[rmr]

I had a Christmas dinner to go to yesterday, so I didnt get to the stand as early as I wanted but right at dark I had two
does come out, about 50 yards to my south, so tonight I get
in the stand early, right at dark, I see the same two does Im sure come out to my south, then I see two more 300 yards to the north and that is it, been cold two or three nights in a row, a fairly major front coming in and I really thought they would be on the move,shows ya what I know.. Im really not seeing the deer I normally see, I have checked with the neighbors and as far as I know not that many does have been taken, maybe two or three,
I have bow hunted 5 times since the rifle season, and deer just arent there or not moving, any one else having same results.

 

[nastyjack63]

Haven't done much hunting but I have a soybean field that the creek went over and wasn't harvested right next to my house that I've been watching pretty close. I see deer in it every day but never in the daylight. Once it gets dark they are out there in force but not a second before. Hope they start hitting it earlier by ML season.

 

[grunter73]

Full moon may play a part?

 

[henry]

I saw 19 sunday evening a week ago. 11 friday evening and 13 last evening. Not a horn in the bunch. I doe hunted friday evening and last evening,,,so I was surprised I didn't see a biggun when I was setting there with a rifle.

:cheers::cheers:

 

[rmr]

todd, you know how my place lays and the food available
you think they are just in the timber on the acorns, and feeding at night or do I just not have the deer I had 4-5 years ago. Im starting to think the later, just dont see the tracks.

 

[Cburrows_tx]

RMR HOW IS THE CROP SITUATION AROUND YOUR PLACE? IF IT IS LIKE A LOT OF IT THEY ARE STILL STANDING OR A GOOD PART OF THEM ARE.

 

[Jeremy]

same thing has been going on here rmr. last year the deer would be hammering the cut soybeans, and plots we have out. the year before was even better, you could see deer every outing..bucks and does. this year we are considering it a miracle if we even see a single deer while on stand. kind of concerning if you ask me. we've hunted the ridges theyve been known to feed on acorns as well, not just the plots. I'm just hoping the neighbors cut corn fields are the reason we arent seeing much...but I dont know. I put my cams back out a couple days ago and have yet to get a single pic. the deer tracks are there, but I'm not sure when theyre coming through...or why i'm not gettin pics we arent included in the doe season, and we dont have unlimited doe tags for rifle either...so I have no idea whats going on.

 

[Steven]

The could still be eating on a acorns

 

[Wings Fan 19]

I haven't seen squat for deer since opening weekend of gun season. Heavily used trails are abandoned, little evidence of feeding in the cut beans and not much activity in areas with acorns on the ground.
The only deer I saw this weekend was in the headlights hoppin' out of a standing corn field.:mad2:

 

[pinwheel]

[rquote=1501247&tid=104732&author=rmr]todd, you know how my place lays and the food available
you think they are just in the timber on the acorns, and feeding at night or do I just not have the deer I had 4-5 years ago. Im starting to think the later, just dont see the tracks. [/rquote]

I'm in the same boat this year. Not seeing what I've seen in the past. Your ground is similar to mine, in that you've got a creek that flooded a lot this year. I personally attribute the wet year to fewer deer calling my place home this year.

What I'm counting on, is that we've got so much food standing in the fields & as the weather gets nastier & nastier, we'll have the deer.

There's quite a bit of timber around my place & a lot of it upland. Once the ice & snow comes where they can't dig through for food, my standing corn is going to look really, really appealing to them.

 

[rmr]

Crystal, I have 5 acres of standing beans in the bottom
a acre of turnips. and about 2 acres of clover, almost three acres of bean corn mix in the crp, but I do have 75 acres of oak trees . Till last week there was 50 acres of standing corn 1/2 mile from my place but that has been shelled. I have said this for the last two years, the unlimited doe tags that started a few years back, I have neighbors to the west if its brown its down, and I really think two or three years ago when they were killing 8-10 does per year, has finally caught up . I will not take a doe off my place till they start coming back and most of my other neighbors are the same way. I think it is going to take awhile for them to come back.
In our particular area I think the deer heard has been mis managed mainly from neighbors that think the a deer is killed one drops out of the sky to takes its place.

 

[HabitatMD]

That's been my year as a whole Mark. Just haven't seen a bunch of deer.

Hippie only took 1 doe off our place. I think our population is down.

[Edited on 12-7-2009 by HabitatMD]

 

[racks-n-beards]

not many deer seen near macon either Mark!!

