Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada Status of Sask forest fringe whitetails?

Last winter was a rough one on our deer, with big patches of country hit by much-above-normal snow with long stretches of cold, followed by a late spring. Pretty much the worst-case scenario. Winterkill was generally higher than normal in many, but not all, locales (I've heard up to 50% in some places). Both mule deer and whitetails got it, with whitetails generally faring worse. I don't know about all of Saskatchewan, but I believe the northwest corner and the far southern parts were hit hard. Of the whitetail herd, I think it's reasonable to think that fawns and mature bucks had the highest mortality rates, going into the winter as smaller deer or with depleted reserves. I found a lot of skeletal remains this fall.

I agree that outfitters should be more transparent about such things, but would be really surprised if they were. For folks looking up here for a big northern buck, I'd cool the jets and wait 2-3 years while the youngsters get older.

Wind drift,
Do you know of any web sites we could check about percentages of deer mortality or snow accumulations for various areas?

Try this:
http://www.environment.alberta.ca/forecasting/data/precipmaps/may2011/wintnorm.pdf

Hope the link works. It a map of accumulated snowfall last winter.

OldJoe..good post!!

Thanks every one. I re booked with outfitter for 2012 but not without thinking long and hard. That will be my 12th year, with a 169 BC the largest Ive taken over those years. I saw 22 bucks in 5 1/2 days in 2011, biggest one was about 140. The global warming people keep telling us it's getting warmer. You couldn't prove it looking at the winter kills in Sask since 2006.
Joe

FWIW, this winter has been very very mild so far, we had above freezing temperatures a couple of days this week. Snow has actually melted off in some forest fringe areas. But of course the winter is still young.