Anyone who hunts in the CWD areas of MN should be appalled by our DNR decision making. 1) taking away of antler point restriction. 2) you can buy a firearms tag for either A or B and hunt both seasons “that’s the way I took it”. 3) unlimited doe tags. 4) you can shoot 3 bucks each year. 5) I can’t haul my Deer home whole until I get the Ok.
Seriously, what were they thinking….
Btw I hunt in 349 which is now 639, which had no CWD restrictions last year.
6) you can cross tag your bucks now. Not the biggest deal day we the rest of the state can, but still kept people from harvesting multiple bucks.
1) they never should have imposed them in my opinion
3) the metro area has been like that for years and there are still a
ton of deer around.
4) was a bit shocking to me!
5) I think that is a good thing not to transport an infected deer
I personally think there are 5,000 too many deer in the state, so I think this should get us within +/- 1,000, which seems acceptable.
8 months ago I put my vacation slip in for a November 2nd opener. Looks like it’s the 9th this year… 
I usually take to the whole gun season. Hope I can switch my dates.
DT
I also read in the paper that they’re planning to open up the WHOLE state to a 4 day early youth season in October. Unreal.
You’re really upset about a 4 day Youth Season? That is unreal. Every state in the Midwest has a Youth deer season.
Great for the youth hunt we should have that for kids.
Great the antler restrictions are cancelled for now in some zones.
“If it’s a bad egg……down the chute.”
I quit Deer hunting after I had a serious “falling out” with some guys, that was back in 2005. At this point I can’t even recognize the regulations, I’d have no idea if I was breaking the law or not. It’s crazy how complex DNR regulations have become.
S.R.
This is amazing. It took a legislative act to get the antler point restrictions put in place, but the dnr can screw the deer up big time without any interaction from anyone else.
Wait..
Mn dnr mucked something up?
Hard to believe 
So, are you guys reading it the same that I can buy a ‘A’ season tag and that license is good for the B season and muzzleloader season should I not fill it in the first (or second)?(I’m a non resident FYI)?
Been through the CWD thing here in WI for the last 20 years (though on the fringe areas, not ground zero) so the ‘sky is falling’ stuff already sounds to me just like the story.
Property I hunt is basically right on the line of 343 and 643 near Byron. 343 is considered a “CWD Control Zone” where we have the limit of 1 buck per hunter per year, but has no antler point restriction. Sounds like we still pick either A or B season, don’t get both.
8 months ago I put my vacation slip in for a November 2nd opener. Looks like it’s the 9th this year…
I usually take to the whole gun season. Hope I can switch my dates.
DT
You should have asked, I could have told you it would be the 9th. I got the whole week before that off to bow hunt 
So, I am a lucky person who hunts in one of the new CWD zones, zone 604 if memory serves after looking last night.
So, the history goes that a deer farm in Merrifield had a deer test positive for CWD several years ago. They could have had the entire herd tested, which would have meant they would have been killed, but the owner “opted” not to which the DNR then enacted the CWD testing which has been in place the subsequent years.
Last winter a deer in the area was struck and killed by a car and it was apparently affected by CWD which now leads us to this “management” of basically killing every deer in the area.
I find it ridiculous that if a restaurant fails a health inspection they get shut down by the government, but if a deer farm has infected animals they are allowed to continue operations.
This deer farm has since destroyed their entire herd from what I have been told, but why was it allowed to for so long after the initial diagnosis?
Also, it sure would be nice if they could develop a test for this that could involve testing a live animal.
Deertracker! You need to track less deer, and read more of the 130 page boring regs book! The next years firearms opener is always in there.
Or just open up the pdf online and “ctrl+F” – “2020” and you will find it in 10 seconds.
FYI 2020’s opener is Nov. 7.
Olmsted and Winona counties have been added to the CWD areas this year and have some restrictions on them. I hunt Wabasha county and the APR are still in effect there with a two deer limit, one being a buck. Nov. 9th start.
What I think will happen is a lot of people who once hunted these two new areas will hunt elsewhere.
I wonder if the dnr doesn’t think about this when they make these new cwd areas….people just not wanting the bother and either not hunting or hunting where the cwd isn’t an issue. Personally I think a lot of people will hang it up because its going to get harder and harder to find processors who will follow new rules regarding deer handling at there end.
Property I hunt is basically right on the line of 343 and 643 near Byron. 343 is considered a “CWD Control Zone” where we have the limit of 1 buck per hunter per year, but has no antler point restriction. Sounds like we still pick either A or B season, don’t get both.
https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/hunting/deer/map.html
Are you sure the “legal” buck isn’t one as defined under the APR? I see nothing where those restrictions have been set aside for this area.
It’s in the “new for 2019” section in the beginning of the regs. All APR’s are cancelled except areas 338, 339, 341, 342
It’s in the “new for 2019” section in the beginning of the regs. All APR’s are cancelled except areas 338, 339, 341, 342
Thanks sticker. Don’t that figure….I hunt in one of those zones. Maybe when all the hammering gets to mid-week one of the big 343 will have had enough and migrated into where I am hunting. lol
Leaving the apr’s will only promote the spread of this crap. You’d think that if these new areas are stripped of the restrictions as a way to control the spread of it the whole of zone 3 should be stripped of it as a means of controlling the spread of cwd. Apparently those in the know of the dnr believe that deer can read maps and obey the zone boundaries. Dumb schnitts.
Come on Tom, leave common sense out of this would ya 
Book smart, brain dead….applies to many of the big game specialists in this state. Common sense wasn’t one of the pre-requisites to employment I guess.
DNR
Do Nothing Right
or
Do NOT Resuscitate
I find it ridiculous that if a restaurant fails a health inspection they get shut down by the government, but if a deer farm has infected animals they are allowed to continue operations.
