ORIGINAL: skeeter 7MM
Early in, here (sask) the fringe and forest areas where hit hard again. The deer are hurting in numbers big time to the north. SERM has reduced the bag limits as such for the first time in many years in these areas to try and compensate for the winter kill. Elsewhere the numbers appear good and the winter wasn't as severe, however I expectwith morepressureit too willresult in tougher conditions across saskatchewan when it comes to hunting deer. Still lots of deer around just not the hay days we have come to know during the past decade or so.
X2 for Alberta.
The further north the worse the winter was. Peace region was probably worse than average but not as badthe previouswinter (06-07). All the surveys we flew this past winter confirmed a pretty heavy loss of deer and moose as a result of the 06-07 winter. recruitment is also down so i'm expectingwe'll seeless draw tags issued for moose an mulies in these zones. Edmonton wasn't as bad as up here but they did get a real big dump of late snow and cold weather in April. That may have been a killer for the deer as it came when they are at their weekest and forage was at its poorest. Overall, my prediction/ expectation is that we'll still see enoughbig mature deer for the next year or so but there will be a few very lean years coming as the gap in recruitment catches up and all the old bucks die off.