G-Dawg stand by and scratches head besides mr4pt......
personally my season stunk, but i still saw deer.. better than not seeing any!

I hope they make some changes. We have forage as good as anywhere in the U.S. and half the deer. Deer numbers all over the northern half of Arkansas are way down. There are still pockets with good populations but the permit hunts are really telling the tale. These areas with 0 hunting pressure are producing pitiful kill numbers. Kill numbers last year were down 37,000 from the year before and there is no telling how many less have been killes this year than last. I wish they would cut the number of bucks to 1 buck with 4pts on one side. If you kill a button buck you are through for the year! Limit us to 2 does. Shorten the bowseason to end around the middle of January and cut the gun season down to 10 days everywhere in the state. I would like to see our numbers rivals those of Mississippi. I would like to be able to go and see 10 deer a day and it not be the same 10 deer.

4 points on one side???? Get real. Its hard enough for my kids to harvest their first buck being 3 points on one side let alone 4. I think the major reason the sighting of deer are down is feeders. They are making the deer nocturnal.But 4 points on one side is not the answer.Unless you make that your second buck.

silentassassin you have my deepest sympathy for your lack of seeing deer.
i may see 10 just trying to get to my stand!!!
50 does in about three hours is what i saw this year!! not a buck in the bunch!
1 buck ! no way! i don' t mind the 4 pt rule for me but like hawgz said it' s hard for kids to harvest a buck.

Deer numbers that rival mississippi! and when do we start taking care of the starving deer? the diseased deer?
I would much rather have a smaller healthy herd than a large one with unhealthy deer. what is the carrying capicity of northern arkansas?
Just a few years ago south arkansas was near it. folks in south arkansas say they didnt see any deer. geez they need to stop hunting in there camps and get in the woods!
I see these folks that lease land and try and hunt it weekends . they see no deer and there isnt any!
a week ago i was on my leases , two days after a rain. tracks everywhere! logging roads were like cowtrails. my oats were gone! they are hungry now!
in the fall we had great acorn crops. and like hawgz said feeding plays a role but not as much as timber cutting does.
when they cut timber it allow light to get to the ground and stimulate growth of food. these food sources are alot of times in unhuntable areas. these areas are deer bedding areas also . the deer can eat , sleep and breed without us ever bothering them.

i believe this to be true. but the hunters of arkansas are going to influence the AG&F to change the reg' s . they probably will and remember in a few years when the food sources are weak and the deer have to compete for food how many are seen. the same hunters that are screaming now will scream to kill off some does!

Years ago when we had doe days they screamed. and we got a increase of does in our limit. now how many camps really hurt the doe population?
mine didnt ! my nieghbors havent. now maybe yahoos that come and hunt gov' t land that just want to kill a deer did!

Now i don' t hunt north arkansas maybe your right about the numbers this would explain why the north arkansas yahoos always show up in south arkansas to hunt. and i do hope north arkansas deer numbers come up cause i may just come be a south arkansas yahoo hunting north arkansas deer!

I being from the N E section of the state can say we have plenty of deer.Like reb said the ones not seeing any around here need to walk a little more. I could and did see deer everytime out this year. Can barely remember how many does and young bucks that I let walk. We are going to bitch and moan ourselves into a year that we dont want. BTW I did hunt down South this year and let all your deer walk It was just to hot to shoot a deer a drive all the way back home with it.( Sounded good at the time)

my brother on his way home from work took a detour by his former lease.in a trip of about 15 miles he saw over 100 deer. i agree s. arkansas has close to the same numbers we' ve had for the past 10-12 years. they have changed their patterns and if you dont change with them u lose out

Then try letting them shoot does instead. I don' t think we should go to that for ever but I do think we need to limit the number of bucks that are being harvested so more of them are around to breed the does that don' t get bred the first go around. It won' t hurt you or your kids to go a couple of years without out shooting a scrub.

soark

That makes you an exception and not the rule. If you look you will find that deer numbers are down all over the state including the south part of the state. I have several relatives and friends that hunt all over south AR and all of them are complaining of the lack of deer there also.

As far as the Mississippi comments go well they are just incorrect. Mississippi doesn' t have starving or diseased deer. They have a healthy and abounding deer population. North east AR could easily sustain twice the population that we currently have. I am glad you have deer o' plenty on your leases but that simply isn' t the case for most Arkansans.

So you guys think feeders are responsible for hunters killing 50,000 less deer this year than 2 years ago? If that is the case and they are just going nocturnal how come you don' t see them at night crossing roads or summer before hunting season or you can' t get half as many on trail cam as you did a few years ago?

Apparently, the AGFC agrees with me. The preliminary opinion is that the season is going to be shortened and the limit is going to cut.

