While the first whitetails that will perish this summer from epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD) won’t show up in numbers until August or September, I am starting to study the drought maps and make some predictions. First the good news. Many areas in the West and Deep South have received plenty of moisture, so I think any outbreaks of EHD will be spotty and insignificant. But I see potential trouble spots in the Midwest, particularly in Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri, where conditions range from abnormally dry to exceptional drought in many areas. Moderate drought conditions also exist eastward across the upper Midwest to Pennsylvania and south into the Virginia Piedmont where I have a deer camp, so I’m on the [...]

As you can see by this map, much of whitetail country, from Texas to Michigan to Pennsylvania, is abnormally dry to moderate drought. A few pockets in the Midwest are extremely dry. Here in the Virginia Piedmont where I live and hunt, we’re 7 inches short of normal rainfall, and the corn and beans are parched and only inches high in many areas. How will these dry conditions affect the deer herds, and how might it affect the hunting this fall? First, in areas where there is insufficient moisture, crop and native plant growth is stunted, and the plants lack the nutrition that deer need for prime health. Biologists point out that drought conditions make new growth on shrubs harden [...]