COOP
NEWS FALL 2005
Oak
Ridge Management Coop Update
It seems that our observations so far this summer seem to
indicate that the discipline many of you have exhibited is starting to show some
results. We have been seeing more
bucks this year than we can ever remember seeing!!!!! Not only that, there are more 3 ½ year old and older bucks
than we have seen in the past as well!!!! We
have seen a couple bucks that will score about 140-150!
We have also seen several bucks that will be around 120!
We have also seen many more 2 ½ year olds than in the past.
In addition to this great news, we have also seen a pretty good ratio of
bucks to does. Certainly, the does
still outnumber the bucks, but the ratio seems to be evening out a bit.
All I can say is great job! All
those who have been sacrificing and restricting their harvest have contributed
to the success of the Co-op. Although
we have come this far, this is no time to let up.
Continue to practice the things you have been practicing.
Some of you may choose to further restrict your harvest.
Others may say that this is good enough for you, and that’s fine as
well. Continue to harvest an
adequate number of does and hopefully you get to shoot a nice buck to hang on
the wall as well. Please don’t
forget to promote the practice of QDM to your hunting buddies as well.
I don’t see a reason to increase the Co-op’s minimum requirements,
however, if we are to maintain our recommendation of only shooting the top 10
percent of all the bucks present in the herd, we should try to hold back on the
harvest of all yearling and 2 ½ year old bucks.
This would essentially require a little more education, but if you attend
any of our meetings, we can teach you this very easily.
If you are unable to attend, I would start by looking for bucks to have
antlers wider than their ears and having pretty thick antlers.
This may be the easiest way for you to tell without doing too much work.
If you are interested, there are a number of resources that will help you
better identify these deer.
You may have already heard about the change to the 9-day
season from the two split seasons. MN
QDM played a very large role in this change.
I think you will find that it will be much easier to pass up on the
smaller bucks knowing that you have some extra days to hunt for does and larger
bucks. In fact, this has been the
biggest reason I have heard from those who do not practice QDM.
The future looks bright! We
are starting to eliminate reasons for people to NOT practice QDM.
As long as we keep giving people reason to practice QDM, we will continue
to become even more successful as a Co-op.
As always, the MOST IMPORTANT thing that you can do to
further strengthen this Cooperative is to spread the word.
Invite your hunting friends to meetings and offer them education.
Use MN QDM and the Co-op to provide the resources you need to do this.
A number of you have called me with questions about QDM.
This includes things like food plots, habitat management, and harvest
selection. I appreciate the
interest you have shown. I would
like to hear from each and every member of our Co-op.
Even if you don’t have a question, feel free to call and let me know
how things are going. My number
once again, is 612-282-2431. You
can also email me at tedw@mnsportsmen.com
Pelan
Coop News
Well the food plots are in, all
the grooming is almost done, the deer stands are waiting for that final
inspection to make this years hunt another great experience. We
have spent several years creating what we have, we have made many mistakes, but
have learned from them and improved on whatever it was that didn’t work as
good as we thought it would. All the testing, trials and errors benefit everyone
out there that’s willing to listen and learn.
We love doing deer management, making food plots, ponds, trails, and
planning, because of all the hard work we have put into our place we are now
able to sell a few hunts. This helps us with the cost of new projects, changing
and redoing things that didn’t work out the best for the deer herd in our
area. We have heard some negative
comments about selling hunts, but guess what the deer don’t stay on just our
land we have no high fences or secret way of keeping those big bucks on our
land. It only takes three years for a young buck to become a trophy so everyone
can benefit from what we are doing. Our rules are, the antlers need to be at
least as wide as the ears, if you haven’t shot a buck before, and we go up
from there. At this point we are not shooting anything less than a 140 class,
hopefully. I say hopefully because it is so easy to get all excited and think
you are shooting a bigger buck than it really is. We have found that if you look
at the body size, antler mass and the way the buck acts, chances are you will be
shooting only mature bucks meaning three year olds or older.
Although with the increased food plots and mild winters the body size can
really fool you. The Pelan Coop
members are mostly our family.
Clyde and Annette Stephens
218-782-2881
Birch
Cooley Coop
Hello from the beautiful
Minnesota River Valley. The Birch Cooley Coop is going on its third season
after being formed.
The 2004 season was a
success; many of the neighboring hunting parties either saw or harvested one or
even numerous 2 1/2 year and older deer. This is a great sign of the
changing times. In the past if you heard of even one 2 1/2 year or older
buck
taken by any of your
neighbors that was it. This improvement is QDM at work, thanks to all our
members.
We have increased the
overall numbers of our herd and the quality of the herd. This can be
attributed to the members hard
work in producing late fall
and winter feed. Virtually, every land owner has at least one if not up to
6 or 8 winter food plots on their property. With the planting of all of
our food plots we have turned our area into a wintering ground for the deer;
rather then our deer leaving during the winter months they are staying put, and
we are drawing deer to our properties from neighboring
areas. We are all
hoping this season is even greater than last.
Many of the members are
putting cameras in the woods and doing our summer scouting. We have no
doubt that 2005 will be a successful season.
