Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Southern whitetail herd going nocturnal?

Do you guys ever have seasons where it seems that your entire deer herd goes nocturnal for a while? I know too much hunting pressure can do that with deer and hogs, but we've not been hunting much over the last few weeks and deer movement has slowed to a crawl. Cameras reveal lots of deer but only nighttime photos. Everybody around us is reporting the same thing. Our acreage is in a very rural area with a lot of different landowners and several big hunting clubs but it is now rare to hear more than one gunshot on a weekend evening. Everybody is scratching their heads. It's been pretty warm lately and the moon has been bright, but this seems really odd, as we're not doing any very different from previous deer seasons. Of the last 5 times I've been on a stand, I've seen one deer, total. That hasn't happened to me in at least 10 years. It's weird.......

Ours at home have done this on ONE side of my property... but not the other???

At the deer lease, its normal as its ever been, if not better, regardless moon etc.... but mostly because they are a bit hungry as the acorns ran out awful quick this fall and I feel for our deer... they will have a tough time come Jan/Mar because all the other dumbazzes quit feeding, while I"m pouring my wallet out to the deer....

But I've seen exactly what you are talking about and have no explanation, other than typically its moving a long way to a new food source, but that doesn't then explain all the night pictures of plenty of deer IE normal numbers you seem to have.

I can tell you that from hunt to hunt sometimes its weird... 2-3 hunts in a row with 20-30 deer and then the next hunt, no explanation, IE no wind rain etc.... might see 5 deer and all might come out 1.5 hours later than they normally do.

And at that time I"m not even seeing them in normal movement on the natural trails, much lesss around the feeders.

I'm lucky that I have a big funnel area and I'm up on ridge and can see lots of movement even in years when they don't come by the feeders. So I tend to see whats actually going on too, vs whats influenced by hunger.

We had the biggest acorn crop in many years and they've been hammering the hardwood areas up until recently. It had the early season somewhat messed up regarding certain stand locations, but the deer were still moving in the daylight. Our feeders would often go several days untouched but we'd catch deer roaming. Now it seems that they are finally hitting corn and our food plots, but only at night.

Been the same for us, this season !

The 2 of us have seen 4 deer on stand in over 120 man hours of sitting, yet have literally 1000's of night time trail cam photos.

Thankfully, we chose to put the hammer to the 2 bucks & 2 does we did see.

Season ended 45 minutes ago.

I do think, the timing of the 2 full moons during our season had something to do with it.

It is normal for our bucks to go nocturnal once the pressure starts, excepting the rut, but never seen it like this year where the does were, for the most part, seemingly nocturnal too.

They got a lot of food and or pressure from trail camera usage. I know guys that can't go 2 days without checking multiple trailcams on their place. It's nice to know what's there but I believe excessive traffic to check them causes more pressure than folks think. Oh and temperature has a lot to do with daylight movement I believe

I hate to say it, but I'm glad to hear it!

Before opening day the deer were at the feeders like crazy. In two days I had 332 pics on the trail cam.

I've been going crazy trying to figure out what is wrong this year. The first three days of season were pretty good and then it went downhill. Every time I went to the lease I saw fewer deer. The last three times out I have seen only one deer. And after shooting two hogs they have disappeared also.

The local game warden blames it on a bumper acorn crop, but I'm thinking there may be more to it. What I'm not sure, but I've seen more bob cats and gray foxes than normal also. Maybe they are more visible because they can't find the deer either.

I still managed to put two in the freezer, but I like to spend the rest of the season watching and taking pics and there's nothing to watch.

Anyway, I'm not really glad your experiencing a tough season also, it's just that misery loves company and I'm glad it's not just my lease.

I know what you mean. Definitely something off at the moment. We've not seen one buck worth shooting on our place. Our neighbor hunts a ton, as he is semi-retired and he says he has not pulled the trigger on a buck yet either, which is unusual. Maybe some weather changes and less moonlight may mix things up.

Most miserable deer season I've had. NOTHING is moving, NOTHING.

