Southern Minnesota gains respect for newfound deer hunting bounty

A Minnesota wildlife region closely associated with pheasants and waterfowl has become a bright spot in state deer hunting reports at a time when stories abound elsewhere about chronic wasting disease (CWD), deer declines in the North Woods, wolves and harsh winters.

Of the four geographic wildlife sectors mapped by the Department of Natural Resources, it's the farm belt stretching diagonally from Ortonville in Big Stone County to Austin in Mower County that has seen steady growth in whitetail harvest over the past five years.

"We're ag dominated so you have to go where there's habitat, but we've got great deer hunting here,'' said Dave Trauba, DNR regional wildlife manager in New Ulm. "We have a healthy, growing deer population.''

Total deer production across the southwest region is dwarfed by total harvest in the central region by a ratio of more than 2 to 1, but no region in the state can match the southwest in certain growth categories. DNR Big Game Program Supervisor Barbara Keller said this year's early deer harvest in the farm belt was 35% above the five-year mean. That exceeded the growth rate in the central region by 9 percentage points and bested the northeast by 30 percentage points.

Comparing last year's statewide harvest of 184,382 whitetails to the overall deer kill in 2020, the southwest region was alone in exceeding its 2020 harvest (by 3%), Keller said. The other three regions posted declines, including a 10% slide in the central region. Keep in mind that last year's harvest of 26,832 deer in the southwest was only 15% of the statewide kill — the smallest piece of the pie in comparison with the three other sectors. The central region's share last year was 36%; the northwest region's harvest was 30% of the total and 20% came from the northeast.

In the southwest, Keller said, deer populations are stable to growing. The animals are doing so well that the DNR this year liberalized bag limits and increased the availability of bonus tags (by lottery). Keller said the relaxation of constraints occurs this season in 12 of the southwest region's 34 deer permit areas.

Ten years ago, when farm country deer populations were less abundant, the DNR didn't allow harvest of more than one deer anywhere in the region. This year, Keller said, hunters can harvest more than one deer in 35% of deer permit areas.

"The deer herd in the southwest is doing well and can sustain a good harvest,'' Keller said. "We just need the weather to cooperate.''

As of Thursday, conditions looked favorable for opening day with a 30% chance of snow in Redwood Falls before 8 a.m., then sunny with a high near 48. Fall winds can be gusty in the southwest and detrimental to the hunt, but forecasters were predicting manageable breezes of 10 mph before winds pick up Sunday.

Another plus for southwest deer hunters this year is a near-complete harvest of corn fields. Without the crop cover, Trauba said, a lot of deer will be staged in cattail sloughs. Access to those plots will be easier than usual because of drought conditions, he said. In general, large blocks of grass with embedded wetlands are prime deer habitat in the southern region.

"If you have a good opening weekend for deer, it really sets up a strong season,'' Trauba said.

Dennis Quarberg is an avid bow hunter, president of the Minnesota Deer Hunters Association and a resident of Windom in Cottonwood County. He said whitetails in southwestern Minnesota are benefitting from evolving farming practices, such as the increased planting of cover crops that keep more food on the ground.

Quarberg's local deer permit area stretches south from Windom to the Iowa border. According to the DNR, it produced 532 deer last year for a hunter success rate of 32%. The area's deer population is at goal, and Quarberg said hunters are seeing enough deer afield that many of them sit on their only tag, hoping to connect with a mature buck. When time starts running out, they'll shoot a doe, he said. The zone has a one-deer bag limit, but the DNR this year increased the number of bonus tags available by lottery from 400 to 450.

"I haven't spoken to anyone who's saying our (deer) population is down,'' Quarberg said.

He urges fellow deer hunters in the southwest to remove lymph nodes from their deer to be tested for CWD. However, the testing is voluntary because the deer disease has not yet been detected in the region's free-ranging deer. All eight of the DNR's CWD control zones, where testing is mandatory on opening weekend, are located elsewhere.

For now, the southwest region's biggest jewel for deer hunting is Deer Permit Area 277, located amid rolling hills that touch four counties: Stearns, Swift, Pope and Kandiyohi.With glacial lakes and wetlands interspersed with ag fields and woody cover, the area is 25% over its desired deer population. Hunters there can harvest three deer this year and the area provides 58 square miles of public hunting land.

To the west and south, there's another plush home for deer in the Minnesota River Valley from Ortonville to Redwood Falls. In one stretch of the corridor, from Ortonville to Montevideo, there's 61 square miles of public land, including Big Stone National Wildlife Refuge and Lac qui Parle Wildlife Management Area.

Curt Vacek, DNR Area Wildlife Supervisor in Appleton, said a new public hunting complex that's still in the making demonstrates awareness of the improving deer hunting scene. The Thielke Lake project in Big Stone County will create a 900-acre wildlife management area that will preserve an important deer wintering area, retain a wildlife food plot and reconstruct surrounding prairie-wetland habitat. The $2.85 million initiative is moving forward with funds from Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council and through partnerships with Ducks Unlimited and Pheasants Forever.

Vacek said deer recoveries and habitat expansion have coincided with an apparent cultural shift within deer hunting groups to hold fire on young bucks. "Our deer numbers are strong and we're getting better growth (in bucks),'' he said.

State officials can't readily break down historical hunter participation numbers according to geographic sectors, but Vacek said the rise in deer harvest in the southwest hasn't coincided with more hunters. At least in the greater Appleton area, participation appears to be lower than in past years, he said.

"It's all anecdotal, but hunters aren't shooting everything and it's a more relaxed hunt.''