Zone 3 changes......

[lichen fox]

Here you go Zone 3...SF1116...looks like it has passed the senate and is in finance....

Sec. 49. ZONE 3 DEER SEASON AND RESTRICTIONS; 2009.

For the 2009 deer season, notwithstanding rules of the commissioner of natural

resources under Minnesota Statutes, section 97B.311, paragraph (a), the commissioner

shall allow a nine-day early A season in Zone 3 beginning the Saturday nearest November 6 and a nine-day late B season in Zone 3 beginning the Saturday nearest November 20.

During the last two days of the 2009 early A season, a person must take only antlered

deer with at least two points, unless the person has taken an antlerless deer prior to

taking the antlered deer during the early A season in Zone 3. Party hunting for antlered deer under Minnesota Statutes, section 97B.301, subdivision 3, is not allowed in the last two days of the 2009 early A season in Zone 3. Zone 3 is defined in Minnesota Rules, part 6232.1400, subpart 3.

[picksbigwagon]

Thanks Lichen, I cleaned it up by getting rid of the paragraph and line numbers.

So it looks like season A has an antler restriction on the last two days combined with earn a buck and no party hunting for antlered deer on the last two days. Boy, that is hard to read, if the way it is written right now stays, there will be a lot of confusion.....

[mrklean]

thanks interesting stuff, looks like that will be the test area then im guessing?

[PostFrontal]

I'm confused..

1. "a person must take only antlered deer with at least two points,"

-Does that mean at least 2 points on 1 side? Or the only thing off limits is a button buck?...

2. How the heck do you do Earn a Buck when some of the areas are lottery? If you don't get drawn in the lottery, you only can shoot a doe those 2 days with your 1 License foregoing muzzleloader and archery the rest of the year?

[picksbigwagon]

Valid questions, but remember it is still in committee, it is not law yet

[lichen fox]

Don't worry about being confused about this until it passes through the final few hurdles...but it does look like this bill will pass in it's entirety...hopefully they clean it up a bit when they add it to the new 500 page synopsis...

re:

1. I read that as a spike with "2" spikes...or...a single antler with at least one additional point...

2.In lottery areas it appears that you would have to take your one and only deer, (doe or buck), in the first 7 days of the A season...(assuming that is the only option you have for hunting)

AND..."if you "DON'T" get drawn in the lottery...", and you are hunting a lottery area...you would have to have filled your tag in the first 7 days of the 3A season...or I suppose if you hunt an intensive or managed area, you would have to have harvested at least one anterless deer in the first 7 days to be able to use a second anterless permit in the last two days.

Now I'm getting confused....just glad I don't hunt zone 3...your turn to be the field testers....us folks up here in NW MN have had our turn for the past several years...

[PostFrontal]

I know. I'm just frustrated with the whole thing. I hunt around Whitewater and there are so many deer there I have no idea why it is even lottery. I was just down there 3 weeks ago talking with the farmers and there were fields they didn't even harvest last year because of the depridation from all the deer.

I'm assuming the antler point restirction was from the BWA pushing it. Didn't they just simplify the hunting rules a year ago, and now they are making all these restrictions again.

What happened to just going hunting?

[96trigger]

This blows, it should be all or nothing. Why restrict that last two days, the little guys have already been blasted. Totally not thrilled about this, again, either do restrictions, or don't. Whitewater is over-run with deer. I'll have to wait and see what this actually turns out to be. I might be going 3A for the first time ever. I thought they finally had it right by cutting down the 3A and increasing the 3B season. Now they do this. Excellent guys, way to go Minnesota Whitetail Hunters Association. They will not get a dime from me if this is how it ends up. Why not take an actual stance and stick your neck out, go all AR or not. This is just a sly way of getting those two days back. If you have been reading the RPB, I dont think it was so much BWA.

Quote:

or I suppose if you hunt an intensive or managed area, you would have to have harvested at least one anterless deer in the first 7 days to be able to use a second anterless permit in the last two days.

Whywould anyone go 3B?

[PostFrontal]

Let's see..So I can hunt the same amount of days in A as B AND hunt the last 2 days of B with a muzzleloader...wonder which one to do...

I don't mind Earn-a-buck if 344 wasn't already lottery. Hopefully, they only make that for the intensive and management areas.

[cupper]

Don't our lawmakers have more important things to worry about?!? Let the professionals worry about managing our hunting seasons!!! Stick to fixing the budget problems!

[Musky Buck]

I'm confused as to the purpose of this ? What benefit will there be to the deer and hunter or one or the other, I'll admit I haven't looked closely at it.

[96trigger]

I'm still kind of fired up about this. I am going to have to eat some major crow. I was all in favor of some kind of management, and then they come up with this. Wow, I would like to know what they think this is going to do? Why on earth don't they A.R. the whole time frame? I hope, I truley hope the DNR has more sense than this.

