Stonewall308

Hey, I got a trail cam for christmas and put it out after hunting season was over. On the hunting property this season I saw more bucks than I've ever seen while hunting before (which is to say I saw 4, not a lot but I've gone many years without seeing a single buck), however Ive gotten over 1100 pictures on my trail cam after the season was over without a single picture of a buck.

I know for a fact that two of the bucks I saw during the season were shot by other hunters, and I shot one myself. I also have no way of knowing the total number of bucks shot this year. The question is, is there a chance we completely decimated the population of bucks? Is there a chance it is only going to be does and yearlings next year? If there are no bucks left or very few, can we count on other bucks moving their home range to include this property?

The property is roughly 700 acres.

Also, the 1100 pictures were between January 5 and 20th in Northern Virginia, so I don't think they dropped their antlers yet and none of the deer in the pictures appeared to be bucks with dropped antlers.

okieshooter

If you got does the bucks will come.

halfbakedi420

they will continue to hide til the weather warms up..i am almost certain that the deer relate somethin in the "nature" process that tells them its the time when they lost frank, charlie and barbara...so they hide that time of year. Where the does are tending to their young, they will go out...where the buck gets to sit and watch the game.

GTOHunter

The Bucks are still pretty wary where I have my trail camera's out,I've only had a few of them on camera at night and they don't hang around very long like the Doe's and Young Button Bucks do.I have only gotten a few pictures of the misc Bucks and some times they stay back away from the camera's but I ended up getting a few shots because the Doe's set the camera off while at the salt block and where I put out a little corn!

Stonewall308

I've got mine over 50 lbs of corn. I'll check it again this weekend for the first time in two weeks. Hopefully I've got some pictures of bucks.

BigDaddy12t

Here in Minnesota, our season ended December 31. I think my last buck picture was sometime in late December.

gunther89

For hunting 700 acres, Im sure there are bucks running around. We hunt roughly 400 acres here in Southwestern Wisconsin and we are always getting bucks on cameras, but our buck to doe ratio is 2:1 in favor of bucks.

kellyguinn

In the of season I would almost rather have a load of does on the property as that would only attract the bucks during the rut. Its like having your own deer brothel...lol

farm hunter

I'd say the bucks are somewhere else - and other food is avalable.
No way are all the bucks gone - maybe knocked back a bit though.

Bucks will batchelor group again once the winter sets in and sometimes - its a bunch or none on a trail cam.

Stonewall308

Checked it this weekend and I got some bucks! 1700 pictures in two weeks, and my memory card was less than a third full and batteries had 70% life remaining.