Last season was one of my toughest ever. I was in the woods for some 70 days across the country, and nothing came easy. I saw fewer deer—and fewer mature bucks—than in years past. In some places we saw way fewer deer. The camera guys and I hunted hard as hell and we shot some good bucks. But we had to scratch and claw for every one we got.
It was tough hunting for many of you too, especially if you live in the Midwest. Some preliminary figures show the deer kill was down 7 percent in Wisconsin and Minnesota; down a whopping 25 percent in Illinois; down 10-20 percent in Michigan (depending on region, from south to north); down 18 percent in Iowa; down 23 percent in Missouri, as this blog explains.
Why so tough? Why were the deer sightings and kills down? I believe the nasty disease, EHD, over the last two summers killed more deer than we previously thought in many regions. Coyote predation, especially on fawns in the spring, was surely a factor.
Some hunters and wildlife officials point to the weather, but every fall in some areas it’s too warm for optimal deer movement in November. In a twist, people in Wisconsin say the brutally cold and windy weather on opening weekend of gun season kept the kill down. I can relate. I was up there in Buffalo County that weekend; I have never been so cold in a tree stand in all my years. I didn’t see a single deer the first day.
I also believe that in some areas (not all) bag limits have been too liberal, and hunters have killed too many deer, especially does, in recent years.
A couple of bright spots. Kentucky hunters killed 7 percent more deer this year than in 2012. I haven’t seen the kill figures from my home state yet, but my fellow Virginia hunters shot a lot of great bucks statewide. Best big-buck season here I’ve seen in years.
Was the hunting tough to lousy in your area? Why do you think that was? Or did you have a good season and see a lot of deer?
BTW, it’s okay to have a tough season every once in a while. It makes you hunt and work harder, and then when you finally shoot a buck, it’s all the sweeter. But what worries me: Is this a trend? We’ll blog about the long-term whitetail outlook next week, but for now tell me how your 2013 season played out.
It was pretty simple in Wisconsin, what they usually are eating in early April was not available till late May. That did 2 things, antler growth was a good month behind and a lot of deer died. I found 3 dead ones on my 100 acres and I never really looked for any. I am sure there were many more. I am convinced the winter kill exceeded the hunting harvest. The DNR never mentioned a word of that when they tried explaining why the harvest was down…….. not suprising.
Indiana has let it’s deer herd deplete in many areas so bad it will take years to recover. Our DNR cares nothing about the numbers or quality of hunting to do anything substantial. My best spot had decent numbers but few doe deer, lots of young bucks and yearlings. I hunted less as it seemed like a waste of time.
Wow, down here in the south, Iv’e never heard of such high doe limits. We usually had about 2 doe days a season when I lived in Georgia. http://scalelily.weebly.com
To Dean in IN: I hunt in northern Indiana as well and deer numbers have been down for the past four seasons. I have logged all of my sightings during hunting season since 1995 and there has been a sharp drop off in numbers beginning in 2010. That corresponds directly with the timing of the increased doe bag limits (to 8 per hunter per county in many counties). I think Hanback hit the nail on the head when he said, “I also believe that in some areas (not all) bag limits have been too liberal, and hunters have killed too many deer, especially does, in recent years.” That’s they story in Indiana……I have been corresponding with Chad Stewart at the IDNR for the past 3 years pleading with him to reduce doe bag limits. If the DNR was executing a “strategic plan” to reduce the herd, well it worked. Our herd was under enough pressure without extra doe only seasons and increased bag limits…….DNR went to far in my opinion. Hope its not too late to get back to the good old days.
To KCLAP…..Do not be fooled into thinking everything is ok in your area because you are seeing more bucks. The reason you are seeing more bucks is because they can’t find does so they travel more, therefore you see more of them. If you aren’t seeing many does, you may have a problem coming up soon. To Dean Weimer, I am very interested in hearing shat Chad has to say about the Indiana deer herd. Hope you will pass it on here. Thanks for the info.
We had a pretty good year in Southern Indiana. Saw several young bucks and a couple of mature bucks. While doe numbers are reported down in many areas, our spots had plenty of does.
I agree with Dean. Between herd reduction, EHD and the nasty Winter we are having (even in the southern portion of Indiana) I look for the DNR to drop bonus antler less permits in several counties.