Good luck to all coop
members and have a safe and fun season.
Birch Cooley Coop
President,
Tim Wertish
Dalton Co-op news
Hunting
Season is just around the corner. The Dalton QDM Co-Op should be looking forward
to our second season in our program. With an easy winter and cooperation on our
harvest guidelines it should be a good Hunt this fall. Members have been busy
with food plots again this year and trips a field and scouting cameras indicate
a good number of bucks in the area, and fawns look very healthy. I
encourage our members to talk with neighboring landowners about our Co-op and
what we are trying to accomplish. It is important to inform people in all
aspects not just that you want to shoot that big buck. Our Co-Op is designed to
help provide for a quality deer herd in our area which happens with everyone's
cooperation. Shooting that Buck of a lifetime is on everyone's wish list, but
there are steps to take to get there. Remember this is not trophy deer
management. There is a difference. Our deer herd seems to be more balanced just
after our first season. We will have results at our fall meeting on the harvest
in our area from members. It is important to look at this data in the next few
years to see the results of the harvest guidelines, food plots, and weather.
Dalton members will be receiving info about our fall meeting soon. Spread the
word to others that are interested to attend. I am very excited and looking
forward to upcoming season and I hope you all have a quality hunt to remember.
President Rob Westby
Straight River Coop
News
The Straight River Co-op
just recently had its first anniversary and what a year it has been. QDM
is on its way in Hubbard and Becker County! Today I just signed up our
6140th acre and our 34th member.
One way that has helped me
sign up new members is to carry a plat book map with me. One of the most
common questions asked is "who around me is a member". A quick
look at the map shows all land under QDM highlighted. The map is laminated
and was not cheap, but I think it has been more than worth it. I got the
map from FHP of Belmond, IA Telephone 1-800-685-7432 or visit their website at www.farmandhomepublishers.com
Our spring meeting was help
at the Park Rapids American Legion Club. Rob Naplin was our guest
speaker/presenter. Rob is an official measurer for both the Pope and
Young and Boone and Crockett record keeping clubs. Rob showed us how to
correctly score a whitetail rack and explained the difference between a typical
and non-typical whitetail rack. At the meeting we did make a
change to our "harvestable buck guideline" .As a bow hunter for
almost 30 years I thought that it made sense to lower the gross scoring buck to
125” for bow hunters and keep the gun hunters at 140". We can't ask
a bow hunter to wait for a buck that is 15" higher than a Pope and Young
"Book" buck, when we are asking a gun hunter to lower his minimum
30" from a Boone and Crocket "Book" buck.
In addition to being a
member of QDMI, MN I also belong to the national organization QDMA.
The quarterly magazine Quality Whitetails has been a great resource for all
aspects of QDM. One resent article "7 steps to forming a
successful co-op were particularly helpful to me. Their website is www.qdma.com.
I hope that everyone has a
safe and successful season
Craig Rossman
President
Straight River QDM
Evergreen
Whitetail Neighborhood Coop
Anyone interested in joining
the Evergreen Whitetail Neighborhood Coop should contact: Paul White President
at 218-847-6197 or Vice President Rob Holmer Jr. at 218-334-8402 or First Board
Member Roger Wacker at 218-334-8423 Coop is located by Evergreen MN area.
If you are already doing QDM find out who your neighbors are and if they
are also doing QDM. The more land you have involved the
better your results will be.
Lake of
The Woods Coop
It is exciting to see that our
coop has grown since its beginning last October. QDM efforts do make a
difference not only to private land owners, but also on public lands and
legislatively. It was exciting to hear a new member talking about QDM to me and
I was able to tell him that one of his neighboring property owners was a QDM
member of Lake of the Woods Coop. Remember that any MN QDMI members get a 10%
discount off the shelf price of any food plot seeds at the Marvin Home Center in
Warroad, MN. The requirement for members to get the discount is to display their
current membership card to the cashier at the time of check out. In addition, we
will hold our coop’s fall meeting at 6:30 p.m. on Sunday, October 23rd
at the Nite Hawk in Roosevelt, MN. Any one that is interested in attending this
meeting is welcome. Please contact me at (715) 699-2385 if you have any
questions or if you would like to purchase any aluminum QDM No Trespassing signs
for $2.00 each. Let’s get the word out about QDM in our area and dispel the
myths about it!
Jim Johnson
LOW Coop President
Devil’s
Playground QDM Coop of Halma
This upcoming
muzzleloader season will mark the one-year anniversary of the Devil's Playground
Co-op of Halma. Devils Playground was the name chosen due to the Devils
Playground WMA East of Halma. Co-op officers are President, Shane Olson of Halma;
Darin Raguse from Nashua, Vice President; and Peder "Toby" Spilde of
Halma is secretary/treasurer. The Devils Playground Co-op currently boasts 32
members including 4 youth memberships. Devil’s Playground members are
scattered around the state, however "most" of them hunt in an area
from Lake Bronson State Park, South to Halma's Devils Playground area. Nearly
all of the hunting parties in this vicinity are currently practicing QDM. As
well, Lake Bronson State Park is not holding any deer season this year, which I
will talk more about in this article. Also, within this area is a tract of land
owned by Nature Conservancy, where no hunting is allowed and there are at least
two landowners who do not allow hunting on their properties making this quite a
unique QDM area. Hopefully the hunting parties in our area who aren’t
practicing QDM will figure out what is going on around them and start the
practice as well.
