FWIW on our lease place which is large enough to move around in, vs my own 100 acres.... when the deer do the bye bye act, I pick the right wind day and move into the thickets around their bedding areas REALLY slow at daylight so I can see... and takes me sometimes and hour to make 150 yards into their thickets with a lawnchair...
Absolutely amazing what is around in the bush....
One year I had not seen a deer in almost 2 weekends to speak of basically... the right morning came along, and I slipped in, not that far from camp but where I know they travel when the pressure has been on for months... and areas they bed.... And saw over 25 deer, I'm not sure quite what that number was but probably about 50/50 on bucks and does... and they never knew I was around... and went on with normal life.
The other interesting thing... our ratio is pretty even for some reason... and when the bucks take over the feeders, they give the does no peace....
When its come time to kill my does.... I"ve often had to go only 200 yards or less away from the feeders and watch the edges of the brush to find a bunch of does... doign their thing, but they are within 200 yards in a direction I can't see.... and never show up at the feeders because they'll get chased and or run off.
I suspect a lot of you move around as needed in hard times, like a person has to do.
I know if my camera is showing night only.... and I"m needing to kill... I start moving cameras around closer to bedding areas and such to see where they are and if I can figure a time to catch them. Amazingly sometimes its at the pond around noonish for a drink...
As to hunting pressure, even though it doesn't get"worse" in a lot of areas, just the simple fact that for going on 2 months there have been some type of vehicles or foot traffic where there was none for 10 months prior is all it takes....
I try to stay well away from the stand with a vehicle, and walk in very early and out late, and I still get busted from time to time just coming or going from the stand. None of htat helps. At all.
