Joining me on last weekend’s Outdoor News Radio show and podcast, Barb Keller, the DNR’s big-game program leader, said she doesn’t expect Minnesota’s deer kill this year to exceed 2022’s. Whitetail hunters a year ago took 172,000 deer across all seasons for a 32% success rate, and Keller said lower deer numbers in northern Minnesota likely will keep statewide harvest lower again in 2023. Central and southern hunters could help by hunting hard and killing multiple deer, but overall, Keller expects a kill similar to 2022 and maybe even slightly lower.
* Early metrics from the 2023 hunt suggest she’s correct. The early antlerless season, which ran Oct. 19-22, saw 2,277 deer harvested – 46% fewer than last year. There were fewer deer permit areas eligible in the early season this year, but even so, comparing harvest in those DPAs that were open in 2022 to this year, harvest was down 25%.
The statewide youth season coincided with the early antlerless hunt, and in total the youth hunt saw an 8% drop in kill from 2022. That kill dropped in three of the four state’s regions compared with 2023 and in all four regions compared to the four-year mean.
Bigger picture, the state’s overall total deer kill, including the bowhunting season (now with crossbows) as of Monday was down 18% from last year and 11% from the five-year mean.
RELATED STORIES:
Deer hunt opener ’23: “It’s a tradition that a lot of Minnesotans share”
Minnesota’s firearms deer forecast: Many factors will affect how hunters fare
Minnesota deer hunters reminded to know trail closure rules in state forests
Want a chance at great prizes? Take part in Outdoor News’ annual Best Buck Contest
Most reasonable folks who monitor deer hunting in Minnesota generally agree that the state should produce an annual harvest of 200,000. But that hasn’t happened since 2010, when the state killed just over 207,000 deer.
During the first decade of this century, Minnesota had several years of harvest well above 200,000, but since 2010, the kill has been as low as 139,400 in 2014 and as high as 197,000 in 2017 and 2020. We’ve come close to 200K in recent years but a number of factors – tough winters, predators, and deteriorating habitat (including fewer Conservation Reserve Program acres) – during the past 15 years have hindered this state’s ability to grow robust deer numbers. And in areas where hunters can take more than one deer, most folks are satisfied with one.
If there’s perfect weather for a firearms deer opener, the forecast for this weekend might be it: highs in the 40s and lows in the 30s – cold enough for rutting bucks to push does, and warm enough for hunters to stay in the woods. Decent opening-weekend weather is crucial for the state’s annual deer kill because 30% to 40% of the state’s total harvest typically happens on firearms opener weekend. Good temperatures for cooling a deer down fast, too.
As for licenses, through last Friday, Oct. 27, sales for firearms and muzzleloader seasons were down 4% from 2022 at 160,680. Six other years this century actually have had lower tallies as of that same Friday a week before opener, so it’s hard to draw grand conclusions from early sales. Take 2022, for example: Hunters had bought 166,683 licenses by that same date, but by the end of opener weekend (nine days later), the state had sold 392,271. Minnesota sells lots of deer licenses this week before the gun hunt, so maybe the solid weather forecast for this weekend will inspire some hunters to hit the stand. It’s too bad the Vikings play at noon on Sunday, because night or weekday games on deer opener sometimes help keep guys in the woods.
One final data point: Despite the lower deer kill so far in 2023, archery license sales are up 3.5% from this time in 2022, maybe because crossbows now are legal during bow season. For comparison, the state sold a total of 101,555 archery licenses in 2022, down 3% from 2021. As of last Thursday, with a lot of archery season to go, the 2023 number stood at 94,946. Casual chats with other hunters suggest that crossbow sales have been robust. We’ll see if that holds up and boosts archery license sales through Dec. 31.