I did notice a few less deer this year after the first phase of the rut. I hunted almost every weekend and there were a few days in there where the woods were alive with deer. Like I said, it was mostly durring the early chasing stage of the rut. I do agree with you that there were fewer deer compared to last year but I also think that it has a lot to do with the weather. We have had such unseasonably warm weather lately. I took off in November to do some hunting durring the peak of rut and it was almost 60 degrees one day. I sat in my stand all day around a well traveled creek bed and never even heard a deer move. Hopefully this warm weather will not return next year....