Festivities begin Friday for Minnesota’s firearms deer hunting season

By KSTP

Festivities begin Friday for Minnesota’s firearms deer hunting season

Gov. Tim Walz will kick events off Friday in Lanesboro, Minnesota. First, there will be a venison sampler late in the afternoon, and that will be followed by a community gathering. A post-hunt brunch will be held Saturday morning.

Saturday marks the start of Minnesota’s firearms deer hunting season.

More than 400,000 hunters are expected to participate in this year’s hunt, and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has a deer hunting plan tool available online, which walks you through getting the right license, chronic wasting disease (CWD) requirements in your zone, how to process your deer and safety tips. You can find it by CLICKING HERE.

There are also some changes this year for some parts of the state.

“Hunters should be sure to pick up our regulations booklet to see if the deer permit area that they hunt in are affected by these regulations,” adds Keller. Where they are in place, hunters that harvest a deer during opening weekend – this upcoming weekend that is one year or older – are required to bring their deer for CWD sampling at one of our stations. We also have carcass movement restrictions that are in place in some of these areas that hunters need to be aware of.”

“The outlook for this year’s season really depends on where you hunt in the state”, said Barb Keller, the Big Game Program Supervisor for the Minnesota DNR.

As previously reported by 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS, the Minnesota DNR said deer populations in the southern part of the state are on the rise because of several years without any major flooding. These conditions also mean large areas of grass that are favorable for deer habitat.

Central Minnesota also has a positive outlook, with the DNR describing the population there as “robust” and “highly productive” after feeding on the bumper acorn crop. The DNR is reminding hunters in central Minnesota that they can harvest as many as three deer in many deer permit areas (DPAs) and as many as five in chronic wasting disease (CWD) management zones.

The deer population in the northeast part of Minnesota, however, is struggling to recover after back-to-back severe winters. Most deer are expected to be concentrated in the southern part of the region in mixed habitats of forests and fields.

Meanwhile, deer populations in the northwest part of the state north of Bemidji are considered mostly stable. The DNR said hunters should also have easier access to ditches and wetlands if dry conditions continue.

CLICK HERE for additional information about deer hunting in Minnesota.