I got my buck during archery season so I didn't hunt on Saturday. As a matter of fact, I was returning from spending the holiday with relatives in Ohio and didn't get home until about 4 PM on Saturday. What really surprised me was that when we left the house to go out for dinner later that afternoon there were over fifteen deer in the neighbor's field at the end of my driveway and we saw six more deer in nearby fields before dark. If I didn't know better I never would have guessed it was the first day of deer season. Very strange.
I suspect a lot of hunters are spooked about CWD. I received a letter from the PGC last week asking me to purchase left-over doe tags that were issued for this area because of CWD. I am in DMA 3 and the letter stated that one wild infected deer was found within five miles of my property. That happened a couple of years ago on a State Game Lands. As far as I know there have not been any other wild deer found with CWD near here since then but there was at least one found on a deer farm about fifteen miles from here in the last year. I assume the next thing to deal with will be the PGC wanting to send sharp shooters onto my land to kill off as many deer as they can.
I submitted the head from my buck this year for CWD testing and it came back negative, sort of. The PGC test results letter that I received had a couple of CYA statements in it that basically said the test was not a food safety test and although no signs of CWD were found in my deer head they could not guarantee that the deer was CWD free. Didn't exactly give me a warm fuzzy feeling. IMO the only reason to get your deer tested is to help the PGC monitor the spread of CWD and that's it! They will not tell you whether or not it is safe to eat.