Deer Area 601 public land

One of my new readers appears to have shown an interest in deer area 601 which is the metro deer area. While there are limited areas available for public hunting there are some. There is a fair amount of county land available but that is mostly county parks and if hunting is allowed there are a number of restrictions on it. Also even the WMAs and AMAs in this area have restrictions that you will need to be aware of before actually hunting them. So below is a map I create that covers almost all of deer are 601. This one actually includes roads, lakes and rivers to help you better identify where you are.

The color scheme is similar to previous maps with:

• Light green - county land
• Magenta/ping - Indian reservation
• Bright yellow - Federal land
• Pale yellow/pale tan - Federal WPA
• Bright orange/tan - WMA
• Dark blue - AMA
• Light blue - Walk in Access (private land open to public hunting)
• Purple - SNA
• Red - State Park

Archery Deer Locations

With Archery season under way for deer in Minnesota I decided to produce 2 maps showing the archery deer harvest. These 2 maps show the relative number of deer harvested per square mile. One of the maps is for bucks the other is for antler-less. The darker red the higher number of deer harvested per square mile. Data for these maps came from the MN DNR for the 1993-2005 harvests.

Antler-less Bow Harvest:
Buck Bow Harvest:

New 2009 hunting regs and deer map

Well it has been a while since I last posted but it has been busy so I haven't been able to get to anything that I have wanted to do until now. I checked and the new MN hunting regulations are out as is this year's deer zone map. The new hunting regulations can be found here at that MN DNR website or picked-up where you buy your license. The 2009 firearm deer zone map can be found here at the MN DNR website. One thing that I noticed on the deer zone map is that there appears to be a new type of limit zone where as before there were only the following 5:

1. lottery (1 deer, lottery for anterless)
2. managed (2 deer, either sex)
3. invasive (5 deer, either sex)
4. no limit anterless (bovine TB area and Twin cities metro area)
5. closed (Red Lake Indian Reservation )

This year however there is a new type of zone that appears in south western Minnesota. It is labeled as "Youth Antlerless Only - 1 deer limit" and are the yellow areas on the the 2009 deer zone map. From reading the text on the map it sounds like these areas only youth are allowed to apply for anterless permits but that is done by lottery. Those youth who don't get selected and all adults are only allowed one buck. This is only my interpretation of what is written there and you should consult the official MN hunting and trapping regulations for 2009. This is covered in section "STATEWIDE ANTLERLESS DEER INFORMATION" on page 70 which contains information on all of the anterless lottery information. I am not too concerned as I do not hunt these areas, but it may be of interest to others so I point it out.

Where are the pheasants

Well for a change I decided to put up a link to where the pheasants are in Minnesota. This is a PDF file from the MN DNR and is from last year which can be found here. This is the roadside survey that the DNR does to get an idea of the pheasant population in the state. From year to year this map doesn't change much, but there are some slight changes each year but this one is representative of what to expect. Once the 2009 survey and map is out I will provide a link to it here also.

I have had good luck while hunting in the Benson area seeing birds, but in the morning my party went the wrong way and only saw hens while the other party got all the roosters. In total though we saw a large number of birds and the other party of got their limit on opener within 30 minutes. If I remember correctly my party saw about 2 dozen or so birds, with only 1 being a rooster though.

I have consistantly seen birds in the Tyler area (extreme south west minnesota) without having a dog. In a typical day it wasn't uncommon for 3 guys without a dog to flush 8-10 birds. Also this is prime pheasant teritory with the more prairy like setting and lots of grain farming. If you can find a field that is currently beign harvested and is next to public hunting land it is some of the best phesant hunting I have done as the combine drives the birds out of the field towards the public land.

I have even had success up in the St. Cloud area but there it is harder to find the birds and a good dog is pretty much a necessity. Typically I have had more success in the St. Cloud area later in the season since then the swamps have frozen and if you are willing to push through the swamp you can flush a lot of birds out of the cat tails in this area. Also hunting here after a snow fall is nice since then you can easily find their bedding area which is usually along a windbreak of pine trees.

Where are the deer?

Well I did some more searching on the MN DNR website and I ran across these 2 maps. They are for '07 and '08 and they each is a pre-fawn deer density map. Neither of these maps provides an exact number so it would be difficult incorporate the data in an accurate way with the harvest map that I created, since I would like to normalize the harvest data against things like the deer density or hunter density but I have been unable to find this data. Intuitively one could do some estimates based off of these 2 maps and the harvest map that I created that would provide some useful insight.

Note that these maps like most maps from the Minnesota DNR are in PDF format and require a PDF reader which you can get at adobe.com or my preferred PDF reader foxitsoftware.com.

Also if anyone know where I can get some of the raw data that went into creating these maps that would be helpful since.

2009 MN DNR Camp Ripley Archery Deer Hunt

So as an initial map I offer up the Minnesota DNR's 2009 Camp Ripley Archery Deer hunt map as the deadline for applying for this special hunt is quickly approaching. The deadline to turn in your applications for this hunt is due Friday August 14th. There are 2 hunts this year October 15 & 16, and October 31 and November 1. For those who are interested you can find the complete rules on the MN DNR web site here, and if you want the application it is available here at the MN DNR web site.

Welcome

Welcome to MN hunting maps. Why did I create this blog, well because I am relatively new to hunting and one thing that I have noticed is that there really aren't any maps that exist that tell me what I want to know. I do know how to create maps which I will be doing and plan on offering large nice maps that can be taken into the field for sale. At present I have not done this but as it is a ways out from hunting season, I still have time. I will be posting various maps up here that other Minnesota hunter may find of value. Some will be maps that I create, other will be links to maps from other sources as I do not want to take credit for maps created by other people or organizations.

So as a base reference map I offer up the Minnesota DNR's 2009 Camp Ripley Archery Deer hunt map as the deadline for applying for this special hunt is quickly approaching. The deadline to turn in your applications for this hunt is due Friday August 14th. There are 2 hunts this year October 15 & 16, and October 31 and November 1. For those who are interested you can find the complete rules on the MN DNR web site here, and if you want the application it is available here at the MN DNR web site.