Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Are you seeing more or less deer this year ?

This is my 50 th year hunting.here in Georgia for deer .I am hearing way less shots probably a 1/10 as many all season and not seeing.many deer .In.There mountains here there are few I'd any deer on.public land .I.usually hunt middle Georgia and it's getting.old seeing no.deer .I would hate to.be taking.a kid hunting.It's boring not like it use to be .I.would see 30 deer a day in the 1980-2000 then out wonderful fg wiped out the does and the coyotes finished them off .Our four month.deer season with 12 limit is a joke !

The 2015 and 2016 seasons here in north-central LA were terrible regarding seeing deer. The weather and the acorn crop made it really tough after mid-November. This year has been better, not great, but better.....

You like periods don't you? We have not been seeing a lot of deer where we hunt in NC. 2 years ago on our lease I would see 10 to 12 deer a day. Last year the sightings were down also. This year I saw 1 deer in 4 days. It does get boring looking at trees.

In Chase County, KS at the ranch I normally hunt, the deer numbers seemed significantly down.

Didn't hear near as much shooting during the recently concluded firearms season here in Indiana as I have in previous years. That said my BIL and his son were able to tag a doe each during the archery and firearms season.

I've been hunting NW GA since mid-October and have been watching a lot of deer. Acorns were heavy so they weren't moving a lot but no problem seeing deer if I focused on the acorns. Took a 9 point a few weeks ago. Seeing deer most every time, waiting on the right ones....numbers seem about the same as the past several years.

Way more this year, so much so that we were done in 2 weekends !

4 deer In the freezer.

Way more, on our place in NW La. We had a severe coyote problem. So bad, that in the fall of 2014, we didn't see a single young deer. That's when I got after the varmints. 2015, we saw young deer, 2016 more young deer and yearlings, this year, its like old times again.

About average here in SWVA.

I'm with JPro, 15 & 16 sucked nuts, this has been a pretty good year so far. Still have another month of hunting.

A lot more. I think I know why, too. We've been steadily building the herd since about 2013 after poaching had pretty well decimated everything on the ridge. The poachers were chased out about then and things have slowly rebounded. However, this summer was wild and the early fall was incredible.

One of my neighbors kept a monstrous corn pile in the back corner of his property. He sold out in the spring, so all the deer had to scatter to find food. Many came over to my place.

About average. I saw 25+- deer during our rifle season including 3 bucks. Bear were everywhere.

Decidedly less here in Michigan. The DNR (Department of No Results) is exceeding liberal with seasons and doe permits, and then issued the edict to kill everything some years ago when a deer or two was found with TB. Now it's a deer or two with CWD, and again the edict is kill everything. It's very sad.

Bear numbers however, are higher than I ever remember as a kid. I can't go out a quarter mile without running into fresh bear sign.

Here in Northern California for the early season I am fortunate to be invited to hunt a private ranch. The hunting has always been exceptional except for this year. Deer numbers were way down for a number of reasons but one f the main ones is you can no longer hunt bears with hounds. This has had horrible results on the Deer numbers as the Bear population has almost tripled in CA. Along with everybody thinking coyotes would make great pets and the excitement of Wolves showing up Deer numbers have dropped drastically. Of course, the California game commission is rules by anti hunters for the most part and the Fish and Wildlife Dept. wants to do the politically correct game management it no wonder. Did I also mention the cost of Hunting and Fishing licenses which are the highest in the country.

Bears ,coyotes and red wolves have wiped out the deer where I use to hunt in the North Georgia mountains .I.guess I.got spoiled in the 80s and 90 it was awesome .You saw a deer every time you.went and it sounded like a war shooting.wise .I.have hunted a ton this season and only.heard 25 shots in two months .I hardly see any road kill any.more and never jump.a deer going.to the stand .I.use to see up.to 500 in a year on our farm in a year .Eight years ago I only saw one buck that really was terrible .I.put.out cameras but they show hardly.any deer are coming..I am not seeing does with.babies at all .I quit shooting does on my.farm eight years ago..I don't.like what's going.on.here .We rode the roads where you.would see hundreds at night many times nothing.There are little areas around towns where people feed them but they are few bad far between .In 1993 my dad and I.were leaving goose hunting.and counted a herd on a pasture on.national forest that had 250 deer last time we saw that ever !

Tough winter for us in 16/17 preceded by about 4 dry years in a row. Numbers are down locally (SE Oregon).