As the land ownership, landscape (available deer habitat), and hunting tactics have changed over the last 10-15yrs the deer are becoming much more nocturnal here in ND. In the not to recent past nearly everybody lined up and performed "deer drives". Actively sending walkers through cover whether it was CRP (tall weeds), cattails, fence rows, tree rows, etc, etc, etc, it got pushed. Fast-forward to present day, a goodly percentage of landowners have erected permanent elevated stands and have provided some sanctuary cover for deer. As a result, deer get pushed into these sanctuary areas and also become basically nocturnal because that's when there's no pressure on them. A guy used to see deer moving all day because they were being pushed from one parcel to another by different groups of hunters all day. Now they get pushed around until they find sanctuary and hole up until dark.

When hunting in West Tennessee on our place its been about normal, except for rutting activity that was early.

On some of the public land I hunt close to home in Middle Tennessee I've definitely noticed earlier than normal nocturnal activity, especially with the does. I expect it with bucks, but not so much with the does.

The Orange Army descends here from about the first week of November until thanksgiving and usually sightings pick up again in mid December. Things seem to be changing though. Fewer and fewer does seen, but heck a lot of them are killed also.

I've often thought we might be killing too many does, and need to rethink the three per day limit.

Havent seen one since thanksgiving weekend here in middle tn.

I have seen this deer disappearing act for several years, with no way to explain it. Hunting pressure the same before they disappear, during and after. Moon phase doesn't account for it, nor does the food supply. I always thing that our deer numbers must be way down and then all of a sudden things go back to normal. Sometimes it is after season is over, but it happens. miles

+1 .... When acorns started raining my good bucks disappeared. Only pics I get now are in the night. Suck ass season on my lease.

They have been fairly nocturnal here for years. Folks that move here from other areas really struggle with it. Some of the bigger bucks are almost never seen during the day. There are times when you can hunt for many days without a sighting of a deer. Maybe that is why I am doing more small game and waterfowl hunting.

I'm having the worst season I've ever had. 95% of trail cam pics are at night. Deer sightings in the daytime are almost none. I've seen more coyotes on the trail cam pics than ever before also.

Same here. Fewest sightings I've ever had on this property (12 years), and by a long shot.

heavy acorn crop have not help deer movement here in va. either. coyotes had does bunched up early to.i have not seen many deer just feeding during the day all season. high winds,warm weather didn't help in acrhery season.i know lots of good hunters that have been skunked this year.

WTF is that all about? Crazy stuff.

This is only the 3rd year I've hunted my property, but the previous 2 years if I went 2 days without seeing a deer it was odd.

I haven't seen a deer since before Thanksgiving.

Low numbers seen here as well.

Normally I have one shot from the house by now and I haven't seen jack, nor schit, walking the bean field/tree line.

I blame �bama, bad cops, and scotch on the rocks.

I've seen enough squirrels to make up a deer, though.

One tree near the pond I counted 8 running for cover when a hawk landed nearby. 8, from one tree.

Saw 8 rabbits Sunday evening in my grass patch. Three booners....

i live in central MS. same here as well. however last wednesday and thurs i had deer everywhere mid afternoon. a pile if does a couple small bucks. nothing over the weekend tho. weather here is insane. 40 degrees one day. 72 the next

Saw activity at 430 pm Sunday.

Same situation here in one of my hunting spots.

I was blaming it on dramatic increase in drilling activity in the area and late wheat planting. The third possibility is the same old doe still recognizes my truck.

I was going to blame them oil guys too, but I'm the only one on my lease that is not employed in the oil industry so I've kept quiet.

The deer know my truck too. I overheard a doe telling her fawns to stay away when "Ole Dead Eye's" truck is there.

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.

Jpro,

Same where we are not far from you. The only difference is that our cams are not revealing any action period. We saw plenty of deer until about the first week of November and it's been a bust ever since. I haven't seen this few deer in many years. The sad thing is with the cams not showing anything either, it sort of makes you feel they've either moved or there has been a die off. Our plots look untouched. You can dump corn in front of a cam and nothing touches it but vermin. Hunted my best stand 6 times and never saw the first deer. Put cams on all the good trails around it and caught a couple doe and a couple small bucks at night over a several week period. Many claimed it was from a bumper acorn crop. I thought that as well until I made several scouting trips in the only hardwoods we have and found no acorns. Very weird season. I even sat many times on long gas line ROWs to see nothing at all.

I can't complain though as I killed a really nice buck in the early season, so it's been a good year. It's just a bummer to hunt for a month and not see much of anything.

I'm moving to the delta to try for a month. Hopefully it's not the same over that way.