The
greatest news for deer hunters in Northern Minnesota this fall is that re-zoning
is finally a reality. President Olson has been a huge proponent of this since he
started the re-zoning campaign back in 1998. Although Northern Minnesota is only
partially changing what Olson has proposed over the years, it is definitely a
giant step in the right direction. Nearly all members of the Devils Playground
Co-op have been multi-zone buck or all-season hunters up until this change. With
the new zone realignment, none of the Co-op members will have to purchase the
multi-zone buck license. Olson fears that drawing the lines where they did for
re-zoning will only lead to more hunters being forced to purchase the multi-zone
license for the landowners that hunt or own land on both sides of the new Zone
boundaries. The fact is that there are more hunters out East along Beltrami
Island State Forest, and he fears that many more will be forced to purchase the
multi-zone buck or the all-season so that they can partake in hunting on both
sides of the lines drawn.
The
Devil’s Playground Co-op member’s number one goal is that all current areas
North of Minnesota State Highway 1 that are currently in Zone 2 to be re-zoned
into Zone 1 where 16 days of firearms hunting can be observed. This would
provide three weekends to hunt, making it much easier for the factory workers
and other jobs in our area that possibly do not get the vacation time or the
time off to hunt. This would also be a major economic boost to Northwestern
Minnesota and would harvest more deer, which are being splattered on all of our
highways around here!
Another
issue that we are going to demand of Representative Maxine Penas and Senator
Leroy Stumpf this upcoming year is to change the All-season deer licenses
to one either-sex tag and one antler less tag. This will further reduce harvest
pressure of adult bucks, because lets face it folks currently the All-season
license is really no different than the multi-zone buck tag. This change has to
be done legislatively since the All-season tag was brought forth legislatively.
Olson
urges everyone to pay attention to the ATV issues going on throughout the state.
There are currently some complicated and contradicting rules in Off Highway
Vehicle and ATV regulations that need to be sat down and revisited by lawmakers,
especially regarding wetlands. It is sad that all the Waterfowl and bird
enthusiasts jump on every piece of legislation regarding wetlands because all
they are doing is making it stricter and stricter, and most of the time they are
simply shooting themselves in the foot by doing it. (Anyone is encouraged to
debate this one with me as my email is listed at the end of this article!)
Since
there is no scheduled deer hunt this year in Lake Bronson State Park, Olson
hopes to sit down with managers and implement a QDM hunt in Lake Bronson State
Park. Interest in the Lake Bronson State Park hunt has fallen off significantly
since they went to an antler less only hunt the past four to five
years. With four QDM hunts in State Parks this fall, it is very
discouraging knowing that one of them will not be taking place in the Lake
Bronson State Park. It is the backyard of Minnesota QDM Inc., and there should
at least be an antler less-only hunt out there, especially with the huge number
of road killed deer along Kittson County Road 10, South of Lake Bronson State
Park.
Olson
took part in this summer’s DNR deer population goal setting meetings. About
fifteen hunters, landowners, and people representing other organizations took
part in the meetings. DNR addressed permit areas throughout Northwest Minnesota
and what kind of population goals need to be achieved throughout Northwest
Minnesota. Simply, bonus permits are not doing the job of keeping the population
down. Eighty-five percent of hunters that purchase more than one license still
harvest only one deer. Ten percent of hunters that purchase two or more
licenses, harvest two deer; leaving five percent that purchase three or more
licenses that harvest three or more deer. With CRP re-enrollment staring us in
the face in two to three years, and a lot of that land being turned over and
re-seeded….we can easily expect the deer population continuing to climb
astronomically.
Nationally,
it is sad
news that our democratic and republican friends could not get along on changing
daylight savings time. The original proposal was to change daylight savings time
by moving it one month ahead in the spring and one month later in the fall. Once
it all shook out, they changed it three weekends earlier in the spring and
one week later in the fall. If they would have changed it two and two,
it would have meant greater hunting opportunity for many folks in our area. This
would have meant our daylight shooting hours would have been from around 7:30
AM to around 6:30 PM....giving many of the factory workers and other
hunters who don't get ample hunting opportunity to get a chance to hunt each
evening. At least we will get one day hunting during normal daylight hours,
starting in 2007....as our clocks will change that first weekend of deer camp!
Contact
Shane Olson at: shaneamy@wiktel.com
Shane
Olson
Devils
Playground Co-op President
North
Central Whitetails Coop
Another coop has formed in
Akeley Area, Hubbard County. This coop was formed July 5th 2005 by
Steve Bayman who is the President, Dallas Hudson Vice President and Rae Bayman
Secretary Treasurer. Anyone that is interested in joining North Central
Whitetails Coop please contact Steve Bayman at 218-652-4758