At least you admit your's to be a wildasssed guess.
We had a long time high powered TPW biologist hunt mule deer with us a few times. This guy and his buddy Horace Gore coined the term "the Golden Triangle" in TX back when whitetail deer mgt was just started getting kicked off ( they had lots to do with it BTW). As expected, this guy had data stacked 3 feet high on whitetails/rut/moon phase, etc. His data showed that whitetails in a natural environment will travel great distances during the rut, as it is nature's way of spreading genetics. Same is true for muleys actually. I do know that on our whitetail/mule deer places we have seen bucks 7-12 miles from where we saw them just a day or two earlier.......all 100% private ground
It is really very easy to tell a know it al, jackwad deer hunter from a legit one.
It's a guess, but I'm not about to accept it to be wildasssed....
Now here would be another guess....define it as you will.....but it is far from wildasssed....
The Deer management philosophy of the last couple decades has been enlightening at minimum.....However, I question how much the data they obtain and make conclusions on are based on Whitetails in their natural environment. In fact one of their goals is to keep the big boys on the home grounds....to breed and to shoot.....Old David Morris and the boys do their best to keep the genes at home....You want to get data on Whitetails in a natural environment, and not Deer who are fortunate to live and die in a controlled honey hole, then you best study the Adirondacks or the Maine Great woods. Year round supplemental farming and feeding pales to their natural environment. Combine it with the fact, damn few individuals get to manage a piece of private ground where Deer can stay on it and still travel 7-12miles.
However, since most of us today, North and South, mostly hunt smaller parcels, their work is relevant to most of our situations....