Really? You have to ask?

GA DNR collared an 8-pt years ago in private woodlands near FDR State Park. He moved onto the Park after the first day of deer season and remained there, moving only at night, until the season was over.

We're observing the same thing on a couple of different properties in West TN and North MS. The deer are there, but as others have stated, daylight movement has been virtually non existent. And I'll add that I'm hearing this from about everybody I talk to in the area. Neither of these properties receive a lot of pressure and the same goes for the surrounding properties. We're also a pretty veteran group of hunters who don't use ATVs except to recover downed game, are extremely cautious of wind directions, stand approach and don't over hunt any certain area or stand. Point being, we're pretty low impact in our hunting style so I don't attribute it to pressure.

We've run trail cameras pretty steady on one of the properties, but aren't obsessed with going into the area and checking them frequently, and really only pull cards from them if we happen to be coming or going to a stand in that area. The overwhelming majority of activity on the cameras this entire fall has been at night.

As others have stated, there are multiple factors that come into play. We've had a good acorn crop, a wet summer and there has been a lot of food around. Add to that that the weather on the weekends since about late October has been a series of warm fronts with variable winds that don't help matters, especially when hunting in hilly terrain where the thermals can really mess you up. If you've only had the weekends to hunt, that's just complicated matters further.

I'm fortunate to live in area with a lot of deer around the house, so I can pretty much tell when things are "right" and when they're not, and the best hunting days we've had around here since mid-November have been during the weekdays when a lot of folks are working. Even at that, the local deer around the house have been moving more so at night than during the traditional morning and evening timeframes. And they get little to no pressure.

I've been at this for 30 years hunting in this same area of the country, so this isn't my first rodeo, but it's certainly been a significantly off year by traditional standards. Fortunately I took a really good buck early, but haven't seen another that I wanted to pull the trigger on yet. I'm far from giving up, though. I've taken some of my biggest bucks at times just like this when most folks throw in the towel. Sooner or later, one will give up its guard. You just have to be there when it happens.

I talked to our wildlife officer a couple of weeks age one he said our deer count was down over a hundred from last year. Too many acorns and deer not moving during the day.

I remember a few years back the place I hunted, a few of the guys were convinced there was a die-off due to blue tongue. No dead deer found mind you, they just weren't seeing deer. They all hunted on weekends. I hunted during the week and saw gobs of deer.

Seen other times/places when land use or the character of the land adjacent to where I/or others were hunting changed, and it drastically changed the deer herd's patterns.

Pressure and land changes can have it's effects. Sometimes it may be something out of your knowledge and control. And, in the southern areas where our deer don't rut til later, we also have the "December doldrums". Time between opening day in Novemeber and the rut (anywhere from late December to late January) when many complain of the same thing...deer going nocturnal.

I killed a doe opening day, and an 8pt the day after Thanksgiving, and have not had much chance to hunt since. I killed the 8pt at straight up noon on a day when nobody else saw any deer where I was hunting. I've heard of the same complaint in the last couple of weeks locally too. I believe the single biggest pressure that affects deer is scent. They get used to seeing people, and hearing shots, but when they smell you in close proximity, that will make them change things. They learn to pattern people's movements, and I have had some success hunting midday, especially on a full moon.

There may be some validity to them "going nocturnal" at times when the pressure is on.

We are picking up some really nice bucks on our cameras and all of them @ 1 -3 a.m. Have seen smaller ones right at dark and 1st light. Rut hasn't really kicked in yet, though.

Well, we're post rut and have been since Thanksgiving or so, every year it's the same thing. See very few animals and not uncommon to sit 2-3 hunts and not see anything.

However, after Christmas through January I might kill a monster.

I hunt one property where I'm the only hunter. I've watched 6 different bucks all through the season during daylight hunting. Another place I hunt which is a lease and hunted hard by a lot of people the deer really slow down day movement a couple of weeks into the season. I don't use cameras or feeders so I'm only speaking of day movement as sighted by myself. Luckily, things generally pick up in January with the rut.

things are slow in Montgomery and Stewart county in tn
and slow on fort Campbell ky


aint had a lot of sightings thruout the year


have had seen a couple of good bucks

one with a unloaded muzzle loader right after I had to shoot my "earn a buck doe" on ftcky not 35 ft away

and several other good bucks I just could not get the crosshairs on for 2-3 seconds to get off a shot



liberal limits on does in tn are killing the rut action and deer population
not to mention making the does a whole heck of alot smarter

less does = less breeding/rut time = less fawn recruitment= less deer overall

tn needs to look at this 3 doe a day limit and the effect it has had since 2008 and 2009

and the new biologist on ftcky needs a kick in the nads with earn a buck policy he came up with


once again
if you kill off way too many does
that = less rutting action and rutting time and also = less fawn recruitment



basic fuggin sense............................................

