The best public land map for SW minnesota I have found

Recently I became aware of a relativity new set of land available for public hunting, last year was the first year, and in learning about it came across this wonderful map/atlas from the MN DNR. The new type of land is the Walk-in-Access sites which are private land that was enrolled in the walk in access program to allow public hunting. There are special rules for these lands but and they are limited now but the DNR is trying to expand the program. The map is quite good (still not as good as the maps I am working on) as it shows the WMAs, AMAs, and the new WIAs (walk in access) sites in south west Minnesota. If you want more information the WIAs you can find it here on the MN DNR's site or just go directly to the atlas (it prints nicley on 8.5"x11" paper).

Pheasant Prospects 2012

Well it has been a while since I have updated this blog, sorry bout that.

Well now that I am finished with that on to some good news. Recently the MN DNR published their August roadside survey and pheasant prospect map. It appears that the mild winter and drier summer has produced good results and that the pheasant population is starting to rebound from the previous years. There are still large swaths of poor area but unlike last year there are a few good areas instead of just the one near New Ulm. The fair areas have also expanded but as mentioned earlier there still is a large portion of poor areas.

Also this year I stopped at the DNR building at the MN State Fair and looked at the various offerings they had there. The best find was their printed "Wildlife Lands 2011" maps which are about the size of the state highway map but each one only covers half of the state. These show the location of all of the WMAs in the state and there is one for southern Minnesota as well as one for northern Minnesota. You can download them here:

• Wildlife Lands Southern Minnesota 2011
• Wildlife Lands Northern Minnesota 2011

Granted these maps don't show all of the various lands open to public hunting but do show the locations of WMAs and would be worthwhile to get a paper copy.

Also I was looking at the 2012 hunting & trappings regulations books and saw an advertisement for a free map of public hunting land in SW Minnesota, Marshal area, and took a look. It appears that the map is a cut down one of the DNR provided Wildlife Lands Southern Minnesota 2011 map. The only nice thing is that they have a google maps overlay to view the same info. It isn't great but it is better than nothing.

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:

State forests

One of the many available public hunting land options in Minnesota are the state forests. These for the most part are all open for public hunting, camping, and other outdoor activities. A complete map showing the location of the named state forests can be found here on the MN DNR website. When you click on the state forest name it will take you to that state forest's page on the MN DNR website. From these pages you can access the state forest map for that state forest. These maps are more detailed than other maps that may only show the outline of the area that encompasses the state forest. For example the Savanna State forest map which can be found here (PDF file) at the MN DNR website show the following land within the state forest boundary:

• State forest
• Indian reservation
• WMAs
• SNAs (scientific and natural areas)
  
• county land
• state park

The map includes hiking, skiing, snowmobile, and ATV trails along with the roads in the area. It also includes the state forest roads that are on few maps.

Aquatic management areas

While out pheasant hunting this past weekend I ran across a new type of Minnesota public hunting land that I had never seen. These new tracts of land are called "Aquatic Management Areas" (AMA) and sound like they are similar to WMAs in that they are open to public hunting, but are meant to protect some critical habitat for aquatic life in cold water stream. The one that I know of can be found in this area on openstreetmap.org. Now looking at the map and from being in the area the AMA is just to the north west of the Buttermilk Run WMA on the other side of Murray County Rd 38. There is a stream that runs through it to Armstrong Slough. It is bordered on the north and south by farmland. For a map that show the AMA in some detail (as I have been unable to find any detailed maps showing where these are) you can kind of make out the outline on this map from google maps which is an aerial view of the general area. The one nice thing about AMAs is that their signage is similar to that of WMAs in that they are both the yellow signs and it is easy to confuse them while driving down the road, but this is fine as they are both open to public hunting.

Currently the MN DNR has a 25 year plan for acquiring an additional 1500 miles of cold water streams. The current plan is running from 2008 to 2033 and additional details can be found here from the MN DNR in their "AMA acquisition report" which was published in October 2007. If you do not have a PDF reader on your computer the MN DNR also offers a text version of the "AMA acquisition report".

Hopefully I will be able to find some more information on these areas, but in the mean time I encourage you to add any that you find to the openstreetmap.org project as anyone can edit this map.

An interactive Map from the MN DNR

One of the best resources I have found on the internet for Minnesota hunting maps is on the MN DNR web site. They have a section called Recreation Compass that is an interactive map of Minnesota on it. You can zoom into the map on the areas and see additional detail. Also some of the map features can be clicked on after selecting the information button (it has a pointer and an "i" on it). When doing this it will take you to the page on the MN DNR's website for that land. Things that are clickable are:

• state parks
• WMA
• State forests
• National Forest
• National Wildlife Refuge
• Scientific & Natural Area
• Lake

I have used this tool in the past as it has provided lots of useful information when planning hunting trips. Also there is an option to download the map. What this link will do is generate an image file covering the area currently displayed and will open it in a new screen. You will then have to either save the image or print it your self, but it does produce a decent map that is useful in the field.

2009 MNDNR Pheasant Prospect Map

The Minnesota DNR now has available on their site the 2009 Pheasant Prospect Map in the pheasant hunting section of their site. This map is based off of the 2009 Pheasant hunting prospects map which can also be found at the Minnesota DNR Pheasant hunting section of their website. From looking at the 2009 map compared to the 2008 map (which can be found here at the MN DNR site) it looks like this years prospects will be worse than last year in large portions of the state. The looks to be especially true in the south west portion of the state where last year it was almost all in the good range (>49 pheasants per square miles) where as this year it looks like the fair and poor ranges have expanded. Also it looks like there is a large new area that is now only fair that use to be good. In the more norther part of their range things also appear to have gotten worse as there use to be some areas that were labeled as good but this year it looks like the best rating was fair.

Note: the above links are to PDF files. If you need I PDF viewer you can get a viewer from the Adobe site here, or from Foxit site here (you will want to get the free Foxit reader). I am in no way associated with either Adobe or Foxit.

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.