Ten-year-old Isaac Bogatzki of Duluth shot one of 5,683 deer during Minnesota's first statewide youth firearms deer hunt last weekend.
It was Isaac’s first deer hunt, and he bagged a beautiful 9-point buck near Bertha, Minn., while hunting with his father, Curt Bogatzki.
Issac is the kind of success story the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources was hoping for when it expanded the October hunt from a few management zones to statewide this year for the first time, was hoping to encourage more youth to try deer hunting.
The move, at first blush, appears to have worked. As of Oct. 18, the DNR reported 27,960 youth firearms deer licenses sold. That’s nearly three times the 9,711 youth licenses sold as of this time last year. Still, it won’t be known until after the regular firearms season in November if the special hunt actually drew new and more kids or whether some kids just hunted earlier. Last year’s final total was 56,989 youth licenses sold.
Turnout for the youth hunt appears to have varied widely over the state. Some conservation officers barely mentioned it in their weekly reports, while others said it was a highlight of their work last week:
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- Conservation Officer Bret Grundmeier of Hinckley “saw quite a few young hunters out taking advantage of the new four-day firearms deer youth season. A lot of youth deer hunters were checked who had harvested their first deer ever. Most were extremely excited to be able to hunt deer during the MEA school break.”
- Conservation officer Eric Benjamin in the Warroad area said: “The youth deer hunt went pretty well for several young hunters. One proud father (told Benjamin) that all five kids in the group each got a deer.”
- Conservation officer Jeff Humphrey in the Cromwell area reported “a good number of kids were out for the inaugural youth-only firearms deer season. Several first deer, and some nice bucks to boot, were seen and reported harvested.”
- But Conservation Officer Karl Hadrits of Crosby reported a lot of “confusion over the regulations and licensing was found in nearly every group checked during the early antlerless/youth firearms deer season. Numerous enforcement contacts were made.”
