Are there any other hunting camps with a Zing Zing club? You’ve joined when you shoot and miss. Joining the Zing Zing club means you do dishes. When we make meals for 20+ people, there can be lots of dishes.

Over the years, there have been a few of the guys that shot and missed and didn’t want to do dishes. They each did find someone who was willing to take their turn doing dishes for $5.00 or more as time went on. Most meals, there was at least one person who needed to do their dishes. Lately, not so much.

It seems like we had more shooting with misses years ago. It seemed like we saw more deer then too, but it’s more likely we were shooting more often. We did have more hunters the group in the 80s, so there would have been more shooting opportunities, not necessarily more deer.

I looked up the history of deer hunting in Minnesota to see if there really were more deer to shot at years ago. Who knew it would be so easy to find that information. I found an article that was published in the Star Tribune on November 9, 2010 https://www.startribune.com/150-years-of-minnesota-deer-hunting/107011473/ written by Ron Hustvedt. One of the first things that jumped out at me was the mention of no deer hunting season in 1971.

I had heard about that season. The ‘old guys’ had talked about that season. It would have been only the 2nd year of our current Deer Camp. The hunters got together anyway just to have some up north time and hanging out with friends. The following year was the first year that hunters had to choose an area to hunt in which included only hunting on the dates established for that area.

I also found a history that was compiled and published by the MN DNR https://files.dnr.state.mn.us/wildlife/deer/deer_backgrounder.pdf . Minnesota began to establish deer hunting regulations right at the time of Statehood in 1858. Looking back in history, it’s interesting to see that the northern part of the state actually had a low deer population for many years. Moose and caribou were plentiful and with being well established kept the deer population in the lower part of the state. As loggers moved into northern MN, the moose and caribou were driven further north. With open fields, deer were able to find good food sources and begin to move north.

As MN farmland was established in the lower 2/3 of the state, deer became scarce. From 1923 to 1945 there was no deer hunting season in the areas of MN farmland. In 1946 a deer hunting season resumed in all of Minnesota. Year to year management practices evolved into the lottery permit system for antlerless deer that we see now. Applying for doe permits is now common practice.

From year to year, the deer population across the state is monitored to determine the number of ‘doe permits’ allowed in each area. The deer hunting season after a particularly hard winter season can see areas with no doe permits issued. Anyone living in Minnesota through the winters of 1995-96 and 1996-97 will remember the amount of snow we got those years. It was not a surprise that hunting allowed for ‘bucks only’ those following deer seasons. Our sons were at the age (under 18) where they should have been able to shoot a doe with the permit that is granted to young hunters. Those years, even they didn’t get that automatic doe permit.

Harvest limits will often change from year to year. It is the hunter’s responsibility to read and review each year’s hunting regulations.

Interesting that there was no mention of the Halloween snowstorm of 1991. Although, by the time the storm hit, licenses were purchased, lottery results were sent out. That was the best hunting season we had. We hunted in 42 inches of snow – hunting season opened the week following the storm. We did our usual hamburger patch drive which took twice as long. Those that are shorter in stature (one of the wives was barely over 5 feet tall) found it very difficult walking through the woods. My father-in-law was not a tall man, and he blazed quite the trail getting through those woods. However, the deer were having a hard time walking or trying to run through the woods too. We really didn’t have misses that year and we saw a good number of deer.

From year to year there can also be fluctuations in the need to harvest additional animals and hunters can obtain additional bonus permits to shoot more than 1 deer for the season. Hunters that hunt rifle and archery or muzzleloader will often have options to purchase a license for each method of hunting.

We’ve seen the numbers of deer go up and down over the years. It looks like some type of fluctuation has been happening since the beginning of recorded Minnesota deer hunting.