# ND Deer season opens at rut's peak



## R y a n (Apr 4, 2005)

ND Deer season opens at rut's peak

The Associated Press - Monday, November 06, 2006
GRAND FORKS, N.D.

http://www.in-forum.com/ap/index.cfm?pa ... =D8L7Q2T00

North Dakota's deer hunting opener should coincide with the peak of the rut - the time when the mating instinct for bucks often overcomes common sense, biologists say.

The deer gun season opens at noon Friday and continues through Nov. 26. The season starts each year on the Friday before Veterans Day, and state Game and Fish biologists said the later date this year is welcomed by hunters.

"The buck hunters like it, because now they get to hunt over Thanksgiving, which at least a good share of them feel is more the rut," said Roger Johnson, a Game and Fish big game biologist in Devils Lake. "It seems like the bucks are running more a little later in the fall. But as far as overall harvest, I don't think we see any difference."

There were 143,500 licenses available this fall, down 2,100 from last year. About 7,000 antlerless deer licenses were still available on Monday, Game and Fish said.

Last year, hunters killed nearly 100,000 deer, for an overall success rate of 76 percent.

Game and Fish issued as few as 37,000 deer tags in the late 1970s.

"It's certainly easy hunting today," Johnson said. "(Back then), you better shoot one if you see it because you might not see another one."

Deer populations in North Dakota and surrounding states have been on the rise since the late 1990s. Johnson cited mild winters, improved habitat, and an increase in row crops such as sunflowers and corn, which provide better winter forage for deer.

"From a hunter's standpoint, I suppose there's never too many deer, but landowners and some motorists sometimes think there's too many," Johnson said. "We figure somewhere around 100,000 licenses would kind of keep the hunters happy, and we would be satisfying most of the hunter needs."

Johnson said about 50,000 buck tags were sold this year through a lottery. Restricting the number of buck licenses boosts the odds of hunters seeing a trophy deer, because more bucks survive to old age, he said.

"Only a small percentage of deer are going to get to be a good trophy deer," said Marty Egeland, a Game and Fish biologist. "That's just the luck of the odds. Not all of them are going to get real big."

Johnson said it is important to for hunters to bag does to keep the population in check. Still, he said, most hunters would rather shoot a buck.

"I think part of it has to do with all the TV hunting shows and the promotional things," Johnson said. "They make it sound like you can't be a hunter if you don't hunt a big buck."

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