REGIONAL— The pace of the deer harvest picked up modestly this past week, despite continued cold temperatures, a steady wind, and the bucks-only bag limit across most of northeastern Minnesota. Even so, the 2014 regular firearms hunt will almost certainly wrap up Sunday with the lowest harvest in at least the past 20 years.

Tower Area DNR Wildlife Manager Tom Rusch said the latest numbers were a pleasant surprise given the conditions that hunters faced during the second weekend. With stiff winds and highs in the teens, Rusch said he was expecting to see hunter effort diminish significantly. “Apparently, some hunters are still hanging in there,” he said.

While numbers remain well off last year’s pace, buck registrations in northern and central St. Louis and Lake county zones finished the first ten days about 42 percent below last year’s pace. That’s an improvement from the 51 percent drop as of the first three days of the season.

Overall registrations were off significantly more in those zones, a total of 72 percent, but much of the decline was due to the elimination of antlerless tags this year in virtually all of northeastern Minnesota. Last year at this time, hunters had registered 2,196 anterless deer in local deer permit areas, compared to 22 so far this year.

With a couple milder days forecast for the weekend, Rusch said hunters could still make up more ground, depending on deer movement. He said deer movement sometimes slows during the peak of the rut since as more does come into heat, the bucks don’t have to travel as far to find females ready to breed.

While deer registrations are off dramatically in the northeast, they are down much less in other parts of the state, where the DNR has issued more antlerless tags. Minnesota hunters registered 102,000 deer through the second weekend of firearms deer season, down 31,000 from the same period in 2013, according to the DNR. So far this year, hunters during special hunts, and the archery and firearms seasons, have harvested 115,000 deer, down from the 2013 to-date harvest total of 147,500.

“Comparing this year’s harvest to harvests in previous years doesn’t necessarily reflect hunter opportunity or the number of deer on the landscape in 2014,” said Leslie McInenly, DNR big game program leader. This year’s lower harvest is by design because regulations were implemented to place more deer – particularly does – off limits to increase Minnesota’s deer population.

The DNR’s bucks-only bag limit in northeastern Minnesota came in response to back-to-back severe winters that led to significant deer mortality across much of the Arrowhead.