MINNEAPOLIS — Challenging as it is to think about deer hunting when Pronto Pups beckon from the State Fair, a license buying deadline looms for perhaps hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans who hope to fill their freezers with venison for the coming winter.

Sept. 4 is the cutoff date for whitetail hunters to apply for special hunts in parks and scores of other restricted areas statewide. The deadline also applies for hunters who hope to win an antlerless permit in the 37 areas where they are distributed by lottery.

Minnesota offered its first deer hunt in 1858, when hunters could be afield for five months, with no limit on the number of animals they could bring home.

By 1895, the whitetail season was cut to one month, with a five-deer limit. And in 1911, a 21-day season was offered with one deer allowed.

Minnesota deer hunters weren’t required to buy a license until 1897, when it cost 25 cents. The same authorization this fall will set back the state’s approximately 500,000 firearms, archery and muzzleloader hunters $34.

Here’s what hunters need to know:

Harvest increase

— Last year’s statewide harvest of 171,000 whitetails is expected to increase this year, assuming reasonably good weather when the firearms season opens Nov. 8. Firearms license sales ticked up last year from 2023 to about 403,000 and should reach or top that mark this fall.

— This year’s statewide deer harvest is expected to increase from the 2024 tally because bag limits in 25 Deer Permit Areas (DPAs) have increased. Two DPAs have lower bag limits and 103 are the same.

Deadlines for special hunts

— If you hunt with a firearm or muzzleloader in a DPA in which antlerless permits are distributed by lottery, and you buy your license by Sept. 4, you will automatically be entered in the lottery.

— The same Sept. 4 cutoff applies to the multitude of special deer hunts held in state parks and other restricted areas. Note: This year those hunts aren’t detailed in the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) deer hunting regulation booklet — they’re only listed on the agency’s website. Some of these hunts are archery only (example: Bemidji Regional Airport), and some are firearms only, (example: Gooseberry Falls State Park). In all cases, permits are limited.

— If you hunt in a DPA where either-sex deer can be taken, or two, three or five deer are allowed, you can purchase a license any time before you begin hunting.

Crossbows

— Archery deer season opens Sept. 13, and this year’s percentage of whitetails killed by crossbows relative to vertical bows likely will increase again. In 2023, the first year any licensed archery hunter could use a crossbow (previously their use was restricted to older or impaired hunters), 44% of archery-killed deer were felled by crossbow. Last year, 48% were killed by crossbow. A DNR report is due in October to legislators on possible effects of widespread crossbow use on the state’s deer and/or other types of deer hunting. Some states that have similarly loosened crossbow restrictions have seen a gradual shift of the overall buck harvest from firearms to crossbows. The reason: crossbow hunters are given a six-week head start on firearms hunters, and some firearms hunters switch to crossbows believing their chances of seeing and harvesting a buck will increase. Interesting stat: last year, a quarter of all does killed in Minnesota were taken by archery.

Deer numbers

— The last two Minnesota winters were fairly mild, reducing deer mortality. But deer numbers in much of the northeast remain low, and most DPAs in the region are again bucks-only. While it’s generally believed wolf depredation of whitetails across the north is lower during winters of relatively little snow, it’s unknown how northeast deer in particular fared in recent winters, said DNR acting big game coordinator Paul Burr. The amount of available quality habitat also affects northeast deer, and DNR wildlife managers are attempting to protect as many deer wintering yards as possible, Burr said, in the new forest management plan being written by DNR foresters. “On the wildlife side of DNR, we’d also like to see older rotations of timber before it’s cut,” Burr said. “But some of this is easier said than done — what benefits wildlife versus meeting the needs of the state’s forest industry."

— Hunters who previously chose DPA 183 just south of Duluth should note the area has been split into two smaller DPAs, 153 and 154. Each has last year’s lottery one-deer limit.

New chronic wasting disease zones

— Three new CWD Management Zones have been established this year: DPAs 601, 671 and 666. This brings to 17 the number of these zones, along with seven bordering CWD surveillance zones. Mandatory testing is required of all deer (except fawns) killed in these areas opening weekend. Throughout the entire season, deer can’t be transported from CWD management zones unless a negative CWD test is achieved or the animal is processed or quartered with its brains and spine properly disposed (the DNR will have dumpsters available.) Locations of stations where DNR staff will remove animals’ lymph nodes for testing are on the agency’s website. Self-service stations where hunters can remove and leave the heads of deer for testing also will be established. Meanwhile, select taxidermists and other DNR partners will test deer, as will personnel at local DNR offices. “We also have mail-in sample kits that we will send to hunters if they contact us,” Burr said. ”The kits show hunters how to remove lymph nodes to send in for testing."

Licenses and restrictions

— Southern and west-central Minnesota hunters should remember the region’s shotgun-only restriction remains in effect. Counties in that zone can elect (or not) to allow rifle hunting beginning in 2026, according to changes made by the Legislature in its last session.

— Hunters especially in the southeast should note the DNR this year is offering just one statewide firearms license. Previously, southeast hunters elected either the “A” or “B” seasons, and bought a license for one or the other. Now only one license is required, and hunters can be afield in either or both seasons. “Deer populations exceed our goals throughout the southeast, where most DPAs have five- or three-deer limits,” Burr said.

Some hunters complain these and similar regulation changes the DNR issues each year in advance of deer-hunting seasons make their fall outings too complicated.

But times have changed since 1858. The state’s population back then was about 152,000. Today it’s approaching 6 million.

Deer management advances in the intervening years ensure that reasonably good hunting opportunities are available to all interested Minnesotans, season after season.

It wasn’t that long ago — 1971 — that the entire state was closed to deer hunting because of low populations.

Before that, from 1923 to 1945, whitetail hunting wasn’t even offered in southern Minnesota, because too few deer existed there.

A breakthrough occurred in 1974 when DNR big game managers started to divvy up the state into DPAs and managed each according to specific population goals, with an emphasis on controlling the antlerless kill.

The result: Some 500,000 Minnesotans will hunt deer this fall, and almost 30% will load venison into their freezers.

Not bad.

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