I hunt the same lease with slg888. Been a miserable season. Although I killed a nice hog. Deer have all but disappeared there and at my other place in the same county. Not even seeing fresh sign

With fewer does, the rut you get will be a better/harder rut. There will be more competition for the does and better bucks will breed does and fewer cull bucks will breed them.

With an excess number of does, the rut isn't nearly as good. No competition for does. Bucks hookup and layup with a doe for a couple of days while she's hot. He'll try to move as little as possible with her to avoid other bucks. When done with her he will move to the next one who he won't have to search much for if there is a surplus of does.

With fewer does the bucks will move more and be more aggressive.

...but yes, there will likely be fewer deer if you kill more does.

when all the brown downers in tn start complaining about no deer is probably when the govs cronyies on the twrc will command the twra to reduce doe limits so the population will rebound in overhunted areas


the brown downers are the root of this and eye candy limits for them as put out by the twrc to the twra for license sales are to blame also








from very reliable inside sources that I have spoken and others have also spoken too

almost 2/3rds of the twra biologist 5-7 yrs ago were against increased doe limits and having back to back ml and then rifle season
a lot of them are also in favor of a 2 buck limit
which most people I hunt with or associate with are also in favor of


our regs
are designed for the bubba brown downer hunters who get out opening weekend of ml and rifle
guys who might hunt 6-7 days a yr max is what drives our regs
and then the guys who have connections with twrc political appointees by the governor
good ole boy shyt................


the regs when we had 2 separate ml seasons and rifle seasons
and bow seasons worked just fine

at least the deer got a respite between ml and rifle with that week of bow inbetween

this was changed for simplicitys sake
cause it just soo confusing to your average hunter according to the twrc

b.s.
it was done so friends of twrc appointees could hunt back to back ml and rifle cause they was ticked off cause bow hunters got some pre rut and rut action





unfortunately it will never change

twra people have stopped fighting the govs appointees on the trwc cause of job security
which I have also heard from good sources



and going to the meetings don't make a difference in squat
unless you have some connection to a twrc appointee from your region








that is what is going in tn deer and turkey regs




the state needs to go to a 2 buck limit
and 1 doe a day limit and do a 3 turkey limit



then things will rebound


look at what they did when ehd hit hard in 2007


not a fuggin thing

they actually expanded unit l
and in some of the hardest hit counties at that........



trwc runs the show and has control of the strings of the trwa in all reality............

I respectfully and totally disagree with the less does= more intense rut line of thought.
(it actually equals a shorter rut and the bucks go elsewhere to look for does once all the does have been bred on said land

I have heard that a million 6 times
and It probably works on areas you can actually control
like fenced private land or huge tracts of hunt club land

but when ya aint got no control over what the adjacent bubbas shoot on their spots
not to mention poachers
stuff people don't even tag
and then tn,s telepoach system which can be gamed numerous ways

having a good population of resident does on your property is the way to go for good hunting

then you get the satellite bucks coming to your palce instead of vice versa

I have seen this happen

bucks you never have even seen in October and November
show up in mid to late December to visit and scope out your resident does

I would rather have 20-30 resident does on 250-300 acres and a little common sense in killing a few of em real late in the season
and a have couple of good bucks hanging around breeding the girls for a longer amount of time espically when i know the ground than have less does and having the bucks satellite away to find does on other lands to get whacked by a bubba who will check him in via telepoach as a doe if at all.........
and then knowing you have unbred does for the smaller December rut coming into their 1st estrous for some late season action also

I"m with you in theory, but I'd kill the few does as early as possible, so you aren't chancing killing the doe that the best buck just bred.... With 20-30 does you are only talking taking 2-3 anyway.... get em out early and move on.

The way I see it, I kill EVERY doe in sight. Give all that meat to starving winos or fuggit just toss the carcasses into a ditch.

