Bagging a buck on the opening weekend of the Minnesota firearms deer season proved more difficult than usual in conditions that were windy and unseasonably warm, state officials said.
The important two-day harvest plunged 21% in comparison to last year's opener and ranks well below average. In addition, hunting license sales were flat and too few hunters complied with chronic wasting disease (CWD) testing.
"We did not have a great opening weekend,'' said Barbara Keller, big-game program leader for the Department of Natural Resources.
Keller said hunters took 59,711 whitetails Saturday and Sunday, 16% below the five-year mean. The results dim chances that hunters will achieve the DNR's deer-management goals for 2020 because half the overall firearms harvest normally happens on opening weekend.
Archery, muzzleloader and youth hunts contribute to the state's overall deer harvest, but firearms account for 75 to 80% of the kill.
"Hopefully we'll see some improvement,'' Keller said.
DNR conservation officers from the North Shore to the Driftless Area observed limited success on the opener, often commenting in their reports from Saturday and Sunday that the weather — while pleasant for hunters — stifled deer movement.
"Deer season was off to a slow start and hunters reported far more squirrels than anything else,'' conservation officer Mary Manning wrote in her report from the North Shore community of Hovland.