Outlook for Firearms Deer Hunting Season Mixed in Northern MN

The 2024 firearms deer hunting season is ready to kick off in Minnesota, and while the overall deer population has been growing, the outlook in the northern parts of the state is mixed.

Deer numbers have been down in the northeast, and bag limit designations will be extremely conservative in that region. In contrast, the warm winter helped numbers in the northwestern part of the state, with several deer permit areas (DPAs) allowing a two-deer or more limit. And in the central part of the state, the DNR is actually encouraging hunters to bag extra antlerless deer in some of the overpopulated areas where they are damaging native vegetation.

But regardless of where you’re hunting Saturday, DNR Big Game Program Coordinator Todd Froberg has a last-minute tip before you head out.

“One of the biggest differences from last year is that there’s not a huge acorn crop. We’re not having a record mast year,” said Froberg. “So it’ll – the deer movements will change a little bit. So maybe last year where deer were more scattered and spread out across the landscape, eating up a lot of that hard mast in the hardwoods, this year, if you can find some leftover acorns or maybe some trees that are actually producing acorns, to key in on those and really focus on where those, I guess, deer patterns are changing. So they might be a little bit more predictable this year.”