In 2007 I shot my biggest buck to date but It wasn't my best season In the woods, I considered It more luck then anything being It was only my 2nd hunt of the year (October 24th was the day I shot my buck). 5 to 10 years ago I'd see 2 and sometimes 3 P&Y bucks a year that were usually just a tad out of range. Back In them days I loved It when the rut came around. These days I just never know whats going to happen. It's been frustrating the last 5 years. This last year (2008) was by far the toughest year for me.
Yea that was based on what I witnessed in the wild and with our deer farm. In the wild I saw a several sets of twins most were buck twins but I also saw doe and buck twins as well. I think in 07 of all the sets of twins I saw only one that both were does. Also there were alot of single buck fawns of course. I dont know why I saw such high numbers of bucks that year. Maybe just the area I was in??
Numbers wise, this was my BEST archery season since I started 10yrs ago. There's still a few things I need to switch around, but I'm looking forward to next year. The corn was picked relatively early on our property this year, which made for one heck of an ending to the season (it's the reason I was about two yds from sealing the deal on a real nice 115" 8point).
Here my #'s are down. 08 was the slowest season I have had in a long time. I nailed a buck quick but my sightings and pictures were down by 40%.
I agree that a lot of of hunters in the midwest had problems with the crops being in the field so much later than normal this past year. However, overall it was one of my best seasons (2005 was THE best). Also, at the Deer Expo in Collinsville this past weekend there were more "big" deer brought in than at the show last year. Not sure exactly what that means, but people were dropping some monsters. The number of heads was down, but the quality was up. There were 7 brought in that were over the 200" mark.
I cant wait to see what happens next season. In my particular areas of hunting, there are 1000s of acres of corn STILL in the field. Farmers didnt have a large enough window to get it all out. So, cover and full feed through the whole winter should help keep populations high, even if it is only an extra meat deer or two.
Wisconsin was really tough this year. In SE wisconsin where I hunt, it is a CWD management zone, so it is automatically earn a buck. Saw a couple if nice bucks early, but it was before I had filled my doe tag. Saw nothing nice after that. Sightings were probably around the same as the year before. In northern wisconsin the deer kill was down by over 40% in some areas. Sightings were way down. Tough winter, wolves, and crappy work by our DNR really made for a bad season up there. The DNR overestimated the deer herd by a wide margin. Wisconsin had it's lowest deer kill in the last 23 years.
The pure numbers of big mature bucks are really declining here, two very tough winter in a row now, 110 plus inches of snow last year, 0ver 80 already this year. A considerable higher number of rifle hunters hitting the woods more often in all of my hunting areas/mostly public. Our 2 month long rifle season, continued hard winters and wolf population exploding is gonna be the demise of our whitetail herd and herd structure if something isn't done really soon. We need a shorter rifle season and wolves need to be delisted. The future outlook here is not good. The Fish and Game is all about selling over the counter tags though, so I don't see anything changing until our numbers drop off so bad that out of staters stop purchasing tags/licenses.
Hey there Troy!! That is sad about your problem there..I hope they will listen to you guys and change it soon..by the way....how much longer in the school year do we have??:d
I've heard the cornfield theory also this yr. But with us it's just too many hunting seasons and the pressure of all the hunting going on. But I have to admit this was a good yr for deer for me. Not bucks, just deer.