I can do that every year just me and my buds.


Oh wait, goddammitt where's all the bucks at? Oh that's right there aint no pussy in my thickets cause i killed it all in the name of cheap beer and remington.

Now all my resident bucks are wandering off 5 miles away all exposed to spotlighters.


Jeeze I'm punching myself in the nuts now cause all my does are depleted. I sure hope the magic fairy from the State Game Dept can air drop me some more pussy to hold these bucks in my thickets.

Oh well, I gotta run. CoreLokts are "on sell" at the Fulton, Tn walmart.

7-days in the woods saw one deer, 45 lbs live weight......western VA. Saw three coyotes though

Where are you hunting Scott? We had 4-6 days in west central Tx around Dec 4th and nothing on game cameras day or night. I thought at the time maybe they were in the lock down mode but now I wonder.

No cold weather! The bucks with the PHDs to my knowledge have been nocturnal for the 60 years I've hunted them and now....there's a friggin corn pile on every 5 acre plot and peckerheads constantly going in and out checking their photos!! If deer were idiots...they wouldn't have survived for 4 million years!

Kinda what happened to the mule deer does in Eastern MT.

That and 1 or 2 mean Winters.

Circumstance has allowed me to have hunted as hard or harder this year than any others in the recent past. This season I have seen only 7 deer and only killed one. Where as in most years I would have seen at least several dozen and tagged out by now. Everyone in my area is talking about this very thing. And I have not heard of any really exceptional bucks being taken this year.

True, the mast crop has been heavy this year but I can't believe that is the sole reason that deer are so inactive during daylight. Thinking they may have learned to read a calendar.

I'm with that. I just wish people would only shoot what they eat. I can't eat 87 deer a year, I'm not hunting to feed the homeless, I hunt to feed me.

I must be the exception. Seen deer virtually every time out though some health issues with my wife have drastically cut down on my deer hunting this year.

We had an early rut (most chasing and fighting seemed to be 2nd half of October) and we always seems to slow way down post rut. Big deer have shut down completely but still seeing deer and getting more daylight pictures than prior years. But no big bucks on camera and the decent bucks are all at night.

We have 700 acres that doesn't get much pressure other than me hunting roughly once per week and checking cameras on same frequency. Plenty of pressure in the area though. No shortage of coyotes, Bobcats and raccoons on the cameras

Another report from SC (Anderson). We had a great acorn crop too, and saw very little activity late Oct to mid Nov when the acorns were raining.

But went 2 days in a row last week mid week when it was cold and saw 11 deer including 3 small bucks I passed on. And one was chasing a doe. In mid Dec....secondary rut.

I've come to believe the cold weather gets em moving more than moon phase.

Same story here in N FL, it has been frustrating as hell. Hunted hard during bow season, spooked one doe as I was leaving one day around 11 A.M. Sat back down for a few hours and nothing else.

Gun hunted yesterday from a tree stand, spooked a deer setting up my climber, didn't see it though. Sat all day until dark with nothing. The place I'm hunting has tracks on top of tracks, lots of deer there just not moving. It's also all swamp so they don't stick to normal game trails. Have until Jan 18 but I'm starting to lose hope of getting some meat this year.

Don't think it is hunting pressure here, I've only seen two other hunters on this 3,600 acre parcel, it's too thick and full of moccasins for most people to mess with.

Saw a ton of does and small bucks late october in SC. Good piece of property half ag/half timber that is cut , does are carefully controlled and coyotes are shot at year round. I think I went just 1 sitting without seeing deer.

The poaching around my place is crazy, one guy has killed 17 bucks in 2 years. East TN doesn't have high deer density and IMO the Unit B guys need a 2 buck limit and a 3 doe limit. Eastern TN needs a 2 bird limit in turkey season also.


The biggest thing that needs to happen is if/when they ever catch a poacher they need to make an example of every single one of them and just nail their ass to the wall.

Absolutely crazy. Fish and Game departments seem to have a vendetta on Does , not so sure that fawn recruitment is as high as it has been with Coyotes and other manmade pressures on the herd.

We have a 3 buck per year limit, BTW. So 17 bucks in 2 years is flexing our laws a touch.

Increased limits on deer are coming about because insurance companies are riding the azzes of many states because of vehicle strikes!

