Minnesota Firearm Opener

The rut can be a very exciting time of the season to hunt.  It can also be a very disappointing and frustrating time of year.  I have read and heard hunting reports from a number of individuals over the past 2 weeks, some of excitement of bucks searching and chasing does and yet others stressing distaste for the lack of deer seen.  This past weekend was Minnesota Firearm season opener.  It runs for the next 2 weeks throughout most of the state.

As I mentioned in my first blogs, this was the first year I really put forth a solid effort in preparing my property for deer season.  There were tons of tasks and I was always looking for help, not only for the labor, but also for the companionship in the woods.  The outdoors is wonderful to experience by yourself, but it is much more memorable when sharing the experience with someone else.  My college friend Shawn jumped on the opportunity to help me this summer with some of the “chores” around my property.  He made a couple day trips with me and of course I immediately invited him to bow hunt with me during for the archery opener.  He helped me with my doe I harvested that weekend and we had a great time playing cards and talking hunting stories.  Neither of us were successful during the archery season in getting a shot at a buck, and personal events at my house threatened the opportunity to firearm hunt my property for the first time.
However, I made a late decision to head up bright and early Saturday morning to my property to meet and head out to the woods to enjoy the woods on the opener.  Shawn was a little hesitant.  He asked me “how much is a firearm license?”  I quickly responded it is like $30 dollars ($27 to be exact) and it would be a great donation to the DNR if we don’t see anything.  I offered to let him stay and hunt the next day if I had to head back home on Saturday night and he eventually agreed to head up and we both agreed, if the deer activity was good and we both did not tag out, we would stay the night and hunt Sunday morning as well.

These decisions found me waking up at 3am on Saturday morning getting dressed and packing the final things into the truck.  At 3:44 I was driving out of my driveway.  Around 4:30, I called Shawn to see where he was and after a little discussion we realized I was 15 minutes ahead of him.  When I arrived at the parking area at 5:20, I quickly unpacked the ATV and started getting my hunting clothes on.  Shawn pulled up as I was putting on my boots and we quickly exchanged greetings and now we were both quickly dressing.  We realized we should have set out another 30 minutes sooner.  We drove the ATV over the low area to the camp site.  We offered “good luck” to each other and separated to the different directions.

On the drive up, I decided I wanted to hunt my food plot as it was near their bedding area and had thicker poplar thickets surrounding it.  I was being strategic in thinking the bucks may still be seeking, not chasing, and this will provide me an excellent opportunity to harvest that big 8 pointers I have on trail camera.  The other spot I was contemplating was a beautiful hardwood ridge with lowland forest swamps to the southeast, west, and north east.  There are plenty of natural funnels and ridges, and a lot of viewing of majestic oaks.  Not to mention tons of grey squirrels (they hide when .22s are in hand I found out this fall).  This spot I recommended to Shawn.  I would be easy to find in the dark and personally probably the best spot to be sitting if the bucks are chasing.

Legal shooting time was 6:29 officially, and at 6:31 a small doe appeared racing through my food plot from the north to the south and ran past me at about 10 yards.  I knew it was game time.  They were chasing and I had a hot doe already.  I may be heading home at noon!!  A minute or two later I heard the running of deer from the north and very deep grunts.  I was standing up and focusing to the north.  I saw movement to the north east of the food plot in the thick poplar.  This is where my past experiences and knowledge caused my only opportunity to fade away.  The wind was out of the west.  Big buck prefer cover and will generally travel downwind of food sources to scent check for estrous does.  I had my Browning A-Bolt 7mm rifle shouldered and I quickly was trying to find horns on the running deer as it was passing by my stand.  As I was realizing it had no horns I heard hooves pounding the ground behind me in the food plot.  I quickly turned to my right to see a decent buck exiting my food plot 10 yard way.  I swung my rifle around and caught him in my scope, but I also had a circle full of brush.  He won this round I told myself.

It wasn’t a minute and I heard a rifle shot in the direction of where Shawn should be sitting and those deer just ran that way.  I was sure he shot him.  Good I told myself while at the same time I was kicking myself for being fooled.  I reached for my cell phone to see if Shawn had emailed me to tell me a deer was down.  Wouldn’t you know it…I left it in the truck.  Now normally I would just forget it, but Shawn and I discussed shooting a doe with his bonus tag and first one to shoot needed to email the other.  I quickly became disappointed as that meant I was out of the game on does.  An hour passed and no more deer, no more noise of deer running, nothing.  Then “BANG” much closer and in Shawn’s direction.  It was then obvious the 6:35 shot was not his, but this one most definitely was.  7:30 and either a doe or buck was down.  You can hear in the crack of the shot if the hunter was successful (within some accuracy) as I heard the thud at the end of the sound.  Either there is a hole in my prize oaks or a deer is down.  But I didn’t have my phone.  I realized there that modern technology has made me reliant on too many of the conveniences of the concrete jungle.  I waited a half hour and then decided it was time to still hunt back to my truck and retrieve my phone.  If the bucks were chasing, it wouldn’t matter.  In fact, still hunting during the chasing phase of the rut can be very productive.


Once I retrieved my phone, I checked my emails and sure enough, “Buck Down” was the message of the latest email.  He got him.  Now which “him” was my next question.  I instilled a management philosophy for my property that young hunters or new hunters who had not shot bucks in the past had the opportunity to take any deer their license would legally allow them to take.  However, for hunters of more experience, I desire they only shoot the bucks with horns around the width of the ears or mature whitetails.  This philosophy is to ensure there are plenty of bucks for the young and new hunters and also to provide the bucks an opportunity to live a deer season and provide a better bounty in future years.  For me to go one or more years without shooting a buck does not bother me, as just being outdoors is reward enough.  Now this philosophy will only be so-so beneficial as adjoining landowners are not following the same philosophy, as is their right.