This deer farm has since destroyed their entire herd from what I have been told, but why was it allowed to for so long after the initial diagnosis?
This ^^^^.
The DNR has been put in the “damned if they do / damned if they don’t” position by the absolutely stupid way these “deer farms” are regulated. Or NOT regulated as is closer to the truth!
The DNR is in the position of having to do SOMETHING in the absence of there being any absolute science saying exactly WHAT that something should be. This is not a heard of cattle, you can’t round ’em all up and give them a shot to fix everything.
And let’s look at the other side of the coin for a minute. What if the DNR were to basically do nothing and then there was a major-major expansion of CWD impacting an entire zone or even the whole state? Would you guys be praising the DNR then saying, “Well CWD has now ruined deer hunting in MN for the next decade or more, but at least the DNR didn’t mess with our hunting before this.”? Somehow I doubt it.
I’ll say it again. Most of you guys have come up hunting in the best of the best of the best of times as far as deer numbers and opportunities in this state. We have been conditioned by time to think of the last 30 years as “normal” and a situation that always existed and will last forever.
That is NOT the case. Most hunters in MN don’t remember the crash years back in the 1970s when deer hunting was closed statewide. It CAN happen.
Grouse
Anyone who hunts in the CWD areas of MN should be appalled by our DNR decision making. 1) taking away of antler point restriction. 2) you can buy a firearms tag for either A or B and hunt both seasons “that’s the way I took it”. 3) unlimited doe tags. 4) you can shoot 3 bucks each year. 5) I can’t haul my Deer home whole until I get the Ok.
Seriously, what were they thinking….
Btw I hunt in 349 which is now 639, which had no CWD restrictions last year.
There only new one is item #4 and I’m ok with that.
#5… You’ve you can debone and leave with the meat. Been that way a few years now. No change.
6) you can cross tag your bucks now. Not the biggest deal day we the rest of the state can, but still kept people from harvesting multiple bucks.
That’s not new either.
I hunt Preston/lanesboro.
$2 disease tags are way better than $90 bonus tags…out a stater here.
I’ll have to read up to see if I can tag bucks with disease tags. Seems like the only way you could… After reading up. You can only tag 3 bucks if you tagged one with each: archery, firearm, muzz.
That’d be way to expensive for me, an out of state guy. Oh well.
So, are you guys reading it the same that I can buy a ‘A’ season tag and that license is good for the B season and muzzleloader season should I not fill it in the first (or second)?(I’m a non resident FYI)?
No.
You can buy an A and hunt A&B… Same as last year. I did it.
But you cannot hunt muzzleload without a muuzzleload license.
Just like you cannot buy a bow license and hunt with a shotgun.
I got my Ravin crossbow ready to go this year! Going to be fun!
Deertracker! You need to track less deer, and read more of the 130 page boring regs book! The next years firearms opener is always in there.
Or just open up the pdf online and “ctrl+F” – “2020” and you will find it in 10 seconds.
FYI 2020’s opener is Nov. 7.
I Googled it before I put my slips in…
DT
And let’s look at the other side of the coin for a minute. What if the DNR were to basically do nothing and then there was a major-major expansion of CWD impacting an entire zone or even the whole state? Would you guys be praising the DNR then saying, “Well CWD has now ruined deer hunting in MN for the next decade or more, but at least the DNR didn’t mess with our hunting before this.”? Somehow I doubt it.
Grouse
I remember well no hunting deer for two years right along with everyone else.
People need to get beyond the deer farms as the culprit here as there is zero proof that a penned deer infected a wild animal. In fact it could be exactly the opposite. By continuing to have the four point rule in effect in areas immediately adjacent to CWD problem areas, the DNR is doing exactly nothing to help prevent the spread of the disease. If they wanted to be pro-active, they’d slam the door on this apr crap in the areas right next door to the problem areas and allow hunters to take any buck or take two would be even better in two deer areas.
Lets get past this deer farm stuff and look at today. The results from the last three years’ hunting seasons studies of CWD show that far more male deer carry the bug than females. APR’s have stuffed the natural wild herd with far too many male deer, period. The uneven balance between male and female deer is a dnr induced problem : there was zero reason to implement any type of antler point restrictions ANYWHERE in this state. If the whole APR thing was such a bonafide great idea, why wasn’t the entire state under the rule?
The dnr’s division dealing with this CWD issue needs to wake up and fess up to the fact that their APR crap has caused a major problem and probably to the extent that it will never go away regardless of how the deer are hunted or managed. Every friggin one of those who stumped for the APR’s should be schnit canned and sent packing. This whole fiasco reminds me of the Christmas Lake invasives thing where big money in the private sector was influencing the dnr in a direction that was not in the least good for that body of water or, in fact, for any body of public water in the state. The same identical problem is taking place right here: BIG bucks here in the SE [think bluff country whitetails or something to that effect] also influenced the high and mighty dolts in the dnr that pressured the legislature to get these APR’s permanently in place. My representative voted yes on these restrictions and publicly stated that she was voting on behalf of her constituents after having talked to them…well she never spoke to me about it and she no longer gets any kind of a vote from me. I say if anything gets done with the deer herd it should be voted on by those who actually support the deer programs: The license buying deer hunters. Not the do-gooders, not the legislature, not the general public and certainly not by any faction of the dnr because they have shown they cannot be trusted to do what’s right and/or proactive.
So Dutch, the DNR is doing exactly what your “what if” question is, if the question is to be answered. Nothing. The first step in dealing with the spread of this disease should be to remove the one thing that promotes it, especially in yet “clean” neighboring areas. Science will win this battle, not the dnr and their sickening bs.
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I usually take to the whole gun season. Hope I can switch my dates.
