By Mitchell Zimmermann of Northern News Now • November 4, 2022 

Northland deer processors will have a wave of hunters bringing in their game to be processed shortly after the state’s firearms season opens Saturday morning. One of those processors, Bear’s Den Processing in Saginaw, has prepared their coolers for the harvest.

In 2021, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) reported around 140,000 hunters were lucky in the harvest. According to the DNR, 24,173 deer have been harvested so far in 2022.

Archery hunters have already been out in the woods, looking to get a kill, like Peter Dahl. “I got lucky a buck came by and we got it,” he said. Dahl got one last kill before the firearm opener. He said he doesn’t plan to participate in this year’s firearm hunting season.

“I figured it was my last chance for me to get one with the bow,” Dahl said.

Dahl brought Friday’s kill to Bear’s Den. He has been taking his harvest to the processor for a decade now. “The first year sold me,” Dahl said. 

“The way it so well trimmed and packaged,” he continued.

Robert Parrott owns Bear’s Den in Saginaw. He works with his family and a few others to process hundreds of deer each season.

“We started in 2007 at a different location,” he said, “and then sold that building and moved over to this building.” Four people work at the den to process the bucks. Usually, they process between 300 and 350 deer in total.

Grabbing a hook from the ceiling, “this is where we skin the deer they go on this hook and into the floor as well, there’s a clamp on the floor to hold the hide.” 

Parrott added a second cooler to the den, giving them the ability to have closer to 500 deer processed. They have rails hanging from the ceiling where they skin the deer. They can have around four or five going at a time. 

“This is the whole entire trolly system is set for three different rails in there,” he said, pointing inside the new cooler.

Hunters ask for everything, from sausage to burgers. To get a deer processed, it doesn’t take long. “A deer start to finish, with our crew, is, probably I could do it in less than half an hour, from start to finish in a box,” he said. Thousands of hunters will head into the woods this weekend, and hundreds will visit Bear’s Den.

“It’s up to them, what they want to have done,” Parrott said.

The Minnesota DNR estimates arounf 400,000 hunters will converge on the state’s fields and woods for the November 5 firearms deer opener. For more information on how to stay safe while hunting, you can visit the DNR’s website.

To see the original report and read related stories, follow this link to the Northern News Now website. https://www.northernnewsnow.com/2022/11/04/deer-processors-buck-up-ahead-minnesota-firearms-opener/