Bears ,coyotes and red wolves have wiped out the deer where I use to hunt in the North Georgia mountains .I.guess I.got spoiled in the 80s and 90 it was awesome .You saw a deer every time you.went and it sounded like a war shooting.wise .I.have hunted a ton this season and only.heard 25 shots in two months .I hardly see any road kill any.more and never jump.a deer going.to the stand .I.use to see up.to 500 in a year on our farm in a year .Eight years ago I only saw one buck that really was terrible .I.put.out cameras but they show hardly.any deer are coming..I am not seeing does with.babies at all .I quit shooting does on my.farm eight years ago..I don't.like what's going.on.here .We rode the roads where you.would see hundreds at night many times nothing.There are little areas around towns where people feed them but they are few bad far between .In 1993 my dad and I.were leaving goose hunting.and counted a herd on a pasture on.national forest that had 250 deer last time we saw that ever !

Overall where we lease hunt, less. Which is GREAT. There used to be so many they were all runt looking tiny antlers and so on. I"d much rather see a few deer per hunt but those be healthy and quality type deer.

At home many more overall. Because they were shot out and we got antler restrictions around 2004. Those were the best things that ever happened here. Went from seeing a deer now and then, to seeing deer almost every day throughout the year.

As to seasonal, well that varies. THis year less early on but starting to see more again now. But they NEED good crop/mast/browse seasons so that folks don't see them, don't shoot them and some survive a few extra years.

My high school bud, just shot one thats almost 160 incehs. In a place where I used to remember him shooting a 10 inch wide 8 point and being happy...

Shooting wise the days of mass slaughter shoot anything you see opening day are long over shots are much more scattered throughout the season. And thats good for the herd too I think.

Lots of deer in Nebraska season, both bucks and does. Lots of does in the Iowa season, but of course, the rut is over

Plenty in north central part of Nebraska, not so much in east central part of state, at least where I hunt. I have heard some areas were good around here and some not so good.

I saw less too.

-Jake

I have had by far the least buck sightings in My hunting travels this year that i have ever had, the only bright spot has been my local hunting is actually the best its ever been but that really aint sayin much as i do live in Virginia one of the worst managed states for quality bucks....Hb

Blue tongue smoked them in 2015 around here.
Saw about 1/3 of normal this year and last.
I saw a few "decent" ones I could have harvested....
Harvested a cat instead.
Will try for a few coyotes soon to try and help even more.

It's been really tough on our North Central La properties for several years now. We went from seeing many deer on every hunt to going on several hunts in a row without seeing a single deer. I hunted our family place approx. 20 days this season and only saw a few deer total with one decent buck seen running across a small highline near a rd. On my lease in that same area it's been even worse as I haven't killed a deer on that lease in several years. Almost ready to throw in the towel on the lease, but I stay in for turkey. Here at my house in the NW portion of the state it's been totally different as I've seen deer on nearly every hunt, sometimes as many as 9-10 at a time. I've seen a handful of bucks there as well. That definitely makes it more interesting and my kids enjoy seeing them when they go. I have one more family farm to hunt that should be rutting in the next few weeks over in the NE corner of LA in the MS River delta. Looking fwd to the delta rut to hopefully get out of the slump for the other areas.

I keep hearing the acorn crop is the issue, but I'm not believing it any more as I hunt mostly acorns lol. Lots of cams on trails and plots tell the tale. We're just in a slump, but I keep the faith as I remember when I was a kid it was a treat to just see a deer once in a while. It's definitely not that bad again yet.

This is the worst year I've ever had hunting in TN. We got smashed with EHD and sightings were way down. I've seen a total of 17 deer this season in East TN on good property. Of the 17 only 4 were bucks, 2 buttons, a small spike and a small 5pt.

around here deer #s are down, bow season was good , but few does seen and very few fawns this fall! I belive that the bears are realy getting the Fawns, we have alot of bears here and very few are taken! due to needing points to draw a tag! when you start, you get 1 point per year, needing 13-14 points to draw!

seeing a few too many bucks in my yard this winter............

this morning........another pine tree beat to hell...........

they must have heard I put one of their buddies in the freezer...........

About the same in Burnet, a little more in Woodville.

I've hunted every weekend since youth day I can count the number of does I've seen since on two hands but I've seen bucks every time I've been in the woods counting spikes and scrubby stuff and haven't seen a yearling in two years turkeys the same way

Last season wasn’t as good as years past or this year around my stomping grounds. This year was great. I hunted all but 1 day of our 16 day rifle season and hunted the first 4 days of muzzleloader before I left to go hunt CO. I saw deer every time I went out, the least amount I saw in a day was 3 and on 2 occasions I saw 34. Saw 9 decent to really good bucks on opening day and 8 the second day.

We have two places that we generally hunt that have pretty much opposite habitats that are 14 miles apart. The east place is tall grass pasture with a wheat field between two creeks with oaks, walnuts, pecans, and other trees. The west place is rolling limestone foothills covered in buffalo grass and wild plum thickets. As a kid we’d always see piles of deer on the east place but rarely a decent buck, lots of basket racks and always several bucks that only grew one normal antler with the other usually being a gnarled stub. The west place always had low numbers of deer but when you’d see a buck, odds are that he would be a nice one. Nowadays we still have the poor antler characteristics on the east place but gone are the days of seeing 30-40 deer a day out there. The west place on the other hand has experienced a boom in deer numbers unlike we’ve ever seen, it’s pretty cool to be able to glass from a high spot and see deer out on every ridge top. Of course seeing 4-6 bucks in a day that would make 130” or better is pretty cool too.

