New state park will offer special hunt

[Lee Borgersen]

New state park will offer special hunt
Hunters must apply by Sept. 9 for special hunts and antlerless lotteries
 
 
Apply by Thursday, Sept. 9 for special hunts in the area or for antlerless permits in lottery zones.
 
The newly-created Lake Vermilion State Park will be open for deer hunting this fall, but hunters will need to apply by Thursday, Sept. 9 to take advantage of this and other special hunts in the Lake Vermilion area.

Hunters seeking an antlerless permit in other parts of the region will also need to get their applications in by Sept. 9. This includes anyone planning to hunt in management units 176, 118, or 119, which covers most of northern St. Louis County.

The opening of the state park land to hunting this year will be a boost for area hunters, who had been excluded from the area, which had been owned by US Steel, for the past several years. A total of 60 permits will be issued for the ten-day state park hunt, which runs Nov. 6-14.

Two other special hunts will be held, one in Soudan and the other in the city of Tower. Both hunts are set for Nov. 27-Dec. 12 and are open to muzzleloaders only. A total of 20 permits will be available in each hunt location.

Hunters can apply for the special hunts at any local license vendor, although DNR Tower Area Wildlife Manager Tom Rusch recommends that hunters check this year’s hunting synopsis for more information before applying for either of these hunts.

The special hunts are part of an ongoing effort to trim deer numbers in the Lake Vermilion area, which have grown to nuisance levels in some locations.

The Lake Vermilion area is also included in a new deer management unit, Unit 177 (see map next page), that will be open to intensive harvest this fall. That means hunters may take up to five deer in the zone, although they will need to purchase permits for each deer harvested. According to Rusch, the new zone was established to help manage deer numbers in the Lake Vermilion area, where extensive private landholding makes access more difficult for hunters, and in the Cook area, where high deer numbers have created problems for farmers.

Deer numbers have taken a jump this year, thanks to one of the mildest winters in a decade last year. Rusch said the warm winter and a record early green-up this spring helped produce a bumper crop of fawns. He said many does had twins this year, and triplets have even been reported in some locations, which is very unusual for deer in northeastern Minnesota.


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