Nov. 03–When Tim Bernhardt spent a couple of years living in Colorado, he’d schedule his time off to return to Grand Forks for North Dakota’s deer season rather than Christmas.
“It’s kind of the best time of year,” said Bernhardt, 30, a Grand Forks Realtor. “It’s always something scheduled in at the same time of year.”
This year, though, Bernhardt, of Grand Forks, didn’t draw a deer tag. In response to declining deer populations, the North Dakota Game and Fish Department this fall offered only 59,500 licenses for the deer gun season, the lowest number in 30 years.
That puts Bernhardt in the same position as some 44,000 other North Dakota residents who didn’t draw licenses in the deer season lottery.
It’s disappointing, he said, but not surprising.
“We’ve always gotten tags,” he said. “I can’t think of the last year we didn’t all draw tags. They’ve been reducing so much the last couple of years that your chances obviously go down and down.”
Bernhardt’s dad and brother and another hunting partner drew licenses, so Bernhardt said he’ll still go out and “push the bush” in hopes of driving out some deer. Instead of raising his sights on a deer, Bernhardt said he’ll also pursue other outdoors options.
“A few of us are going to go up and fish the Rainy River, so that will be fun to do,” he said.
Third time’s a charm
Officials from the North Dakota Game and Fish Department even found themselves on the sidelines after the first lottery. Randy Kreil, wildlife division chief for Game and Fish in Bismarck, said he applied for a tag in unit 4D in the Badlands as his first choice and in unit 2J2 in central North Dakota as his second.
He got turned down for both of them.
The last time that happened, he said, was in 1984.
Kreil said he’d begun to make plans for a November snow goose hunt when the opportunity to apply for a leftover doe tag in unit 3F2 in southwest North Dakota came up. So, he and Craig Bihrle, a co-worker who supervises the department’s communications section, applied for one of the leftover tags and salvaged the season.
They also lined up a place to hunt from a landowner who’d let Kreil hunt antelope on his property in 1994.
Like Kreil, Bihrle didn’t draw a tag in the first lottery.
“We’ve never hunted deer out there before,” Kreil said. “It’s beautiful country, and it will be fun to hike around in some new country and reacquaint ourselves. What’s the worst that can happen? We get some fresh air and exercise; getting deer will be a bonus.”
‘Pretty disappointed’
Not drawing a tag came as a surprise to Steve Nicola, a Grand Forks resident who said he’s hunted deer 15 or 16 years.
“I guess I was pretty disappointed,” said Nicola, 30, a state of North Dakota employee. “When I put in my application (last) spring, at no time did I think I would be denied.”
Especially, Nicola said, since he doesn’t only put in for a buck license like many hunters.
“The main purpose of me deer hunting is to put food on the table, and so I always ask for a buck or a doe,” Nicola said. “It doesn’t matter, so I’ve never been turned down. And so, to use the same philosophy and still be turned down, was kind of a shock.”
Nicola said he thought about writing a letter to the Game and Fish Department expressing his disappointment but decided, instead, to focus his energy on archery hunting.
Among his group of friends, Nicola said he knows of only three that drew gun tags.
“I don’t know if there’s a decline in deer or not,” he said. “This year, I’ve been a little bitter. I have my bow tag where I’ll be sitting in a blind at dusk so that will be about it.”
Worrisome trend
The reduction in licenses could be a sign of things to come, said John French, a longtime Grand Forks hunter and wildlife advocate.
Not drawing a tag is a first for French, who started hunting deer in 1966 and has hunted deer every fall for more than 20 years. French said he still plans to join his hunting buddies at their deer camp in the Des Lacs Valley in northwest North Dakota.
“It was disappointing, but acceptable in light of the fact I had never been turned down in the past,” he said. “To make the best of it, I plan to become the ‘camp cook’ at our deer shack so I can continue to participate in the annual tradition.”
French, who’ll be 66 next month, said he worries about the future if deer populations force the Game and Fish Department to continue limiting deer licenses.
Fewer licenses will mean fewer hunters, he said, and in turn, less money for the Game and Fish Department at a time when the state faces nearly unprecedented habitat losses as grasslands are plowed up and drained for agriculture and oil development fragments habitat in western North Dakota.
“I look back on my hunting career, and it’s been a great ride,” French said. “I’m starting to slow down on the hunting quite a bit now, and I guess the timing is right for that in light of what’s happening.”
Dokken reports on outdoors. Call him at (701) 780-1148, (800) 477-6572 ext. 1148 or send email to [email protected].