a grain auger or a combine until it gets closer.

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I'm pretty sure that's considered assisting. I sure hope it was a non-motorized balloon and the operator had a firearms license!

[HunterLee]

We got 3 of 4, i shot my two and my brother got one. We could of had 10 if we wanted, I was surprised on the number of hunters out. Is there any place you can see how many people and in what zone they hunted in.

[lcornice]

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We got 3 of 4, i shot my two and my brother got one. We could of had 10 if we wanted, I was surprised on the number of hunters out. Is there any place you can see how many people and in what zone they hunted in.

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Yes but not yet! I can post estimated harvest today but it might take a little longer to tease out hunter numbers.

[crop]

My 13 year old daughter 2 shots 2 deer last one at 225 yards with a 308 not bad shooting for her. Lots of deer in our area as usual

[bigbucks]

I don't know, those two were flying. I think they'd have been walking if that hadn't scared them. It scared away some deer for one of our other guys too. They clearly didn't like it. I think that falls under the category of things you don't plan for...

[lcornice]

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I don't know, those two were flying. I think they'd have been walking if that hadn't scared them. It scared away some deer for one of our other guys too. They clearly didn't like it. I think that falls under the category of things you don't plan for...

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Oh I know. I hope you understand I was COMPLETELY kidding!

[bigbucks]

Sorry didn't mean to make you wonder if I thought you were serious. I knew you were kidding. I was just trying to let everybody know how freaked out those deer were by the balloon. It was pretty funny, of course it would have been funnier if I was squirrel hunting & not deer hunting, but they were small & I got my deer anyway.

[HunterLee]

I had a blue heron scare me two fawns one night while sitting in the stand. I was watching two when a heron starts walking in the creek from one puddle to the next, he was kinda eyeing me and decided to fly, well he just happened to fly straight over the 2 deer are they ran right to the bottom of my tree, I wasn't sure if he had his archery license so i shot over the top of the one. so thats my excuse for missing them.

[lcornice]

Here are some preliminary numbers - 24,000 people participated in the early antlerless season this year (23 permit areas were open to hunting). As of today, 6,100 deer were registered. The total will increase slightly when paper stubs are entered into the electronic system. If I had to guess, it'll top out about 6,500 total. As for participation by permit area it's tough to tell. When you buy a license, you are only asked where you hunt most often, you're not obligated to hunt that permit area. In other words, if I say I hunt 197 most often, I could have hunted in 184 and shot a deer during EA. We could do a minimum estimate of people by looking at area declared=open area but that only yields 19,000 out of 24,000 people who hunted. I'll probably work on placing people a little later as I'm really interested in figuring out what percentage of gun hunters in an area participated in the EA season.

Yes, probably more information that you wanted but what the heck, it's avaiable and I'm a numbers guy.

[BKB]

Just curious how this year compares to last year?

[lcornice]

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Just curious how this year compares to last year?

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It's not really comparable because it went from 8 to 23 areas. Also, some permit areas were adjusted in the NW so I can't do an apples to apples comparison. I do know that in 8 areas last year we had 5,700 hunters. Expanding to 23 areas increased participation to 24,000.

The interesting piece of information is deer killed/hunter. Statewide, only 25% of hunters kill more than 1 deer. For people who participated in the EA season last year, 50% killed more than 1 deer. So, the EA harvest is additive in that EA hunters are more inclined to kill a second deer, which is the goal of putting it early, rather than late.

[bigbucks]

My guess is the people willing to do the EA hunts are the ones who want to kill multiple deer, so if they get the chance to take them they will. Naturally they are also are not the guys that think it's not a deer worth shooting if it doesn't have horns. I'm sure you guys realize that, & getting those guys more time in the woods with a firearm is what can have an impact on controlling the population. In our case it's almost the only chance we have to hunt the area we hunted with a firearm, as we hunt our family land in a different area during the regular season. Regular deer season is almost as much about tradition & family as it is about shooting deer.

[vitalshot5]

Are the EA hunts just around the metro area or other parts of the state also?

[bigbucks]

Kind of all over, mostly North. 23 areas is a lot. Go to the DNR site & check it out.