RE: what is considered a bad winter for deer?
 

yes, killed a few turkeys thereIN HEAD OF LARRELLY FORK years ago.my best spot used to be ROBINSON RUN.

i had friends that chased a buck, big one near your area 2 years ago, they chased that buck to rt44 pike,there someone driving up road shot it.

that buck went a long way to escape them.

i heard A LOT of shooting in robinson run areafirst week, i figured it must have been DMAP tags being used,most likely the scrimshaw gang or PRIVATE land owners there.

did you know that some are using those DMAP tags on privateland OUTSIDE the DMAP areas.

some always find a way around law.[:@]

but that was only shooting i heard around that area,it seemed to be very spotty .
there is camp along the river road at bridge in hyner.

they have their roster on door, i know them, they hunt hard and only bucks in hyner area, they got 4 bucks and saw 11 doe for 3 months of hunting.

a friend of mine is raising deer under hyner bridge, he has 10 doe and 1 buck there, he is having terrible time keeping them alive, hunters see BACKROASTS all time.:)

RE: what is considered a bad winter for deer?
 

I would say the last bad winter in our area was 1996, our winters haven't been anything to really reduce the deer population. Last year's Blue Tongue Disease put a hurting on them. I know we lost 5 in just our hollow to it and our buddy found 35 dead ones on his and lost 3 cows.

RE: what is considered a bad winter for deer?
 

douge, maybe those deer have BLUE TONGUE THING.

you need to get ahold of game commission and get season CLOSED over there if doe are dying.:)

RE: what is considered a bad winter for deer?
 

Sproul,I have a picture.Shoot me your address and I'll send one to you.

We did get a hold of the game commission to take care of the problem.They gave us 600 dmap coupons to fix the problem.

RE: what is considered a bad winter for deer?
 

Who said the herd wasn't healthy when we had 1.6 M deer. Breeding rates were higher then they are now with less than 1M PS deer.

RE: what is considered a bad winter for deer?
 

I agree bb...At least that is what "the science" we hear about so much says.;)

RE: what is considered a bad winter for deer?
 

It's a disease spread by gnats and the first frost is supposed to kill the gnats and thusly the breakout. So I doubt that killed his deer over winter, but who knows when the deer actually died.

I'm going to start putting the Pennsylvania deer epidemic situation into the Global Warming catagory..........lol. :D

RE: what is considered a bad winter for deer?
 

They wont have a hard winter if the hunters would put back in to the system what they take from. Open your pockets and put 1 200 lb digital feeder for every10 acres. Use corn mixed with deer pellets at a rate of7 lbs per feeder per day. Thats what most people I hunt with do all year , bad or good weather.

RE: what is considered a bad winter for deer?
 

That would be $3,300.00 for me for the feeders alaone, at a conservative estimate of $150.00 per feeder. Also when you do that the deer all congregate and feed from one tiny patch so when a deer with a disease eats there it infects every other healthy deer. In my humble opinion that is a horrible idea, sorry.

RE: what is considered a bad winter for deer?
 

Yes there are pros and cons. Many outffiter operations do it all over North America from Texas to Canada do it. Your from WV you know all the feeders that are all over the place. I honestly have not seen all the deer gather at just one feeder all the time. But Yes it is a concern. But then again they are just as dead if they starve to death. I am going threw 1000 lbs a month since october.I will slow it down once the vegetation comes back, Then plant sweet corn, some grains,turnips, clover and etc. OH and I put 30 pounds of liquid molasses out for the first time this year. They went crazy container licked spotless. All gone in three weeks. They were even rolling in the molasses I put on the ground.