[Edited on 12-7-2009 by racks-n-beards]

 

[rmr]

Randy, in my case in less than 24 hrs the creeks would be down the deer just would move into my timber for a day I really dont think this is weather related in my case,
10 15 years ago I could go over in the chariton River bottoms and see 100 deer yarded up., I could go to several places in the county and see the same thing about any time during the day, we have had some rough weather last couple of years and we havent seen them yarded at all. any where, this bad weather this week I guess we will see what happens, but if I was a betting man I would bet on the deer numbers are just way down in our area.

 

[booner]

This is not meant to :stirpot:, but you guys do remember a very similar thread to this regarding turkeys don't you. I believe I have seen this come up about deer as well in the last few years. If I recall there were some of these same people posting back then about nothing being wrong. I think this shows that there are some people that had valid points and concerns back then and it goes to show you that just because your not seeing the same thing at any given time it may be right around the corner.

This is not a cause to point fingers necessairly, but it does beg to question what can we do to address the situation if time bears out that numbers are in fact down. Since we can't control our neighbors, do we voice our concern to the MDC or just live with the one size fits all strategy?

RMR, I hunt/hunted well east of you (3-4 counties) and use to see the exact same things you described in late winter, groups of 50-100 deer, I could head into hunt any morning or evening and bump deer the whole way in and then still see 15-20 during the sit. That changed drastically over a 2-3 year period and your now doing good to see 3-5 deer per sit with many sits producing no sightings and no deer are being bumped on the way in. Times have definitely changed it seems. Hopefully its just a down time in nature and things will pick back up.

 

[PoisonSnake]

Well, rifle kills have gone from 235k, to 214k, to 200k, to 193k. I've been saying that this wonton killing has got to stop for over 5 years. I've seen the exact same thing as RMR as well. But, hey, what do I know? All of this being said, I saw plenty of deer this weekend on my farms with some pretty decent buck movement. We as hunters, however, have taken it on ourselves to limit what we are killing.

It does look like with the increased doe harvest during the antlerless season that this years numbers are at least equal to last years total firearms kill.

 

[rmr]

booner, some good points for sure, I think there are many factors that like you said nature will have to take care of,
I am afraid the pressure from the Insurance industry, and none hunters that hit the deer, have put so much pressure on MDC
that they have whittled the numbers down to where Im sure if you would ask them(mdc) are just where we need to be.
All I know to do is to try to keep managing what I control
the best way I know how and hope for the best. But it does sound like to me that in the responses to this post, there are more in my not seeing the deer category than in the I have way too many deer wish they would thin them out some.:2thumbsup:

 

[deerhunter365]

Mark,

I havent seen the deer this year like we have the past couple years. Opening morning of rifle season i saw 8 does. After opening weekend, it seemed like everything just shut down. We always had a group of 4-5 does and fawns in or aruond our food plot on a daily basis. Didnt seem them at all during season. On the last day of rifle season, we finally saw some does come back to our food plot and bean fields. I think there has been several does killed in our area this year and last year to the north of us and i really think that has a lot do with us not seeing as many deer.

I am hoping since the corn has been cut, we both will start seeing more deer.

 

[hoboheaven]

[rquote=1501318&tid=104732&author=rmr]Crystal, I have 5 acres of standing beans in the bottom
a acre of turnips. and about 2 acres of clover, almost three acres of bean corn mix in the crp, but I do have 75 acres of oak trees . Till last week there was 50 acres of standing corn 1/2 mile from my place but that has been shelled. I have said this for the last two years, the unlimited doe tags that started a few years back, I have neighbors to the west if its brown its down, and I really think two or three years ago when they were killing 8-10 does per year, has finally caught up . I will not take a doe off my place till they start coming back and most of my other neighbors are the same way. I think it is going to take awhile for them to come back.
In our particular area I think the deer heard has been mis managed mainly from neighbors that think the a deer is killed one drops out of the sky to takes its place.
[/rquote]
Same way on public.:mad2:

 

[coyotehunter]

well to me it is a little early to be seeing yarded deer yet,at least in my area.generally it seems after the 21st.but i have heard alot of people saying they sure are not seeing the numbers they use to.with unlimited doe tags and people thinking it is is a unlimited resource.i think it has to hurt some and you do it year after year it is not gonna show up for few years,but when it does its gonna take several years to come back.look what happened to the south guys,they complained and got stuff working for them and hopefully they will do the same.i'm sure it hard to manage a herd the size of mo. but personally i think they need to break it down into manageable units.my feelings are kill the big doe, you just shot somebody elses buck and and three breeders for the futurei'm not saying you shouldn't does but there is a limit on tree rats,frogs,bunnies:wave: