BOWHUNTERCOP

My sister owns 40 acres with plenty of land around her to hunt. She of course knows nothing about hunting, but she always sees deer, bear, moose, turkey, etc. she lives in the Loudon area, my question is how is the deer hunting in this area? I would bow and rifle hunt

Champlain Islander

I have hunted that part of the state a few times and thought it was good. I really like the Coos county area up near the Canadian border better. Big deer and big woods.

Bob H in NH

I hunt in Loudon. You are just north of the "shotgun line" so rifle is fine.

Turkey's are everywhere up there, I routinely see them driving to where I hunt, and my wife and I each took a bird this past spring (first for both of us!). You essentially have the month of May, but turkey hunting in the spring stops at noon each day.

Moose across NH have dropped drastically. I haven't seen moose sign where I hunt in a couple years and I used to see it all the time. Same for bear, haven't seen bear sign but rumor has it there's one running around in there.

Deer season: archery is Sept 15- Dec 15, either sex. Loudon is Unit J2, so no extra antlerless tags. You can get a second bow tag that is bucks only.

Gun season is the second Wed of November for 4 weekends (Nov 11 - Dec 6th) this year. This year J2 (Loudon) had the first 3 days of either sex, after that bucks only.

As for how many deer? It's all relative. I drive an hour to hunt there. I see deer every year, but not every time out. This year I've seen 7 deer in Loudon, one is in the freezer. There are some monsters running around Loudon, I have a couple on camera, but they seemed to turn into ghosts around Oct 1.

There's no shortage of hunters once gun season hits. But even with all that, surprising little shooting was heard the first few days. Hunter populations tend to drop each weekend as it gets cold and doe's are off limits.

Any other questions fire away.