Central Minnesota – Opening weekend report

Opening weekend went well for my group. We lease potlatch land ( 120 acres ) up near Huntersville state forest. This area is a lottery area. After only getting 2 doe permits for the 8 of us we thought it was going to be a tough year. Without much of a defined food source or bedding area, the deer tend to be Nomadic Wonders. This make it real hard to pattern the deer in the area. We ended up getting 5 Bucks, but had to use a doe tag on a small spike buck. The bucks seems to be moving a lot in search of does. Overall I did not feel like the rut was at or near the peak. I think by mid week or by next weekend they will be. We only wanted to fill 6 tags because 2 of us will be hunting this next weekend up there as well. 5 deer was close enough that most of our group skipped hunting on Sun. We got a early start cutting deer. Due to a slip while sharping a knife, we lost 2 people due to a emergency run to the ER. 8 stiches later and a 2MM miss of a Major tendon they were back. Lesson learned is, while using crock sticks do NOT take you eyes off what you are doing and miss the sticks – OUCH !!!! looking forward to heading back up after work on Wed. There is a nice 10 pointer still up there with my name on him. If the rut kicks in and I spend enough time on a stand hopefully he will show up and give me a shot. Best of luck to everyone still hunting. Have fun and be safe.

Good report Cline. Hope you slay that big boy.

Here’s the result of my Halloween sit in Wisconsin.

Good luck!

ej

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That’s a great looking deer. Looks a lot like the one we having running around. I’d be thrilled to get a chance at him.

We were just north of you a ways by Nevis, and saw pretty good #’s. I had a monster come thru chasing a doe, but couldn’t get a shot. My brother got a 6 pointer that was hot on a doe also. I think they are getting after it, I passed a spike that had a neck like tree trunk also. I have some friends that hunt by Huntersville and I think they had a tougher weekend than you. Good work!

Yes we did much better than we expected. That whole area is really heavily wooded. Not much for agriculture land in our area. The rut is the key up there for sure. Without that keeping the deer moving things get real tough. Those in favor of moving the deer season out of the rut in Minnesota have never hunted in area’s like ours.