Deer Hunters in your Area

With our season done here in NY, I am looking back and noticing that it seems less and less guys are hitting the woods for deer season. I don't believe weather seemed to be an issue as we had a pretty mild and hunt-conducive weather for most of the season. Here are a couple things I have noticed (not facts, just my opinion on what I hear, see on social media and driving around):

1) Increased amount of youth hunters for the youth weekend rifle hunt
2) Decreased amount of archery hunters Oct 1- Nov 1
3) Large increase from crossbow hunters Nov 1-16 and obviously because of the rut
4) Seems like 1/2 the amount of gun hunters out there this season, public land spots that used to have 15 trucks parked all day had 5 or 6 maybe.
5) Increased muzzleloader participation during the late season.

Overall it seemed like there was not nearly the guys hunting this year as last year, and I believed the same thing last year. Like I said above, none of these are facts, just what I have observed. I would like to hear what you guys thought of your season and hunting pressure

 

I noticed the same thing, I hunt a spot of public ground in "x" county. Within that "x" county is a special permit hunting area that only allows 500 hunters in per shotgun season. Years past the parking areas for the special area were packed. This year we saw trucks back there but id say 20% less than normal. I ended up getting a good buck opening day and since im down hunting with a group of 6 we always by a second backup tag for county "x" so we can still hunt. When i went to that land there was about that same amount of guys hunting there.

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Hurricane Florence kept a lot of folks out of the woods during a mandatory, state-issued no hunting allowed in flooded areas, but when the woods were legal to reopen, it was as if everyone was trying to kill the last deer. LOL.

 

I live kinda close to state and federal land, close enough to hear gunshots. I have been in my stand or outside during the opening weekend of gun season. The shot numbers have dropped noticeably over the last couple years but then again this year it rained opening weekend and the year before we had 20+ mph winds.

 

I see less hunters all over the state of Virginia.

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trending since maybe 10 years ago(?) when MI opened crossbow to all:

More hunters/pressure in early archery Oct 1-Nov 14. Much more pressure.
Less pressure during rifle Nov 15-30. If Nov 15 falls on a Saturday it's still pretty much a war zone but when it falls on any other day there's a lot less pressure than prior to crossbows.

Dec. 7 - 22 Late season/MZ had been unchanged except this year they left MZ open to all legal firearms in my area due to CWD herd reduction efforts. I heard a lot more gunshots that first weekend than I ever have in MZ. Weather was great, which probably helped. 25*, very little wind and fresh snow on the ground.

I think more and more people are going crossbow hunting rather than waiting to take to the woods with a rifle. Better weather, heart of the rut, and safer. It's hard to quantify with actual data since in MI many people buy what they call a "combo" tag which doesn't differentiate between weapons- it is good for any legal weapon in any legal season- but is based off of my experience/perception of the 2 counties I hunt (all public land.)

I can tell you if it wasn't for crossbows neither my dad nor uncle would have hunted at all past 5 seasons. They can't handle the cold of rifle season anymore and can't pull a vertical bow back any more. There's probably a lot of old timers with the same issues/ thought process.

 

not trying to make this political; but is this reflective of the state going from solid red to purple to blue?

 

Wayyyy too much rain, flooding, and wind kept lot of us inside outta the weather.

 

I've noticed more out of state hunters hunting in main areas than instate hunters. Hunting all public land. But the rain has made it extremely rough this year.

 

Pa is going through the same thing, but most are just blaming it on fewer youth opportunities to bring new blood into the sport.

Many are blaming it on not being able to hunt Sunday’s.

The fact is, hunting is just dying a very slow death.


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The numbers came in for NY in yesterday’s local newspapers. 95,400 deer killed during the 2018 season. Who knows how many weren’t reported.


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I just looked at the DEC website and it shows a average of 200k a year and holding ....not sure why I'm seeing 100k being reported and see as a increase