Brok Roggatz said his experience deer hunting east of Amiret this fall was “really cool.” Roggatz got his first buck – and it turned out to be a large one, with 10 antler points.

AMIRET — Brok Roggatz had been deer hunting for a few years before he shot his first buck. But it turned out to be worth the wait. Roggatz, 16, came out of this year’s deer opener with a large 10-point buck.

“I was so excited. I started hyperventilating,” Roggatz said. When family members arrived to help him with the deer, “Nobody could believe how big it was.”

Roggatz said it was only the third deer he’s shot in about five years of hunting. On Nov. 4, he and his dad, uncle and cousin were hunting on land east of Amiret.

Roggatz said he usually hunts in the area. This year, hunting had been good, although he hadn’t seen quite as many deer.

According to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, hunters have been getting deer in Lyon County this fall, although not as many as in previous years. Preliminary data for Deer Permit Area 288, which covers most of Lyon County, said a total of 509 deer have been harvested this year, compared to 626 last year.

Roggatz said shooting his first buck – and having it turn out to be a big one – was a “really cool” experience.

“It was in the evening. I think I was in the (deer) stand about two and a half hours, waiting,” Roggatz said. He thought it was around 6 p.m. when the buck came out. It wasn’t a deer that he had seen before in the area.

“He’s a big deer,” Roggatz said. “You don’t see deer like that all the time.”

Roggatz took a shot at the buck. “I didn’t know if I got him right away,” he said. The deer ran about 30-ish yards, and went down in a ditch, he said. Roggatz said the excitement he felt when he got the buck was a little overwhelming. “I couldn’t even talk. I couldn’t do nothing,” he said.

Roggatz’s family members helped him get the buck up to the top of the ditch. He plans to have a shoulder mount of the buck made.

In the future, he said, “I’ll have to see if I can find one just as big.”

The number of deer harvested, and the number of hunters in the Lyon County area, have declined over the past few years, DNR reports said. Firearms deer harvests in DPA 288 went from 664 in 2021, to 509 this year. The number of hunters in the DPA went from 1,843 in 2021 to 1,836 in 2022. The DNR’s interactive deer harvest map for 2023 didn’t include data on the number of hunters in each DPA.

Both the number of hunters and the number of deer harvested in the Lyon County area had a bit of a spike in 2020. That year, there were 1,913 hunters and a total of 710 deer harvested.

Roggatz said getting to spend time outdoors and seeing wildlife was part of what he enjoyed about going hunting.

“It’s just being outside and being in nature,” he said.