I finally have resorted to posting a thread, I aquired a new piece of property previous to the 2009 season. I have been trying to track the deer into this winter with no luck. I knew where they were up till season end, but we recieved a lot of snowfall in December. I am now in the process of trying to find the heard to do some shed hunting. I have checked all the obvious spots but my heard are wintering somewhere else. It is a large heard and one would think it would be easy to find them. My property is empty without any track or sign. I attached a areial phota my property is the large wooded area in the center as well as the island of trees to the NW and also the swamp. to the west of the woods is a hay field and to the east is a plowed corn field. Would love your guys input as you may have had this same problem. Thanks! any info is good info!
I won't be much help to you on this topic, but for those that could help you, I think that if you could tell them where your prevailing winds are coming from that it could help them out. Also any altitude changes or is it fairly flat?
They could be wintering somewhere else. Tracks dont lie and if you're not finding any, they arent there.
It's unlikely they ALL left the area. There is however a lot of field around a small patch of woods. Are there any other wooded areas outside this picture? If so, what's the size comparision? They could of went for more shelter. Another more realistic thought is the food source. You say it's a plowed cornfield on the eastern side. When did they plow the field? Did you notice less tracks after the plowing? They might of been in your woods for the corn...
Hello, The deer most likely have moved to a wintering spot that has a more abundance of food and more cover for wintering. Such as a woods that is more lower in elevation or has a nice couple of draws in it to protect them from wind. They are very motivated by food though now, first and formost and then by cover. It happens in my area all the time. One of my best spots to hunt during the season you cannot find a track in the snow all winter when there is snow. They move a couple of sections away to a larg woods that has a very big thick bottom to it that provides them with cover from the wind all winter and it has farm fields all around it that they can feed on. Deer will travel together a ways to go to their wintering ground every year and most likely its not far from your parcel there. If it is your land you can creat cover and plant some wintering food sources to get them to stick around.
thanks for all the replies, and here is a little more info In the imediate area there is not another woods of size, there is rural neighborhoods witha n acre here or an acre there. This woods is approx. 125 acres and nothing within 2.5 miles is even close to this in size. The field was plowed under for sileage in late october and i was consistantly seeing deer still.
