ORIGINAL: GMMAT
I hunt only 65 acres. Given the parks system land (no one can hunt).....and the adjacent farms......I'd say I'm hunting deer that range (rut notwithstanding) one square mile.
46 hunts in '06 yielded sightings of 326 deer from stand. From those sightings....and trail cam photos.....I saw EXACTLY 3 deer that would go 3.5/3.5+ yrs old. I'm not naive enough to think I saw them all.....but how many are there? I'd hazard a guess I probably saw ....I don't know....at LEAST half of them??
So.....the odds of me taking a deer of this age are low. As of today.....I've only seen two on trail cam from this year's bunch (same I saw last year .... the number).
What are you facing (odds)?
Given the fact that a bucks home range will increase from 1 square mile now to upwards of 10 square miles once the rut kicks in...it is impossible to say...but that is the fun of it and that is why it requires state legislation for bucks to get to a mature age so that the browner downer 5 miles away doesn't shoot all of the baby bucks. Where I do my hunting during the rut I would guess there are perhaps 5-7 mature bucks at any given time lurking about and lots and lots of little ones. Where I hunt around home I would guess there are fewer...3-5 maybe.