Shoot does instead? Thats what most the guys are complaining about. To much does being killed. I have heard rumors that they are thinking about shooting down zone 3. Why? Our deer numbers are not that low in AR. Everyone thinks they should be behind every tree. Next thing you know we will have CWD all over the state. I am all for better and bigger bucks in AR, but we are and never well be a state like ILL or TX. I see no reason why my kids have to shot a doe instead of a 6 point because you or G&FC thinks it is not a trophy animal. And from what I been hearing is that the guys in the Northern part of the state want the doe harvest down. So we go to no shooting does and only 4 points on one side what do we have? Just a day in the woods with nothing to bring home for the freezer.Now I have nothing against the trophy hunters but when G&FC makes it so hard for me and my kids to hunt they can kiss my butt and I' ll take my money and hunt out of state. JMO BTW SA what part of the state you at? Our game cams can back up what I say about the feeders. 5 days it was out around 1 feeder it took up all 28 pics plus more and all and I mean all were bucks but 2. Not the same bucks but 12 points down 5 points and 1 button and they only 2 seen during the daytime was the button and 5 and I let them walk.

silentassassin i don' t think i am the exception or the rule. i just hunted. i know some who complained the loudest spend more time playing poker and drinking at the camp than hunting.
they expect deer to just come on by when they are on the stand. for there hour!
now this is not all just alot i have heard in my presence. they are the one' s that complained when the three point rule came in cause they couldnt get there meat on the first spike they saw. you know you can' t eat those horns type folks?
you tell them as bucks mature they become more and more nocturnal and much harder to kill. and they say we ain' t got no bucks.
you ask them why? and the response is something like cause we been killing the mommas! give us a break!

only about 10% of hunters kill a buck anyway.

i see lots of deer in the summer ,not just on my lease' s . i could take you this afternoon and we could sit and probably see 40 to 50 or more before dark.

one of the loudest complainers i know has a 2500 acre hunting club with about 45 members! weeks before the season yahoos run his woods with wheelers and all season they do this. why are they not seeing any deer ? this same guy pays money to hunt with me. but i have 2000acres and 16 members . i have rules and if you have bad habits .you gone!
he kills his deer and turkeys on my lease' s!my nieghbors all kill good deer and see lots! as a matter of fact they killed better bucks this year then we did. i am going to have to study how this happened.

The AG&F ?? boy i am impressed that they feel the same as you!! i have never had any faith in that organization.
These people are idiots! take a little lake called bragg lake in ouachita county. people kept telling them about a gator in the lake. those idiots said there are not any alligators in ouachita county. well after lots of dogs become food for a 12 ft gator and some pictures were taken they became believers. ok they catch the gator and decide to move him to a lake that belonged to the ag&f oh about 15 miles away. well they ,the biologist , didnt realize the big male gator would do his best to get to his females. he was hit by cars walking down a us highway!
he did a number on a few. it my friends tow truck to get him out of the highway.

now if your ever in ouachita county and are near bragg lake just read the gator warning signs!

Doesnt mississippi have higher bag limits than us? la? al? ga?
It really doesnt bother me what the boneheads do . i will have my deer meat for the year.

in closing i don' t think it' s fair to really compare north ar to south ar. and the ag&f comm. shouldnt either.
but what do i know i just live in the woods and don' t have a BS in bio. from UALR and live in the suburbs of west LR. i don' t know anything about whitetail deer of south arkansas.


Hawgz you should have taken a big fat doe. they eat gooooooood!
the does were fatter than i have ever seen them this year. my boy shot one and i swear it had 1/2 " of fat covering the tenderloins. your knife just got that coating of fat on it. i had to boil the thing to get the fat off.
i don' t have a camtraker . i have been thinking about one.
i would like to have pictures of some of the bucks i have seen in the summer to show folks in the fall. i mean they disappear in the fall so i may as well have a picture to study.

soarkreb If you ever get a chance at getting a cam get it. It is almost has fun has hunting. We got a pic of a big 10 pionter and found the left shed this year.Havent found the other side yet. We take pics year round so we can get a good ideal of what we have. We only have about 700 acres but the pics we get are unreal. I have always that our buck to doe ratio was way out until we got our cam.Seems to be alot better that I thought. I mean out of 28 pics we alot of bucks ( at night) and alot were big. We hunt near Dalton this area is hunted hard by locals and road hunters and dogs are everywhere.I know what you mean about the 4 wheelers. The only time we use ours is to fill feeders or get a deer other than that we walk. Its doesnt take a deer any deer long to figure out whats going on with all the road traffic a nd people traffic to start moving at night. Do I think the deer population is down ? Naw but I do think they are adapting to their enviroment. Its not hard to figure us out. Its hard hunting own our lease with all thats going on around us but the deer are there.