Well the only way I was going to find out would be to call him.  As I talked to him, he told me the story and that he could count 5 points on one side from his tree and that he has yet to get down to see his trophy.  I told him to get down and have his personal time experiencing the success of his hunt and I would still hunt to his stand an hour later.  An hour passed and I started my still hunting route to his stand.  On my way I stopped and talked with my neighbor to the north in his stand.  He had seen two does by traveling together.  These had to be the does with Shawn’s buck I determined.  I approached Shawn in his stand and asked him where his buck was.  He pointed behind me and I turned and the first words out of my mouth were “That is a BIG buck!”  But I was not referring to the horns, but rather the body size.  It was huge.  Later dressed out and weighed in at 195 lbs.  I asked him, if he had gotten down and seen his buck and he said no.  Well I took out my camcorder and videoed him climbing down, telling the quick event, and then his reactions to seeing his largest buck ever lying on the ground.  It was an AWESOME experience for me as well.  I was very excited and happy for his success.  It was a beautiful buck and hopefully a sign of future success on my property.


We both walked back to camp to get the ATV and from there began the “work”.  Shawn patiently took his time field dressing the buck while I held the legs.  We took a ton of pictures and loaded the buck up in the dump bucket trailer.  When we got back to camp we weighed him, and then left his hanging to drain and cool down.  Shawn answered a number of phone calls and text messages of congratulations.  We then decided we were staying the night since the rutting activity seemed to be strong.  We setup camp and headed back out to the woods for the evening hunt.  It was a quiet evening in the woods and neither of us saw a deer, but I don’t think Shawn was too concerned.  I am sure he was replaying the morning over and over in his head.  We had an early evening due to being awake since 3am and with the anticipation of the morning hunt.  The next morning we received a little rain and again went without seeing a deer.  But what a wonderful morning to be in the woods, as is every day you get to sit patiently in God’s creation.


As we spent Sunday morning packing up camp for the season, I realized how blessed we are to have the opportunity to be outdoors and most of all being able to share wonderful experiences and success of others.  This weekend will remain in my memories for years to come as this was the weekend the first buck was taken from my property.

Hunting the Rut

There have been numerous books, articles, seminars, etc. about the rut.  When it occurs, why it occurs when it does, and when the best time to hunt certain locations.  I have to say I probably have read 80% of the material on the topic.  The one report that has held fairly accurate to myself and my experiences in Wisconsin and Minnesota have been the rut predictions provided by the journalist of Deer and Deer Hunting Magazine.

This year they predicted the peak seeking phase will occur 2-3 days before the rutting moon which was November 2nd.  If you read the posts on Talk Hunting.com or even read the outdoor section of newspapers in the Midwest, everybody started talking about the rut kicking in around the end of October.  What most people don't consider is the multiple "phases" a rut has.

There is the "seeking" phase where the bucks start getting more active, utilizing scrapes and rubs and are filmed on people trail cameras closer to daylight or during daylight, where before they were mostly nocturnal.  The next phase is the "chasing" phase where the does start coming into estrous and bucks (sometimes multiple) are actively chasing these does until the does chose their suitor.  This is the most common phase of the rut for most hunters as this is when they will see bucks and does running all over the place and it gets quite exciting.  The final phase is the "breeding" or tending phase of the rut.  This can be a "where did all the bucks go?" time among many hunters.  Does and bucks tend to be less mobile.  This is typically a short period of time in which the buck will breed the doe.  Then the buck is off and looking for the next estrous doe.

Well what does this mean to me?  Is that what you are asking right now?  Well for me personally in Minnesota it means the most exciting phase of the rut is starting this weekend November 7th which happens to be the firearm opener in Minnesota.  The chasing phase should continue at peak levels for the next 4 days and then start to decline.  This will be my first time I have hunted the peak rut period with a firearm versus my bow.  Unfortunately, I will only get out on Saturday and if I am not successful with a decent buck, then the DNR has my donation for the year.  But that donation will be well worth it, and supporting what I love.

Well the next question some people have asked me is..."didn't you hunt most of the peak seeking phase last week/weekend?"  The answer is yes I did put in many hours in the stand (blogs about the evenings to come in the next few days).  However, the weather (one of the key rut suppressors) did not cooperate.  It was windy (17-35 mph), and rainy (most of the time), and of course the full rutting moon did not help either.  This kept the deer less active during the day time and more active at night.  I did see some young deer, but I did not see the mature deer I was hoping to see moving around.  But that is why they call it hunting not harvesting.  Nothing is a guarantee.  However, if you consider the ability and opportunity to spend time in the outdoors a success, you will never be unsuccessful.

If you have failed to get out of the concrete forest to enjoy this wonderful time of year, don't fret as 3-4 weeks after a does first comes into estrous they will come into estrous again IF they have not been successfully breed.  Which means you will see another "mini" rut during the last days of November (WI Firearm season) and early December.  This rut will not be nearly as explosive as fewer does will need to be breed and much human pressure in the woods will have occurred, causing more nocturnal activity.

I hope this information was beneficial to you, and I wish everyone the best of luck chasing after their bucks.  I hope you enjoyed the bucks I caught on film in the days leading up to my "successful" trips to the woods last weekend.  These are the bucks I will hopefully be looking at in the upcoming days/weeks/months.