I live in east central Illinois, and it seems that the numbers are waaaay down. DNR guy told a friend that the DNR thought the numbers were down 90% in my area. Really sucks. Just wondering what others are seeing. sent from my electronic carrier pigeon
The DNR tells me in my zone the numbers are way down, what I am seeing when I hunt is as many deer or more as there has been in recent years.
I have spoken with many other hunters in the area I hunt and none of them have taken anything off the property I hunt. Guess I am the only lucky one but the past 2 years hunting it they were all over now I have been having a really slow season. Numbers for sure have dropped where I am.
DNR has reported that our county is down 45% and just about an hour north of us is down over 75% due to EHD :/
120,000 deer registered during gun season here in Minnesota, the only disease the deer have here is wolves and weather.
I see deer in my trail cam, but none have come to visit in the day time. My brother normal has a few deer down by this time each year. This year neither my brother, or myself have harvested anything. Oddly enough, my father-in-law hit a deer a couple weeks ago with his car, and hit another with the rental car a few days after. It appears the deer in GA are nocturnal. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Marshall Co. IL was a big letdown: 11hunters in 2.5 days and not one kill. I actually saw 15 deer but only had a shot at 2(and missed the 1 doe I shot at) all were small and/or on the run.
By the end of November last year Kentucky had 105,000 deer harvested and it was our best year in history two years in a row. We are at 104,000 and a couple days left so we may break our best ever 3 years in a row. Our numbers aren't down.
Low numbers for all of Illinois. I believe it has something to do with not having the checkpoints any longer.
I live in Adams but also real close to Pike county. It's hit or miss from person to person. personally I'm seeing just as many as ever did and if you base it off harvest this is best year out of the past 3 or 4. They're still out there around here and have yet to see a decline. I was talking to neighbors other day who has some out of staters that were disappointed and said they weren't coming back because they weren't seeing anything so I asked what he meant. Basically they're upset they aren't seeing the big bucks bit they are still seeing the same amount of deer. I'd imagine that's what alot of the complaints are about. I've seen 2 or 3 this year hunting and have probably 2 or 3 more that I've gotten pics of all year long that are 140's or better. So again they're still around. Is it what it once was idk, depends on who your asking, but around here all the real good ground is leased up by outfitters that people used to hunt so who knows. But can't really say for rest of the state I just know where I live/hunt doesn't seem like we're missing any deer.
Were i hunt the buck population seem to be up and the doe population down. I did here from some of the locals up north from me numbers were down due to EHD outbreak. Good ground around me is getting harder and harder to find for sure.
Here in NE the numbers are really up this year since the 60% loss in 2012. But about 85% of the bucks have been shot this rifle season so there are hardly any bucks around.
I think we rebounded a bit from last year on our farm. Compared to what it was back in the glory days of the early to mid 2000's, it's not even close to being the same.
I think it's going to vary area to area. I have friends who hunt in the same county, and are seeing plenty of deer in their properties. I contribute most of our numbers on large sections of neighboring land being sold recently into smaller tracts. Combine that with the liberal tag system in Illinois, and there are an awful lot of deer being taken that were not previously. Again it's going to vary by certain areas. I have no idea what the rest of the state is like, just our farm.