As for my state....the rule here is...if it's brown it's down! In other words if it's got hair on it....it's shot!

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries is a joke! It doesn't manage game....rather it manages REVENUE!!

Tennessee is just a fu(ked up state when it comes to deer hunting. There is some sort of ingrained/inbred brown-downer mentality that persists from East Tn to West.

Many of the counties in Middle and Western Tn do have high deer densities, and somewhat thusly there is a bleed-over thought process shared with One-Buck Ky hunters. Which is a trend toward allowing a mature age structure to develop. But that is hard to do by leaving the proverbial Unit L door wide open with a 3 buck limit. What happens annually is this migration of East Tn license plates showing up at West Tn public lands or the same hunters moving in to lease the property next to your family farm. And these guys gun and gun and gun anything and everything like sailors clubbing Dodo birds.

Tn is floating a license increase of $FIVE (5) dollars. Reading other forums you think that someone has threatened to rape their mommas. Oh the crying, the wailing, the gnashing of bleedin gums and bubba teef. If this state ever reverted to a ONE BUCK limit, these tards would run an electolux hose out and suck start a Beau James chevy tailpipe in a basement. God forbid.

You must think those does just stand in the thickets while the bucks do their business?Doesn't matter how many does you have, if they aren't ready they will run a Helluva long way with buck in tow. They certainly aren't holding bucks on a 200-300 acre tract.

Never mind...

Our place is about 1400 acres... its shaped such that I can see a long ways from my ridge.

I"ve had on multiple occasions a buck on a doe, and seen them from 400-500 yards one direction, come past me and continue on 600-800 yards past me, and on and end up another 500-600 yards away to be shot by one of the old idiots on our place that thinks he is owed a decent buck every year....

And they can cover that ground pretty dang quickly... like in 10 minutes or so at times it seems.

my backyard backs up to a state park and lake plus 700acres of private land adjacent that is not hunted. i have mineral lick in my backyard and not unsual to see deer anytime during the day. around the 1st of november daylight deer sightings stopped. 1st of december place my trail cam in backyard, in 10 days only had 163 pictures, very few deer and all at night. there are so many deer you can see the browse line throught the woods. this year is definetly different, we are not seeing deer on our lease. 1 buck harvested out of the swamp and the adjoining lease is 1100 acres with most all trail cam pictures at night. 1 consolation is seeing lots of turkeys. weird year for sure.

The does on my place are whores. Lazy whores.

Yes, they DO just hang out in the thickets and let the bucks run them around INSIDE these 50-60 acre thickets. BECAUSE they don't wanna get shot by the mthrf'n "meat santa" hunters.There are 3 thickets about 50 acres a pop. They are thickets of ill repute.

Not sure how that doesn't make sense.

We have a sort of mindset in Alabama that way too. It's perpetuated by the company line of the Dept of Conservation that if it weren't for cars killing so many deer that we'd be overrun. They rely on sheer numbers. 30 years ago we had fewer deer, but you NEVER saw them in the suburbs, and many counties that used to be unheard of for deer hunting are now producing numbers and quality deer. We now have many MANY more deer in the state, but many of them are unhuntable populations that live in cities and suburbs. Does need to be shot, but not in the numbers we do here. When I first started hunting in South Alabama 30+ years ago it was common to see 10-25 deer running together, but no horns in the bunch. Don't know any place where that happens any more, but we are now killing better deer. We need better management, but the Dept of Conservation here is 100 years behind the times. Took them way too long to allow killing of does, now they want too many killed.

I used to hunt with a guy that said "you can't stockpile deer". He seemed to be under the impression that they were born with the antlers they'd always have, and that the herd was eradicated and reappeared each season, magically I guess. Deer simply didn't age, or breed. Dumb, but he wasn't alone in that kind of thinking, and he believed in killing every legal buck he could get in his scope...he'd shoot 5 or 10 75lb nubbin bucks a season and think he was really a dandy hunter. Proud as punch of each one he killed. One guy I knew took 18 spikes in one season. Never occurred to him they might grow in to bigger deer...he complained that we didn't have any decent bucks on our land to shoot. Wonder why?!

