Deer harvest seems down

I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.

Nov. 13, 1998

By Devlyn Brooks

Preliminary reports are sketchy, but anecdotal information is pointing to a smaller deer hunting harvest in the region for the 1998 hunting season, a Department of Natural Resources official says.

The DNR doesn't compile official statistics on the deer harvest until the season is over, but officers in the field are hearing that hunters aren't bagging the same number of deer as last year.

To the west of Bemidji, however, Lt. Chuck Schwartz of the region's DNR enforcement division said hunters have been more successful.

He said he believes one reason is that the northwestern part of the state, starting from about central Polk County up to the western side of the Red Lake Reservation and west, wasn't hit as hard this region during the devastating winters of 1996 and 1997. That means the deer population there should be larger.

"You'd expect to see better hunting success there, and that is the case," Schwartz said.

However, it is too early to tell overall how hunters will do because the official numbers won't be compiled until at least a day after the hunting season closes.

Hunters have until 24 hours after the season ends to register their deer. So complete numbers won't be available until then.

Schwartz added that because of the lack of anterless permits being issued in this region (Zone 2), there are fewer hunters in the area.

He said he believes many of the hunters have ties elsewhere in the state, and so they traveled there to hunt instead of coming here.

That also might affect the number of deer harvested in this zone, he added.

The good news for hunters is that this week's snow should produce some bigger numbers in this weekend's hunting. The snow lends to greater visibility for the hunters, and it also allows for easier tracking of deer, he said.

In other hunting news:

• Schwartz said he has heard of only three reported hunting accidents in the region as of Thursday afternoon, but it is hard to compare those numbers to previous years. "There is no normal year when it comes to accidents," he said, "but last year, we had more than our fair share of accidents in northwestern Minnesota for whatever reason."

• The number of trespassing complaints filed against hunters is "considerably" down this year, Schwartz said. "Hunter compliance has been really commendable," he added.

• However, the DNR is still receiving its usual share of deer baiting complaints, he said. That is what a lot of the enforcement officers are currently handling, even though many of the incidents are nothing more than people feeding deer and not hunting them. "This is about routine as it gets for us," he concluded.