I was talking with Joe Brooks, he hunts some great land in MI/OH. In three weeks of hunting they saw and shot 1 shooter. They have over 50 scrubs on tape.

I was reading magicman thread about Northen Minn and lack of bucks. I have read the same thing from a bunch of people who hunted MI and UP of MI.

Weird year for sure[&:]

I will tell you, for a FACT, that the deer population as a whole (not only big bucks) are WAY down. (in East Central, MN) Crazy year is an understatement.

Since September 15th I've seen 3...yes...3 deer. 1 shooter, while walking out. 1 doe, and the legs of a deer. So maybe 2.25 deer. ALL SEASON.

Only 3 deer were killed by the rifle hunters, on our farm. Only three seen.

All the local land owners only got 1-3 deer with their hunting party too. I don't know what to say, other than...we should not be able to take 11 deer between my dad and I alone[&:]

It is global warming!!

There is no shortage of deer in South Dakota, and there are as many or more big bucks this year as any other year..

The U.P. this year Germ is a joke, worst we've seen in a while. Both in numbers of deer and size of bucks. We've got more spikes than I've ever seen, probably 8-12 different ones, a few 3-points, but after that, virtually nothing. My brother has only seen 1 shooter this season, and that was an 8 that was just a borderline one. The UP has never been very good, but this is ridiculous.

I had a pretty poor early bow season here also. We have a good number of deer. I believe the reason I'm not seeing as many is we have had to deal with standing corn later than usual and we had the peak of the rut during a very bright moon.

It took magicman's thread for you to figure out there's been a lack of big bucks shot In Minnesota?? It's been very spotty In Mn for those shooting big bucks. SE Mn has done tremendous this year, western Mn has done alright also. My little area sucks this year, one decent mid 120's I passed and a bunch of 1.5's since that. You then go 5 miles SE of me and my brother has got P&Y bucks running all over. It all comes down to what got over hunted last year, It surely shows the next year. My area gets pounded year after year from the gunners, It's real fricking hard for me to be successful some years If the previous year was a good one In the area for the gun hunters. We have ton's of deer running around my woods, just nothing much of decent quality.

I would LOVE to agree with that, and wish it were the case, but our area sucked last year as well. I'm bound and determined to find out why.

My area gets pounded by gunners too, but last year was a poorer deer harvest than this year[&:]

Sounds like they need to back off on all the tags there giving out In your area Kyle.

Couldn't agree more. 11 tags between two people alone is just crazy. Another thing I've been thinking is to end party hunting.

The MNDNR is a buisness, and they and the state are making BANK on the amount of tags they sell.