RE: Deer Season Post-Mortem
PAWildman,
Greetings from next door over here in NJ. I feel the same as you do and experienced the same. A few years back we used to slaughter the deer here during buck season. I mean 2-3 large does for every 8 pointer or better. A group I hunt with used to drop some 40 deer during our 6 day buck season and that was easy. In 2004 we began to see a slight drop in 'productivity' and this last season in December of 2005, I heard more and more bitching about hunters not seeing deer. I think we tallied maybe 20 deer and only 1-2 decent bucks. Far cry from years ago!
I figure in my neck of the woods it comes down to the fact we've slashed the herd quite a bit and now have leveled the herd off where we're simply 'maintaining' the herd. That is, we dropped the numbers from overcrowding and now what we're seeing is a more balanced ratio of deer to acres. Just my guess, but I think it has merit. I used to see tons of deer during bow season no matter where I hunted in this one section of the county. Now I actually have to scout more to get in the right place at the right time. Basically, not seeing the tons of deer during bow and shotgun season that I saw from 2000 to 2003. Even during buck and doe season with shotgun it's difficult to get deer. We're just not seeing them as often and the numbers aren't there.
Luckily, our permit shotgun season runs until the middle of February and I plan on going out this Saturday afternoon for a few hours and see if there are any deer 'left'. It's usually depressing this time of year because you realize the deer have been pushed very hard and the fact the cover and woods are bare!