No thick stuff on the place, actually one pond has 3 foot of standing water, only water that's not in a stock tank for probably 10 miles. Drought has been pretty hard, but the Mule deer seemed to of thrived this last year none the less.
We also have permission on another area that's probably close to three sections and half of that is winter wheat, they aren't even showing up there. I think they all went to South Dakota.

We did go to Wolf Butte which is close to us, government land and I walked a couple of the fingers up the draw, couldn't spook anything out of there either.

No wolves here, but the coyotes are pretty darn thick.

As far as going nocturnal, they must be eating pretty early in the night, as we've been there an hour and a half before sunrise the last 3 days, and didn't see anything or catch anything in the headlights as we pulled in.

Here's the real frustraiting part, I live about 40 miles from where we hunt. Every morning and evening in the wheat field that is 100 yards from my house there is about 40 white tails. Unfortunately with the houses/highway/and county road, can't really hunt it.