When is mn deer opener 2017

Last fall, hunters had to apply for one of 5, available antlerless permits in and, according to the DNR website, 1, of those hunters put venison in the freezer. Another 2, hunters shot their bucks. This year we are above goal so we went to hunter's choice to stabilize things. When we can offer hunter's choice, it means that we have a deer population above goal or at goal. It means that there are deer around for hunters but not enough deer to hear many depredation complaints.

DNR officials estimated this spring's deer population in the Bemidji area between 21 and 28 per square mile. The DNR says 70 percent of the deer killed during gun season are shot on the first three or four days of the season.

The reappearance of chronic wasting disease, or CWD, in Minnesota last fall led the DNR to impose mandatory testing in parts of north-central, central and southern Minnesota for the opening weekend. In central and north-central Minnesota, the agency wants to determine whether the fatal brain disease has spread to wild deer from captive deer on two infected farms in Crow Wing and Meeker counties.

Eleven deer shot in the Lanesboro and Preston areas tested positive last fall and winter. That would track close to the most recent year average and be significantly more than the , killed last year, although still far below the record of ,, the agency said.

The favorable deer numbers this year means more antlerless permits are available, and hunters in many parts of the state will have "additional opportunities to harvest more deer because of other more liberal season framework changes," Paul Telander, the DNR's wildlife chief, said in a statement.

Minnesota's bowhunting deer season began in September. Typically, though, it's the firearms hunting season that draws many into the woods. That begins Nov. Minnesota has about , deer hunters, and many have been frustrated in recent years by DNR rules that have kept deer kills relatively low.

Some have blamed the agency, though DNR officials have said the decline was caused largely by several aggressive hunting years established in the early s to reduce the size of the state deer herd, along with back-to-back severe winters in and