Deer Hunting

Deer hunting is obviously one of the more Minnesotan things to do. We absolutely love it. But it has become increasingly difficult to harvest a deer. The DNR's approach to managing deer populations is the Doe Permit method. I believe this method is flawed. It creates an imbalanced buck to doe ratio and leaves out meat hunters. The values of the younger generation of deer hunters are different than before. More and more people would like to harvest a trophy animal. But that is very difficult when a "meat hunter" is not able to harvest a doe and shoots the first spike buck they see. There are many old does out there that never get harvested but bucks rarely make it past 2.5 years out. My solution is to put an antler point restriction in place and offer more opportunities to shoot does. This will create a healthier, more balanced population that would keep everyone happy. In my opinion, the lack of opportunities to harvest a deer is what is driving license sales lower. I am a very dedicated deer hunter and in the last 2 years I have entertained the thought of giving up deer hunting due to the lack of mature bucks available to harvest in northern minnesota. You cannot lose deer hunters. This is how you keep license sales up.