I love to hear that kind of stuff as well. I have been hunting down there on a friends property for about 10 years and we usually did not kill does but if we did it was in the AM in the woods and not in a food plot. I had roughly 400 acres to hunt and there was just me on the property . His relatives had 500 acres next door and they belonged to the "if it is brown it is down group" in fact on three sides of him that philosophy held true. Living there year round my friend sees the same results you have been seeing as have I and I hunt there maybe 2 weeks out of the season in Late January. One year I had a very old mature buck come out of some pines at dark o thirty with a 25 yard shot if that. He was missing half of one side of his rack. I let him go and he continued onto his neighbors land where they killed him .

+ 1

Here, here Scott !

Honestly, I'd say this is more the norm than not for Southeastern deer hunting. The seasons in most states are ridiculously long and the limits too high. Take Georgia for example. Our rifle season in the North part of the state (including ML) is 82 days! In the Southern Part of the state it's a whopping 96 days. This in a state with 10 million people and an over the counter license that allows you to shoot 2 bucks and 10 doe.

Year after year I see many deer the first 2 weeks of season then they pull a disappearing act. Our rut typically is around November 10th in the part of the state I'm in and we'll see activity, but once the rut is over it's like a wasteland. We have 7700 acres of hunting and we have a few people that shoot things they shouldn't shoot but we set much lower limits than the state allows and we do our best not to over pressure but still they aren't stupid.

I have many trial cameras on the property and I only check them when the wind is right for me to sneak in and get them and that being said it's still no more than once a week and sometimes only once a month. The first couple of weeks of the season I'm getting lots of daytime pictures and after that it's almost always at night. Sometimes they'll hit the plots during the first hour or last hour but still almost nocturnal. I have a couple of cameras that get 500+ pictures a week and less than 10% will ever be in the day.

The first two weeks of season I rarely had sits where I'd see less than 5 deer and usually it was 10-15+. After rut that went down to a trickle where I'd see one or two and rarely none. We have a break in the doe harvest from Dec 1st - 25th and most people in Georgia don't hunt much after Thanksgiving. I suspect when I go back after Christmas I'll have a lot more daylight pictures and see plenty of deer as they've almost had a month of time with very little hunting / human pressure.

Well...as a substitute.....SHOOT HOGS!! The sumbeeches are gonna rule the world if folks don't!!

No doubt that things generally tighten up for us after Thanksgiving due to pressure and the number of deer we see will go down for a while, like you mention. This year has just been an extreme, and it seems to be the same for nearly everyone else around here that I speak with. Early to Mid-December generally turns out hunts where you may see only half as many deer you were seeing in the first few weeks of the season. We're now having weeks where 6-10 different hunts were made on our 1,000 acres and 3-4 deer were seen in total. Good bucks keep showing up on the trail cams, but only at night.

It seems like a lot of the hunters are out of the woods after Christmas, so I generally see deer numbers start to pick up for our January hunting, including the primitive weapons season. I hope that is the case and will be trying hard to do some freezer-filling over the next month. Bought an additional chest freezer to set back some extra venison and pork, but I may just leave the dang thing in its cardboard box for now!

The rule on our place is that you have to shoot every one that you see, buck hunting or not.....

some interesting opinons on here for sure



excessively liberal doe limits basically suck

and brown downers truly suck.......................

our regs in tn are broke.......................

jeez

that 5 bucks is a can of sundrop and a pack of cigs man.........







I would supply vacuum hose generously also for those in need.




geuss what I found on 172 acres of tva federal land this morning


yep the good ole adjacent land owner land grab permanent tree stand

didn't cut this one like I have in the past
good 20-25 footer climbing stick set up with a big ole hang on seat and bow holder
with all types of cut down trees all around it
you might want to call your friend
he might be interested in its location
it is probably violating at least 3 different fed/public land laws.

did see 2 does early
and some real good buck sign
might spend some more time out their
at least I don't have to deal with quail f a g s out their

When the issue of doe over harvest is brought up in Unit L in Tennessee a laughing response is what's heard usually. TWRA will promptly say that thermal imaging shows that numbers are fine, and I'll bet they are in the areas they check, but even in Unit L, a blanket limit of 3 does a day ain't a good idea.

This is not just coming from some disgruntled hunters, but from guys who manage some extensive properties and not only use hunter data, but run a ton of cameras. They have noticed a trend over the last several years of fewer and fewer does. Everybody who has several years experience knows what a bumper acorn crop does to deer sightings, but this isn't the same.