Schultzy

Money talks!!! It's truly sad being this state could once again be a monster buck haven state like It use to be.

CodyGuess

well hear is my 2 cents worth.. Kentucky numbers seem down a little an i myself havent seen no were near the shooters as i did last year.. yea we still have alot of young deer 1.5 an 2s but there small.. people in our area are meat hunters so its hard to preach deer managment when thats what they do.. i still try tho an i do do my part i will not shoot a young buck.. but also like they said earlier the rut did come at the peak of a full moon which made it tough hunting..

Siman08/OH

based on my sightings, i would say that its down. My deer camera tells me otherwise though

SouthDakotaHunter

I don't know about that In nearly 20 sits, I have only seen one buck. (I haven't even got a lot of good bucks on trail cams) Normally by this time of year I have filled my ER archery tag with respectable buck.... Not this year - I'm still going..... And it's not looking very promising at the moment. Most of my archery hunting buddies are saying the same thing. Not many deer at all, and hardly any shooter bucks (in comparison to previous years).... In fact out of the 6 archery guys I regularly keep in touch with, only one has punched his buck tag.... Yikes! And we're guys that normally always take decent animals for our area....

Personally I think it has something to do with them extending the rifle season (which is now half the month of Nov. for goodness sake). The last two deer harvests have been the largest in SD history - that has to say something.....

Dopler

EHD was a huge problem inthe summer of 2007 in many areas but lack of management continues to bea main problem, i.e., shooting small bucks.

Other problemspilingon are things like theexponential growth of hunter numbers, the adventof muzzleloaderbalistic technology/shotgun slug cartridges. I was talking to a shotgun hunter the other day, he was telling me that he groups slugs at 5" at 200 yards now. It used to be that a slug was a 50 yard weapon and now wielding ashotgunor muzzleloader is almost like havinga rifle.

IAhuntr

Statistically the only way you can be running out of big bucks is by the hunting population in your area shooting them before they get to be big and by harvesting more bucks than doe.
I just stopped by the locker the other day and saw a pile of deer to be processed and several 1 1/2 and 2 1/2 y/o bucks were in the pile with the hunters not even wanting the antlers. We all have the right to choose our harvest but one thing is for certain, thebucks won't get bigger by shooting them young.

Germ

I was just comparing sighting from like states.


NY
Minn
MI

All seem to be having the same issues this year. I seen 34 deer on the ride home tonight, all slickheads[&:]

magicman54494

I drove back home tuesday night from northern Minn. to central wis. 7 hours of wheel time. I started out at dark. I saw 2, yes 2, deer on my way home! The funny part is I saw a real dandy 10 pointer standing by the road just 10 miles from my home.

early in

How about 25 sits, 12 of which were all day (11-12hrs) totaling 209hrs! This was a span of4 weeks. I saw a total of 11 deer! Very sad.There were 5 bucks (3 of them legal) and 6 doe. I did kill a yearling though (needed some meat). Drew on one buck that was a shooter by my standards, but I didn't get the clear shot I wanted. I NEVER even saw a buck chase a doe at all during the supposed rut! Worst season I've ever seen since I've been hunting.[:'(]
I do have to mention that I got trail cam pics of the biggest bucks I have ever seen in my area though. Which is a good thing.The only problem is that they were almost all night time pics.[&o]

SwampCollie

I think that a lot of places are starting to run out of big careless bucks. You don't grow old by being stupid. You don't grow big without growing old.

I think about a lot of the big deer that get killed across this country and all the conversations and stories I've had and read. A good 90% of the time, the hunter that took the buck never knew he existed. Never had seen him before.