Any crossbow user will be able to hunt deer during Minnesota’s archery season this fall under one of the key law changes published Tuesday in the newest edition of Minnesota Hunting and Trapping Regulations.
Distribution of the printed booklet is delayed until late August, said Jason Abraham of the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). But starting Tuesday, hunters can go to the DNR’s website to view the state’s latest official hunting guide, page by page.
Other new regulations covered in the booklet include a requirement for hunters on public land to incorporate blaze orange on the exterior of any ground blind. Then, too, youth deer hunters are no longer allowed to share their tag with anyone else if they are party hunting with others.
“Youth hunters have to use their own tag on their own deer,” Abraham said.
State Sen. Andrew Lang, R-Olivia, said there was bipartisan support this year to drop limitations on crossbow use. In previous archery deer seasons, crossbows were mainly used during the firearms season. An exemption allowed crossbows to be used during the archery season but only if used by a physically disabled person or a hunter over age 60.
“Anything we can do to get more people involved in the outdoors, the better,” Lang said.
The debate over crossbow usage took several years to resolve. Users of vertical bows had argued that the archery season was meant to provide an outlet for a more primitive way of hunting. Lang said today’s crossbows can surpass compound bows in performance.
“I don’t think it does anything but help the sport,” he said.
Since 2010, Minnesota has issued between 84,000 and 93,600 archery deer licenses per year. That’s roughly one-fourth as many firearms deer licenses sold by the DNR in a given year. This year’s archery deer season runs from Sept. 16 to the end of December. The statewide firearms season opens this year Nov. 4, with end dates varying depending on where you hunt.
Legislators this year appeared poised to eliminate shotgun zones for deer hunting, but the final decision in the conference committee was to stick with the status quo. Therefore, the new rulebook summarizes shotgun and rifle usage as : “In the southern and western portion of the state, the only legal firearms for deer are shotguns using slugs, muzzleloaders, and handguns legal for big game.”
Regarding the new hunter safety requirement for blaze orange treatments on ground blinds, the change only applies to ground blinds used on public land, not private. A blaze orange cover must be visible in all directions, or hunters can display 12 x 12-inch patches of blaze orange on all sides of the blind.
The rulebook includes a change banning the use of lead ammunition, beginning this fall, on 56 state-owned Scientific and Natural Areas (SNAs) where hunting is allowed. The ban, ordered by DNR Commissioner Sarah Strommen and criticized heavily by the chief executive officer of Federal Ammunition in Anoka, also affects special hunts in some state parks.
But as Abraham said, the tightly limited nontoxic ammo regulation will not apply to state park youth deer hunts in the shotgun zone on one condition: Hunters using lead ammo must remove the gut pile along with any harvested deer. The exemption is due to shortages of certain nontoxic ammo types, the DNR has said. Removing gut piles is meant to protect raptors and other wildlife scavengers from possible lead toxicity.
The new booklet also incorporates finalized details of a court settlement between the DNR and the Center for Biological Diversity to protect Canada lynx from accidental trapping. The rule changes place additional limits on the type of snares that can be used in northeastern Minnesota and the way those snares can be set.
Abraham said the new set of regulations makes virtually no changes in rules about the hunting of bears or upland game birds.