Any anti-restriction people can now tell me I told you so... I am 100% confident that this will not work, and will only cause more hunting pressure during 3A, leading to more immature bucks getting shot opening weekend. I have a group of ten people that have been seriously considering going the A season. I wonder how many other people are going to think the same way.

Lets just cram them all into Whitewater. I'm really confused about the whole EAB portion.

[Musky Buck]

I don't get the goal or the hope for this.

[lichen fox]

When they opened the 4 counties up here in northern mn as a "test area" for the first ever 2 deer limit...(one with bow and one with rifle) We also thought we'd have a huge influx of hunters in our areas...But it never really made much difference...we also thought the same would happen when we were the first to have the early anterless and youth hunts...We were "sure" that we would be overrun with hunters from everywhere...we had a few, but not near as many as we "thought" we'd have....

As for the antler point restriction....as it is written it is pretty liberal...come on a two pointer? That is surely not going to "let more imature bucks walk" and hence grow bigger...and, if you read the language...it is specifically for "2009"...I really think they are implementing these changes just to "see"..."how enforceable" that certain types of restrictions may be and what the overall compliance is...it's easier to concentrate that into two days rather than the whole 9 days to start with.

[mrklean]

you know after reading it a few times that makes no sense at all and it wont work, so if im reading this wrong someone tell me. In that area for the first week you can shoot what you want. But the last 2 days are when they actually enforce the A.R. and party hunting for bucks???

[96trigger]

Lichen, I hope your right, but I will say this right now. SEMN is getting increasingly noticed and increasingly more pressure every year. When it starts to get known as the deer mecca thats 30 minutes from Rochester and 90 minutes from the twin cities, why would they go north? I think we probably get as many urban hunters in SEMN as the great north does, only in a much smaller area. Be interesting to look at license sales and see what happens. Anyone have any data?

[Musky Buck]

Hear ya klean, I'm as disturbed sings "stupified".

[Musky Buck]

96Trigger, where did the increase in hunters go hunting or is there a lot of public land in the SE ? My area is saturated with stands on every acre it seems, there is little to no access because it's mostly private and everyone knows someone who hunts deer. MB

[96trigger]

Whitewater State Park is a warzone during firearm, it seams that it gets more and more pressure every year. Last year, when the 3B hunters hooked up with all the Muzzleloader hunters that last weekend, I don't think one piece of the state land didn't get driven. Look at the deer area map. If you look at area 344, that is basically Whitewater state park. The reason that it is lottery when everything else in the area is intensive is because it gets hit so hard. I completely pull out of the area and go to 342 during the firearm season. You can't believe the stream of vehicles heading to Elba.

So, I guess to answer your question MB, they get crammed into 344 if they can't find any other state land. There are a few small chunks of stateland in the area, but that is the largest tract.

[lichen fox]

Yes, basicly it changes nothing for the first 7 days of the season....then, it's not earn a buck...it's earn a doe! Because...you can only shoot Bucks, (two points or better), on the last two days.....UNLESS...you have harvested a doe,(anterless deer) in one of the first 7 days...If that's the case you are then elegible to shoot another doe,(anterless deer)in the final two days, provided your permit area allows the harvest of more than one deer,...So it looks like they want to increase the doe harvest during the first 7 days...and for all practical purposes it changes nothing if you're a BUCK HUNTER only...unless you want to shoot that single "three-inch" spiker you've been seeing on one of the last two days.

[Musky Buck]

Right on Trigger, whitewater gets pummeled, I hear what you are saying and I can picture what that must look like.

[96trigger]

Actually, I think it changes everything. It really makes the first season the sweet season. We used to have a buck and a doe season. 3A was the buck only season, 3B was the doe/buck season.

A couple of years ago, they went to lottery during 3B for antlerless tags. we never saw as many deer during the 3B season after that, but we did see a couple more larger bucks because some of the 3A season made it through after some guys filled their tags with a doe and were done hunting. It was a tradeoff that I thought was OK. We were also able to shoot multiple deer during the 3B season using management tags not usable during the 3A season.

If what you are saying is right lichen, I am totally going to stand by what I said before. Why on earth would anyone want to go during 3B. I know that it is over Thanksgiving and which draws a few extra people, but I don't think thats enough to get me to continue hunting 3A even though I usually have the whole week off. Especially now that it looks like we could get more than one deer during 3A.

Hunting the 3B is difficult. The deer get pushed pretty hard during the 3A season. having a full 7 days to calm them down made a pretty big difference. The deer somewhat got back to some normal patterns for the opening of 3B. However, after the first couple of days of 3B, the deer became very scarce and hole up in "sanctuaries" where hunting is prohibited. I know that we have a plenty of deer down here, but opening up the 3A season to shoot more does completely elliminates the need for a 3B.

