Deer hunters in my region of Minnesota will soon be mailed a survey asking them to consider several changes to season structure and hunting rules. Among them is the subject of “cross-tagging.” Currently, firearms deer hunters are technically allowed to tag just one buck here, but once your either-sex tag is filled, you can continue hunting and kill another buck if someone else in your hunting party puts their tag on it.

Cross-tagging is a time-honored tradition in Minnesota. It is also, in my opinion, a tradition that needs to go away. If the state game regs say you are entitled to one buck, then that is your limit. You shoot a buck, then you are done buck hunting. If hunting for antlerless deer is still an option, then by all means go ahead and enjoy the woods. But shoot another buck? I don’t get it...the regs tell us we have a one-buck limit, so put some teeth in the reg by eliminating party hunting.

I have hunted other states where cross-tagging not only a frowned-upon practice, it was illegal. So I’m curious about your take on this? Is group bagging bucks forbidden by law in your state? And where legal, is the practice socially acceptable? Please weigh in here, as I’m anxious to get a broader take on this question.

Last month I posted a pic of a fawn I’d found while enjoying a turkey hunting northern Wisconsin’s “big woods” region. In that post I mentioned the gauntlet of predators that young whitetail would have to run in order to survive to adulthood. Bears, bobcats, coyotes, even fishers are known to kill fawns.

But the alpha predator of Upper Midwestern deer lately is the timber wolf. This trail cam photo, dated only a few days ago, was sent to me by a Wisconsin buddy from the same region I turkey hunted. In the message, he noted that just days before his camera had captured a pic of a doe with her young fawn. This photo suggests that doe is now traveling solo. Assuming this photo has not been doctored in any way (I have no reason to believe it was), it’s pretty rare stuff.

Life is tough for young wildlife! Here in farm country, my neighbors just cut their first crop of hay, an event that always takes its share of fawns. One of the nesting robins in my backyard recently lost her four soon-to-hatch eggs to what I assume was a raccoon. Events like these remind me that survival is a day-by-day affair out there...and makes me appreciate the adults that manage to carry on the species.

Yesterday was opening day of trail camera season for me. One of my friends was complaining of a bachelor group of bucks that was pestering him every evening, so I decided to hang a camera nearby and try to ID the perpetrators. Obviously, a gang of seven (7!) bucks that shows up nightly in the same field on summer evenings is up to no good. So I intend to keep tabs on their activities in case things get out of control.

Of course, the problem now is the waiting. This is the part of police work no one talks about. The tedium of biding one’s time while evidence is gathered and a case is made. In a few days I may have a mugshot that inspires me for fall. In the meantime I’m forced into watching videos like the one above.

Watch it and you will either see a wizard with a jig saw, or some of the best trick video I’ve ever witnessed. Ironically, this was sent to me by my sister Jo, who recently took up hunting. Jo proved herself an amazingly quick study by bagging a big gobbler in the first few days of her first-ever hunting season. Now she wants to deer hunt. Maybe she knows I am biding time between trail cam visits and desperately seek entertainment?

In my mind, trail cameras are popular because they mirror hunting itself. Sure you stick out a camera hoping to get a “shot” at a big buck, but if that’s the only thing that trips your trigger, you’re not paying attention. Last winter I had multiple pics of a cottontail rabbit that visited a mock scrape on a nightly basis, and my favorite photo of the summer was of a button buck I nicknamed “White Sox.” Sporting four perfect little white bands above his hooves, and a chalk-white circle around each eye, he was quite possibly the prettiest whitetail deer I have ever seen.

So I was thrilled when I found the following clip. Taken from a camera set on video mode, it shows something I’ve never seen before; a pre-natal fawn pushing against Momma’s belly. Run the clip and look just in front of the doe’s hind leg. It lasts but a split second, but you should be able to spot the doe’s belly bulge as her fawn kicks from inside.

I like pics of big-antlered deer as much as the next guy...but it doesn’t get much cooler than a kicking fawn!