This year showed a drastic decrease in hunts where I even saw deer! I was so thrown off about it I stopped going out hunting as much. I was lucky enough to shoot a doe opening day but didn't see another deer until the controlled hunt when I shot another doe during a group push. Has anyone else in Southern Ontario (South of Toronto) seen deer numbers drop significantly? Even throughout the season not many trail cameras were catching deer movement. This is after multiple years of seeing deer almost every outing. I did notice an increase in coyote numbers around the property I hunt, but I wouldn't have thought they would have decimated the deer population in less than a year. Thoughts? And/or similar situations around Southern Ontario?
Shooting a bunch of Doe's is not helping your situation any! Hard winters and predators all play into it. You need to be your own manager. You know what your seeing or not seeing. Not some guy in a office that sets quotas. Just because you have a tag in your pocket doesn't mean you need to fill it. We found out the hard way here in WI. especially in the northern 1/3rd. It's going to take years to recover if at all. We've had multiple seasons now of no doe's gun or bow in several units and numbers are still down.
I took one doe off of each of two completely separate properties. The summer yielded pictures of plenty of deer and come fall/winter they were all gonzo minus some does and their fawns. And correct, I do know what I am seeing on my specific properties. That is why I posted on here in the 'Outside the US' section to see if anyone else on here who may reside in Southern Ontario is noticing the same thing or not. The few properties that I hunt do not cover all of Southern Ontario so I was questioning in wonder to understand what other people were seeing! I see you're from Wisconsin so what you're seeing or not seeing doesn't quite effect me at all. My one property is still doing ok that I took one of the does off of, but the other one was a dead zone for the first time ever, this year. That is the only reason I ask. I don't know if the deer would have moved their fall grounds this year or what because there were absolutely crazy amounts of bucks on camera in the summer. So winter would have had absolutely nothing to do with it, unless the coyotes managed to massacre an entire deer herd in the matter of a couple months. Idk I'm just posting on here to see what other peoples experiences, in 'Southern Ontario', were this year.
I hunt several hours north of Toronto, so obviously many more variables come into play over this distance, however we noticed large drops in deer numbers. This, in my opinion ( though many seem to want to blame the wolves) has to do with much harsher winters several years in a row. They just were not surviving the winter. I believe you guys also had tough ones down there. This winter was much better and we'll probably see a warm one yet again this year. Numbers should go back up a bit if this happens.
It's been a steady decline since the MNR lengthened the December shotgun season from 3 to 6 days. Then we got Sunday gun hunting and now it's 7 days. Then a few yrs ago the MNR opened up a November shotgun season....of all weeks, the first week usually falling on prime rut activity. This is all about $$$$, government is cash strapped so sell more licences and up the price......ins companies complaining about deer numbers being too high in regards to deer/vehicle collisions. GREED is the driving force. This is down in my area of WMU 93.
