Help me out if you can fellas. We have a new tract of land that has plenty of deer with at least 10 BIG bucks that i know of and several medium size deer. I saw them two years ago when bow hunting but was not able to harvest one. It seems though that when rifle seasons comes around they disappear completly. I see their signs but they are not out during shooting hours. Is the pressure just getting to them or what. It is private ground that i own yet last year we had problems with poachers coming in at night. This year is different they won't be able to get in, if they do they'll be walking out without a vehicle. Anyways why am i not seeing any deer during firearms season???

Sounds like they are on to ya for sure. You have to do your scouting before the season starts. There still there , they are just hideing.

If you are talking about BowhuntingDURING the firearm season...good luck! Those big bucks are big for a reason. After the first day of the season those monsters hide out in swamps and the thickest thickets/brush they can find. They stay there and if they come out.....its night! You really gotta try to get them right before the gun season or a couple weeks after. During the gun season I don't think deer are really "DEER". Most of the time during the bow season, bowhunters are hunting deer being "DEER", thats fun!

Thats mostly how it is in my area of MN. During the gun season most big ones the get shot around us are at first light and they're getting off a field alittle to late in the morning or when people make drives through the really thick stuff and flush one. I think even 75% of those big bucks just lay down between the hunters driving.

GOOD LUCK!

I don't want to comes across to pessimistic but in high pressure areas (lots of gun hunters in every parcel) unless you have a lot of acres to your self, you're hunting pressured deer and that changes there habits for a couple weeks.

Once again ...good luck!

The land we have is 270 acres private but the rest around us is hunted very heavily. I would think they would funnel into our ground but i do believe that maybe poachers havea say is where they go from our ground. As of right now i'm not happy about all the truck tracks i've seen that shouldn't belong there, even caught a guy glassing one time and i went to see what he was doing and he high tailed it out so i'm wondering how to go about getting those nice bucks during firearms season w/ a firearm. We (father and me) don't seem to see any deer movement during shooting hours.

CHECK AROUND THEY MUST BE THERE HIDDING SOMEWERE

yep the gun pressure and the deer dot your number

I bet your deer are hunted hard by the poachers. I bet if you take a good look around you'll find evidence of it, foot tracks, scars on trees and maybe even a stand or bracket or two. Begin where roads are close to your property with small short walks through neighboring land to yours. Look for 4 wheeler trails near your lines. 300 acres is more than enough to hold deer and it should with as little pressure as you put on them. You have some sneaks around I'd say.

It could be poachers...but it could also be that they have gone entirely nocturnal. Is there any other adjacent land that does not permit hunting or has significantly less pressure?

Even though they feel less pressured on your land maybe they have been bothered enough to become nocturnal. Put some game cams out and see if you can get some pics.