I have a novel Idea. 1 zone 3 season with antler restrictions. Muzzleloader hunt during the 3B season. Or, start the zone 3 firearm season during the week of Thanksgiving, no antler restrictions, keep it open for 9 days, then close for 5, reopen the following weekend for Muzzleloader.

I truly don't know why anybody would want to hunt 3B, except for the extra days off because of Thanksgiving. If you don't have a large chunk of private land to go on, your odds of being successful in 3B are really going to diminish. I don't believe that I will be one of the guys to wait and find out.

[96trigger]

Also, if this is what they want to try for just to test the water. Make all the restrictions on the first (opening) weekend. Their should be less restrictions as the season goes on, not the other way around. Its complete bass-ackwards.

[PostFrontal]

When they simplified the zones last year the DNR said that the only reason they kept the 3B season when they got rid of all the others across the state was purley for tradition and the social aspect of it. That's it.

[96trigger]

Its time to do away with it then, why try and phase it out? Just get rid of it and be done. I didn't know that. Thanks.

[Musky Buck]

Those were the same points I made about old zone 4 trigger, 2 day 1st weekend, 4 day second weekend, and then 5 days without much but bow and arrow pursuit let them not go completely nocturnal, which now in zone 2 meant better organize a drive or you won't see a deer or very many. With all the bow and goose and pheasant hunters in the area nowaday to the deer are already field nocturnal where I hunt by rifle opener.

[lichen fox]

Here's how it ended up when it headed to the Governor last nite....

Looks like they at least made the antler point restrictions make more sense...instead of two points...it's now at least 4 points .... ON ONE SIDE!! So, as it reads...You'll have to let that 130 class 3 X 3 walk if you see him on the last two days of 3A...UNLESS you've shot a doe already...then you can blast away!

Sec. 68. ZONE 3 DEER SEASON AND RESTRICTIONS; 2009.

For the 2009 deer season, notwithstanding rules of the commissioner of natural resources under Minnesota Statutes, section 97B.311, paragraph (a), the commissioner shall allow a nine-day early A season in Zone 3 beginning the Saturday nearest November and a nine-day late B season in Zone 3 beginning the Saturday nearest November 20. During the last two days of the 2009 early A season in Zone 3, a person may not take antlered deer unless the deer has at least four points on one side, or the person has taken an antlerless deer prior to taking the antlered deer during the early A season in Zone 3. Party hunting for antlered deer under Minnesota Statutes, section 97B.301, subdivision 3, is not allowed in the last two days of the 2009 early A season in Zone 3. Zone 3 is defined in Minnesota Rules, part 6232.1400, subpart 3.

[96trigger]

So, now that it passed, does it have to go through the DNR? Or are we locked in? Still not sure about the reasoning behind this. I don't see this having the desired effect, only setting us back.

Let me get this straight. Many people want to see larger bucks and have been trying to get some kind of management for age structure. So, we are now going to give them an extra weekend to kill more bucks????? I don't get it at all. Also, what is going to be the plan for does during 3A, will their be over the counter tags for does so people can get a management doe tag for 3A? I already know wich way I am leaning for deer hunting next year. Its too bad, I don't see the logic in this at all. I'm hoping that next year, it is antler restrictions all the way, otherwise, I feel that we have taken a step in the wrong direction.

[lichen fox]

First it goes to the governor...and I really think he'll sign it...then it's in the hands of the DNR and thier rule process.

Yes, it will be interesting to see how it all comes out in the wash....but remember...it is specifically for "2009"...it is not authorized after that...so basicly it is a temporary rule/law...that was probably lobbied for...as I said before, I think they really want to see what the compliance is and if it's going to be enforceable...but, for it to be in place just one year, I really don't think that 2 days of antler point restrictions is going to amount to anything when it comes to more mature bucks for the following season...I really think they are trying to get a better anterless harvest.

[96trigger]

I guess that is what I always thought the 3B season was for. It was more of a management zone for people that wanted to shoot multiple deer. I understand that temporary thing, and I'm trying to keep an open mind, but if people are able to shoot multiple deer and hunt during the rut for 3A. It is kind of a no-brainer which season to go. I don't get out much after Thanksgiving anyway, and when the muzzleloaders team up with the rest of 3B, the woods get pressured extremely hard. The nice part is, by the time 3A roles around, I usually have a nice buck pretty well patterned with my bow, so it might not be so bad going 3A, I know the weather is usually better.

I suppose if it is temporary for 2009, maybe I'll try 3A temporarily too. Hope I can convince the rest of my family to do the same. I think they will be on board. I warned them that this was coming, and they sounded like they thought 3B would be pointless also if this passed.