Suppose deer season is open and your friend asks you to join him or her on a hunt tomorrow morning, and you’d like to go? Or what if your son or daughter comes home from college and says they’d like to join you for a family hunt like the good ole days? Are you ready? In most cases, and in most states, you could go to a sporting goods store, purchase a hunting license, and pack your hunting gear for a great day afield—except in Minnesota.
You see, Minnesota has a waiting period for hunters after the season’s opening day.
The restrictive and confusing regulation reads: “All deer licenses (archery, firearms, muzzleloader) may be purchased at any time before or during the season. However, a license purchased on or after the day the respective season opens is not valid until the second day after the day it is issued (for example, a license issued on Saturday would not be valid until Monday). A 'day' means midnight to midnight. The 'respective season' refers to the first season for which the license is valid. The exceptions are bonus, early antlerless, and disease management permits, which are valid when issued if the appropriate regular license is valid.”
As if the waiting period isn’t bad enough, the rule is expressed a slightly different way another place in the regulations: “Note to deer hunters: A Deer License issued after the opening day of the respective season (archery, regular firearms, or muzzleloader) is not valid until the second day after it is issued.”
And so the confusion begins. At one point, the waiting period appears to be 24 hours—two days ahead. In the other paragraph deeper into the regulations booklet, you are told a day means midnight to midnight. And thus the confusion deepens. There could be many hours difference between the two different time frames. Before electronic licensing and the Internet, hunters who came into Minnesota could only stand around, wait, and wonder why.
But why do hunters have to wait?
One law enforcement officer indicated the “waiting period” gave them a chance to uncover a wildlife crime if a nonresident came, poached a trophy buck, and then decided to buy a deer tag to take it across the border and back home. His sentiments were echoed by other representatives of Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (MDNR). “They don’t want people going out shooting a deer and then going to buy a license,” said customer service representative #1 who asked not to be identified when I posed the questions. So I was quickly passed to the license section, and Representative No. 2 reported: “It’s basically to stop those who might have gone hunting first and then come in to buy a license, like a poacher.” When asked for a name, he indicated I should get a quote from a license section spokesperson, Pat Watts . So I called again, and Pat answered
“The two-day waiting period was enacted in 1997, but before that if you did not purchase a license before opening day, you could not get one for the firearms deer season,” said Watts, management analyst with MDNR’ enforcement division. “There was some flexibility in the archery season prior to 1997, and if you purchased a license after the opening day there was a five-day waiting period then. We have gotten more liberal, but hunters still have to wait when purchasing a license on or after opening day of the season.”
Hunters with firearms, muzzleloaders, and bows must wait two days—or some period across two nights—when purchasing a license after the legal hunting hours on the season’s opening morning. It can be confusing—to many.
I’ve been in stores that sold these deer hunting licenses, and been told the purchasing hunter can only hunt 48 hours after the purchase, while others indicated waiting a full two days and based on the time of issue indicated on the license. One store in a Minneapolis metro area reported if you bought a deer hunting license at 6 p.m. on Saturday night, you could not legally hunt until Tuesday morning because the starting time after the 48 hour waiting period would be 6 p.m. Monday night. But the legal shooting hours would then be closed because of darkness from shorter falls days and daylight savings time changes. Even the stores selling the licenses are confused, so why should the public not be?
If you wanted to go hunting the last weekend of a deer hunting season in Minnesota but did not have your license purchased before Wednesday prior to that weekend, you could not go hunting.
No one at MDNR could give me an example of how the waiting period has helped with a wildlife crime or prosecution.
Maybe this is a nuisance law that has become so outdated and so anti-hunting that it’s time to remove it from the regulations? Does this regulation restrict hunters, prevent hunters from going hunting on a “next day” notice and cost the state in license sales? Yes. Is it the nation’s only hunting “waiting period?” As far as I know, it is.
And, as an FYI--a resident deer archery license costs $26 but a nonresident archery deer license costs $140. The resident firearms deer hunting license costs the same, but the nonresident deer firearm license jumps $1 to $141. Waiting can be even more expensive for some hunters.
