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Archers took a two-day total of 287 deer during the first bow hunt Oct. 20-21, at Camp Ripley Military Reservation near Little Falls.
“Excellent weather greeted hunters during the first hunt and made it possible for hunters to maximize their time in the field and resulted in a tie for the third-highest recorded harvest for the first two days of the hunt,” said Beau Liddell, Little Falls area wildlife supervisor for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR).
For the eighth year in a row, hunters were allowed to take up to two deer and use bonus permits to increase harvest on antlerless deer. Harvest was well above the long-term average with fawns and does comprising 67 percent of the harvest, an increase of 3 percent from last year.
Total harvest so far represents an identical harvest to the 2010 harvest and is 61 percent above the long-term average harvest of 179 deer for the first hunt.
“Unless we get another unexpected Halloween blizzard that shuts down the hunt like it did in 1991, at this point it’s basically a certainty that we’ll register another top-10 harvest. If weather cooperates this weekend, the total take for all four days could easily rival the record 516 deer taken for both hunts in 2008,” Liddell said.
There were 2,500 permits issued for the first hunt with 2,099 hunters participating, a participation rate of 85 percent. Hunter success was about 13 percent, which was identical to last year and 3 percent higher than the long-term average. Seven hunters took their bag limit of two deer.
Four adult bucks tipped the scales at or above 200 pounds. The largest buck taken weighed 210 pounds, taken by Dylan Laudenbach of Coon Rapids. Among the adult does weighed, the largest, taken by Richard Carlson of Maple Lake, weighed in at 123 pounds.
“With 13 consecutive mild winters in this part of the state and strong harvests since 2000, Camp Ripley’s deer herd is in good condition. Many hunters that provided comments indicated they saw numerous deer,” Liddell said.
The second two-day hunt is scheduled for the weekend of Oct. 29-30. DNR coordinates the hunts with the Department of Military Affairs, which manages the 53,000-acre military reservation.
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