Milk River Montana is horrible. 2010-2011 winter, flood and EHD still to blame, however, too many licenses issued for struggling deer population doesn’t help. The FWP finally quit selling doe tags around mid season but well after hunter’s could buy up to 7 or so tags for the season. If you wanted a doe for meat and was lucky enough to get on one, you had to buy a buck tag to tag it. Monetarily not a big deal. Public outcry and disgust in the management is finally starting to get some attention, but we’ll see if it sticks. the FWP can’t control natural disasters and disease, but their role in hunter harvest and honest number projection for migrating hunters plays an important role. Also, just when we are starting to see a few mature bucks, we get another EHD outbreak this past summer. Tough.
To David in NC: I heard a rumor that the IDNR is going to either 1) stop, or 2) cut way back on the issuance of Depredation Permits this coming season. I also look (without knowing anything for sure) for the county “antler less” limits to be lowered. I say this as only a personal opinion. I think with EHD and herd reduction the last several years they are starting to see numbers down in many targeted areas. And, now we have the 2014 Winter From Hades that could have an affect on northern Indiana herds also. It will be interesting to see what happens this year. I will be talking to Chad Stewart at the Indianapolis Deer and Turkey Expo in a few weeks to get his thoughts on things. Will know more then.
very tough year during season in VA. plenty of bucks on cam all summer long, once season came in, they turned nocturnal. we had NO acorns this year and for sure was a factor. coyotes big problem. disagree on does, we have very liberal kill permits and we’ve seen increased numbers of bucks. shoot more doe and manage the bucks, we limit bucks to mature only…
Toughest year in southern Indiana that I have ever had!! I hunted hard (4-6 days a week every week) from Oct. 1 thru Jan 4th (bow, shotgun, & muzzleloader). I seen a grand total of 20 deer!!! Fortunately on Nov. 23rd one of them was a decent 143″ buck. To be honest though, I seen him coming and really didn’t think his rack was all that great but, I just wanted to kill a deer because I was so tired of driving 25 miles just about every day to watch nothing but squirrels. He was one of only two bucks that I saw during the entire hunting season. After I got him I hunted until Jan. 4th just trying to get a doe for the freezer also – no such luck! A friend of mine 40 miles away who normally shoots a nice buck and several does every year shot a little 6pt in shotgun season just to get it over with and said “I’m done, it ain’t worth it”
Deer sightings were way down during the hunting season even though we seen a ton of them over the summer. Still, when I did see a buck most of them were nice. Shot my biggest bow kill buck right at the start of rut. Didn’t see many does all season. I seem to think it was how the crops were laid out by us this year but I could be wrong. When gun season started we didn’t hardly see shit for the next month. Pretty slow
Deer numbers in NC seem to be as high as ever. Sightings were pretty good overall, but mature bucks were scarce during the season as always. That was kinda surprising this year because I had over 10-12 mature bucks on camera before the season came in. Once the season started, almost all of the mature bucks relocated. Only a couple hung around and those moved mostly at night. That was a disappointing turn for a property that got little to no pressure.
My only out of state hunt in northern IN proved numbers as well as bucks were way down. Part of that may well have been pressure on that individual property as there was a new person hunting there bumping around and messing them up. Still the first two hunts where in a spot where I would normally see 10-12 deer per sit, I got skunked. Reports were that an area tree nursery shot 200 deer in the summer. It’s always something!
Indiana deer herd is definitely down some. We had a great season as Travis arrowed a dandy 10 pointer in the mid 130’s, Mike arrowed a nice 8 point hoosier national buck, and I managed to down a nice 9 point that scored in the low 130’s. I took a slick off of a farm that was having problems with the deer and their garden, and Travis and Mike both filled one slick each to take care of the meat for the year. We didn’t see near the numbers of deer as I averaged about 2 deer per trip vs about 4 a couple of years ago. WE hunt mostly public ground so all is not a lost cause, but we scout year round in order to come up with what we did. I am hoping for a cut back in deer permits and even doing away with the late doe season. Hopefully we are done with the bluetongue scourge we have been suffering from. Time will tell.
