By Nick Simonson

After a temperate opening weekend and a generally warm week making up the opening third of the North Dakota firearms deer season, hunters are finding a mixed bag when it comes to results, but the trend has generally reflected the notable decrease in herd size resulting from the harsh winter of 2022-23.

“It’s been just a struggle to find the deer.  The season goes until next Sunday, so a lot can change.  The difference between filling a tag and not filling a tag can be a difference between seconds or minutes and being in the right place at the right time,” reports Doug Leier, Outreach Biologist for the North Dakota Game & Fish Department, on the early results and animal movement in the warmer conditions, adding, “I really think a lot of the hunters are understanding, they’re not shocked, they’re not surprised.  They’re maybe a little bit disappointed that the predictions came true. It’s what’s been said all along, it’s like your baseball team, it’s going to be s a rebuilding year, and it is.  That’s what we were saying, no one was predicting it was going to be a banner year.” 

That is a trend throughout much of eastern North Dakota, where local game drops have been down at Valley Meat Supply in Valley City, centered among the area’s units that saw significant tag reductions in this summer’s firearms license lottery. 

“[Deer coming into the shop] are definitely down.  No doubt about it, a lot of people are saying they’re having a hard time seeing deer out there and as you know last winter was really tough on things,” says Rod Haugtvedt, Owner of Valley Meat Supply in Valley City, adding that it takes some work to punch a tag in the early goings of this season, “for some, they’re getting them anyway, there’s 50-some-thousand licenses and the people that are really beating the bush are finding them,” he concludes.

Out west, moderated expectations for the state’s mule deer herd and a notable decrease in this summer’s fawn-to-doe ratio are playing out in the field as hunters find limited tags in the badlands and breaks where the fork-antlered species resides.  The quality of bigger, mature deer remains quite good, while those younger deer aren’t showing up, but that was to be expected, according to David Stockdill, Regional Director of the Mule Deer Foundation for ND and MN.

“There’s been a little bit of success from those that I’ve talked to.  Out of the seven or eight that I’ve talked to, three of them have tagged deer.  They’re seeing decent numbers of bucks, but still not a whole lot of fawns, which I think pretty closely aligns with what’s coming out of Game & Fish for fawn-to-doe ratio,” Stockdill relates. 

Meanwhile, along the Missouri River corridor, hunters are finding good success, with better luck north of Bismarck.  Now that much of the snow from a late October storm has melted and farmers are able to restart the harvest on standing corn which remains on the landscape, those results are likely to get better, and sportsmen can build on the good start thus far.

“This year compared to last year, it seems to be up.  We’ve gotten for sure more deer than last year at this time, hopefully due to population recovery and herd repopulation,” relates Braeden Kraft, General Manager of Butcher Block Meats in Mandan, adding “they’ve limited the tags, but it seems like we’re getting more in. Up north [of Bismarck] a lot of people are seeing them, but down south, it’s iffy, and a lot of people are saying they’ve got to walk through or avoid a lot of active cropland, so it seems farmers are running a bit behind, of course, with the snow from a couple of weeks ago,” Kraft concludes.

The forecast for the weekend of Nov. 17-19 shows above-normal temperatures with calmer conditions across much of the state as a high-pressure bubble settles in.  Daily high temperatures are expected to be in the 40s in the east and the 50s in the west until a cold snap takes hold on Thursday, with high temperatures dropping into the teens and 20s for much of the state headed into the final weekend of the gun season. The first quarter moon lands on Mon. Nov. 20 and the full moon is scheduled for Mon. Nov. 27, the day after the season closes, likely making for a strong finish in terms of animal movement for the final weekend with the major moon phase and cooler conditions. The North Dakota firearms deer season opened at noon on Fri. Nov. 10 and closes one half hour after sunset on Sun. Nov. 26.

Simonson is the lead writer and editor of Dakota Edge Outdoors.

Featured Photo: Night Moves.  Larger deer are still moving nocturnally, though rut action is bringing more and more bucks out during the day.  Hunters are finding pleasant conditions to hunt by, but limited deer numbers and some standing crop have slowed the action in certain areas of North Dakota. Simonson Photo.