Minnesota deer hunting facts and figures

Adult female white-tailed deer weigh about 145 pounds, males 170 pounds - the average weight of female and male humans.

The biggest white-tailed deer ever harvested was a 500-pound Minnesota buck.

A whitetail's home range is about one square mile.

Minnesota's deer population is about 1 million deer. Texas is No. 1 with 4.7 million deer

Last year, 32 percent of Minnesota firearm hunters successfully harvested a deer. About 49 percent were antlered bucks.

Seventy percent of Minnesota's firearms deer harvest typically occurs during the first three or four days of the season.

The average hunter spends five days afield during Minnesota's firearms deer season.

Last year's total deer harvest was 195,000.

License options allow hunters to buy individual licenses for all the seasons and give hunters more choices in where and when they can hunt deer, and hunters can take as many as five deer in many parts of the state.

Minnesota's average harvest is 241,000 deer over the last five years. Wisconsin is No. 1 with an average harvest of almost 450,000.

The largest typical whitetail buck ever taken in Minnesota had a Boone & Crockett score of 202, shot by John Breen in 1918 near Funkley.

In all, more than 800,000 deer hunting licenses and permits (all types) were sold in 2009.

Ninety-eight percent of deer licenses are sold to Minnesota residents.

The DNR Information Center remained open two hours later on the day before last year's deer opener to answer more than 2,000 telephone inquiries, most of them related to the firearms opener.

The economic impact on the state is staggering. Consider the following:

There are 475,000 deer hunters in Minnesota.

Retail sales are at $260 million.

The overall economic impact is $458 million.

The total for salaries, wages and business owner income is $151 million.

State and local tax revenues are $33 million.

The number of directly supported jobs is 5,300.

The economic impact is greatest in Greater Minnesota.

With nearly a half-million hunters in the state, there are also the occasional hunter violations The top 10:

1. License not in possession.

2. Transporting uncased/loaded firearm.

3. No license.

4. Hunting over bait.

5. Unplugged shotgun.

6. No red/blaze orange.

7. Untagged deer.

8. Failure to have HIP certification on license.

9. Failure to validate.

10. Trespassing.