Three of us just finished a week of deer hunting. Two of us hunt a small parcel of land having some minor plantings plus apples and grain/molasses mix for feeding. In previous years we have each had 15 to 20 daytime sightings. This year I saw one deer and my buddy sitting at another watch saw only three and these seemed to have been spooked by something as they went through on the fly.

This year our game cameras revealed lots of deer visiting nocturnally but very few during daylight hours. At night we have found a large black bear visiting the sites but he never shows up during the day.

My question - does anyone on the fire have experience with bears showing up and adversely impacting on the presence of deer?

A few weeks ago the game cameras also showed a sow with 3 cubs hitting the baits. She hasn't shown up in the last couple of weeks.

I am not an avid deer hunter so don't know whether our experience is typical or just an annual fluctuation and the bear(s) do not have any affect on the lack of deer present during the day.

Any thoughts or experiences will be appreciated.

Jim

I can't speak for every area but bear definitely impact deer movement in my area . Simply if the bear are hanging around A lot you won't see many deer.

That seems to be exactly what we experienced.

Jim

I've experienced the exact opposite, out west with mule deer. Bears don't seem to bother them at all, unless we're talking about fawning season.

Personally i've been in a stand watching bear come through and out of sight . Later a deer comes through hits the bears scent trail and head back the other way .Like I said I know every area is different . We have a pretty good bear population and I know they take a lot of fawns.

We have the same deal here where I hunt in the Catskills in NY. When I see bear on my trail camera I might as well move it as the deer seem to move out when the bears show up. Especially if there's food/crops nearby.

Same here in Northern Michigan, if a bear shows up on trail cam, he will keep comeing back and the deer will not come in! a Buddie thats hunts with me had a doe & 5 month old fawn feeding on his bait and a 500lb bear ran them off! I had to move a ladder stand 3 times last season, been lucky so far this season!

Thanks guys for the information. We would like to remove the big one but so far he hasn't shown up at a time when we can. Trail camera pictures my s-i-l has show the bear coming to a pile of apples in the middle of the night, laying down on his belly and proceeding to clean up the pile. Normally most of our sightings are does and fawns but this year a lot of bucks have shown up on the cameras.

This year in a week of hunting I only saw one tall spike buck at my watch compared to about 18 does and fawns last year. Not much but good for our area. My hunting career is almost at an end so the lack of shooting doesn't bother me much but I do like to watch the deer when they show up. It makes the hours of sitting on a watch tolerable.

If nothing happens before hand we may have to make a strong effort next spring to cull the big bear. It would likely save some of next years fawns.

Jim

I seem to see few deer in areas where I see lots of bear........

I commonly get bear and deer within minutes of each other on cam. I think deer adapt well to other wild game.

Could be something else. I know here at home I've heard fewer shots fired than any year I can remember. Gun season has been open for 3 weeks and there are lots of hunters in the woods, but some days not a single shot fired. On a good year it's common to hear 10-20+ shots opening day, but this year there was maybe 2. Our camp has only had two doe brought in out of 7 hunters.

I've actually seen 30 or so, just been waiting on the right one.

How's the weather been? Mast crop? It's been unusually warm here and there's a ridiculous amount of mast. The rut should shake things up a bit.

The last two years I've had deer come very close to my blind while bear hunting over an active bait. Not before last year though.

Local farms to where I'm hunting have had some damned nice bucks and a LOT of deer killed out of and off of the same corn fields as have been a good number of bear.

I would imagine that bear predation on deer would be connected to poor feeding for the omnivorous bears. Drought, bad mast crop, later than usual fall where the bear goes into hibernation late, but has to keep his weight up would have me thinking that deer could be on the menu more than usual.

bear kill lots of fawns here in va.

I have never seen a bear or deer together but have seen them within minutes of each other.Bear numbers in virginia are on the increase while deer numbers seem to be declining.See my post plan "B" from a few days ago after my muzzle loader hung fire on one of the biggest bucks I ever saw I went back a few days later to the same stand for another crack at him when a 250 lb bear showed up thankfully bear season came in that day.

lots of bear being killed near me. 380lb,2 around 180-185lbs and a 150lb killed within 1/2 mile of my house this year. a guy 3 miles from me killed a 511lb with a bow a few weeks ago. i know of 23 that were killed on crop damage tags in sept.all of those were killed on 2 farms about 5 miles from me.most years they kill more than that on those farms.