toughest season i’ve ever had, shot two does and a nice buck, so all in all still good but very hard, “earned it” like you said Mike, worked really hard. Sat 19 days in Nov. without seeing a single whitetail, I usually see 6-12 every single hunt…….. it was really sad, it could take years if not a decade for them to rebound….. we need to scale back tags here in IL. or we’ll be reading the new BIG RACCOON blog :(
Last two seasons have been down in sightings, etc. Funny thing is, numbers in the summer seem to be average to above-average. I do believe the numbers here are down, but I also think that coyotes are causing a shift in behavior here as well. The deer I’m hunting are becoming seemingly more nocturnal, and spooky. I did kill a decent buck on Nov. 10…and it was the first mature buck I’d spotted all fall. Although there are bigger (higher scoring) bucks in my area I’ve learned that you can’t wait until the bitter end if you want a buck. This is only the second mature buck I’ve killed here in the last four seasons. The buck is P&Y class, but weighed 217#, which is the largest bodied one I’ve killed to date here. I also did not kill any does this season; as I believe the herds are down into a more manageable number here. I believe there are several factors affecting the herd/hunting dynamics…one of which is EHD in certain areas. Now we have a historically cold and snowy winter (with crusted snow underneath a big layer of powder.) I feel that browse will be the number one food to get our deer through this bitter cold winter. We may even have some losses due to the extreme conditions, as stress is a huge reason many deer perish (in different seasons). Also, add in coyote predation during extreme winter conditions and well, we’ll have to see how many of them make it through. The Good News?? Whitetails are survivors. They’ve thrived for hundreds of years by being in tune with their conditions. They’ve also adapted a very keen reproductive capability. Numbers in those hard hit EHD areas will eventually be back, but if you live in those areas you better get after the coyotes. Give those fawns a more favorable survival scenario and help boost recruitment in your area.
Here in CT it was a little tough,saw a lot of good deer early bow but later season was slow. Definitely predation and very liberal bag limits on does, unlimited in areas. I’m afraid we’re going to see a big decline do to more and more black bears in the state. Eventually I believe there will have to be a season.We had a great beach nut crop but no acorns that definitely hurt too on deer movement.Northern Maine was awesome, at least in our area. We did great 5 friends 3 bucks and we saw a few more racked bucks. As for Maine I think the population is really coming back after some devastating winter kill years. The last couple years we have seen a lot of young bucks and always have that brute running around, I think the clear cutting have moved elsewhere in our area too so that’s a +….
Our hunting up in the pacific northwest is about average around 30 thousand annually we don’t have the EHD problem as the Midwest
I didn’t get a buck but my son did.the unit we hunt in is a four point area.
We don’t have the pressure on our deer for the most part so the bucks get a chance to get older overall the hunting is fair to good for deer in my neck of the woods
This past season I started hunting deer in early September and kept at it right until last week in Ohio’s late archery season. I hunted Sask., Alberta, Ohio (twice), west Texas, Wyo., Pa. (my home state) and NY. let me tell you I hunted hard and did kill a couple nice bucks no B&C bucks but some nice ones. One thing I noticed was fewer deer numbers except in west Texas where that seems about the same as usual to me. My home state’s deer hunting has gone from fantastic to bust in less than 10 years due to over harvest of does. Yes some big bucks still get killed here each year and I managed one myself but generally numbers are WAY down. I have my opinion as to why and it is way too liberal seasons and antlerless tags being sold without a solid management plan in effect.
In Pa. the PGC gets no money from the general tax fund and is solely supported by tag buyers, endowments, and the new shale gas earnings from State land. Yet the PGC turns a deaf ear to the tag buyers whom have been screaming about low deer numbers each year for a decade now.
Interesting to hear you were in Buffalo County on firearm opener, so was I. Spent all day Saturday hunting from the ground and had 9 deer within range but nothing I wanted to shoot. Killed a gnarly horned 7 1/2 old buck on Sunday morning again from the ground. The outfitter neighbor and the owners of the property I stayed with had all been trying to kill this deer for the past 4 years, it was named “Shipwreck”. The conditions were indeed cold and windy but I used this to my advantage by moving enough to keep warm and standing as long as possible in between. I could hear the deer coming from 300 yards away in the woods. I was actually hunting a corporate owned property adjacent to my hosts that allows hunting on a lottery style permission basis. I learned that Buffalo County hunters take their deer hunting seriously. The two gentleman that hosted me and the outfitter’s clients did not see many deer. Sometimes you have to go to the deer. My first Buffalo hunt was exciting and I hope to go again.