The Minnesota deer harvest was down about 6% as of last Friday when compared the same time a year ago.  The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that as of Friday deer hunters had killed about 134,000 whitetails.  

The paper said the decline was't unexpected, because the Department of Natural Resources issued fewer antlerless tags to hunters this year.  Meanwhile, deer license sales were up 2% to 462,365. 

In 2011, a total of just under 200,000 deer were taken which included the bow and arrow and the muzzleloader seasons.  The largest harvest was in 2003 when just under 300-thousand total deer were taken.