More in SW Missouri. We think the Blood Moon goofed us up last year.

Less deer sightings and shooting in my area along the VA/NC border. Opening day of rifle season was the quietest opening day I can remember. On a positive note, buddy killed a decent 8 point this morning about 30 seconds behind a doe.

9 days out in central NY and I saw the same amount of deer this year as I did in 2015 and 2016. Zippo.
2014 was the last time I "saw" deer and even that was a fleeting glance.
I had a cam out from May 1 to November 26th and I saw what looked to be the same 3, maybe 4 deer all year and none too frequently.

I saw roughly the same number of mule deer as I usually do-in both Wyoming and Montana. Lots and lots and lots of does and fawns, despite a horrific winter.

I did see less bucks this year; I suspect due to winter kill being that the heavy snows hit just after the rut and didn't quit until May. Since the bucks were already in poor condition due to the rut, I guess they really got hit hard by the cold and snow loads. The WYGFD preached all spring and summer that the fawn recruitment was terrible and doe populations were severely down-but most all the does I saw (and I saw plenty this fall) had healthy looking twins and quite often triplets in the Wyoming Range and Gros Ventre Mountains in Wyoming and the Bitterroot Mountains in Montana. I've seen plenty of deer in Idaho this year thus far too while bird hunting.

Like normal, what the Game Departments say is usually the exact opposite of what I see.

I've seen more deer but fewer bucks.

In the 1980-2000 every doe you saw had at least two babies alot with three and some had four.Now I am.lucky to see one fawn with a doe .The crp program.with every one planting pine trees that have matured with little food value in the woods .The hurricanes knocked off the acorns early this year too .I am going to try food plots again and see if it helps .Hopefully timber goes up.enough.so we can select cut our pines too !

This year is about right/normal for me since 2012.

Last year 2016-17 I saw less deer and hunted hard to kill a few. The deer were NOCTURNAL last year more than
normal for what ever reason.

I missed 2 weeks due to sickness & weather THIS yr and still have seen plenty deer. Our Doe/Fawn numbers seem normal and bucks are moving
either w/Does or looking for them.

This year has been much easier ONLY because of them being nocturnal last year.

Jerry

I know a couple of guys that got nice bucks in PENN this year, but they told me they had do a lot of walking into deep woods. Hardly any hunters either, the orange army isnt what it used to be in PENN.

Less in North Missouri
More in Oklahoma

Saw very few deer this year, in NW Pa. We have a 3 up antler restriction, so a buck essentially has to be an 8 point. I saw no shooters.

Saw more deer this than the last several, but it was due to location.
Saw a very small fraction of the deer I would have 25 years ago in this area.
Game Co mission plan is producing bigger bucks, I could give a [bleep].
I only take photos for my kids, never show them outside family. I would rather
see deer and kill meat with the occasional decent buck than sit bored out of my mind.

Of course if there was money to be made on my kind, the policy's would be different.

To each his own.

I was blessed to see a lot of deer this year.

In our part of WV it was not a good season. Opening day it was so quiet it was almost spooky. Not much better as the first week progressed. I saw a total of 4 deer, all does, after hunting hard all but 1 day of opening week. Each year for the last 3 years it's been progressively worse. The amount of sign is down. Not sure if they way back in the most inaccessible areas or what's happening. Good mast this year. Acorns and nuts hit well. They may have been scattered or the numbers may be way off, I suspect it was both. And the number of fawns seems to be decreasing year by year.

Saw a ton of fawns this year.central Missouri. more than last couple of years.

One less in Oregon this year.

I hunt Colorado and saw more big bucks this year than ever. Of course I had a doe tag and saw exactly one so the doe population was not what I am used to experiencing.

Hope to see a lot this weekend!!

I don't think there is any difference in numbers. The weather was screwed up here changing their behavior from what is typical. Many days I spent in the woods I never saw a deer and I would have thought the numbers had dropped drastically except that we had a couple evenings with cold rain and when those happened there were big numbers of deer running around everywhere.

Tom

I hunt in central Missouri (Eastern Moniteau and Southern Boone counties) and like Hugh above stated, saw more doe and yearlings this year than most. Didn't see as many bucks as some years. But for us, 2017 would be one of our better years for seeing deer while hunting. We would routinely see from 2 to a dozen while bow hunting during early fall. One afternoon/evening during the rifle season I saw 18 different deer. Both the wife and I had nice bucks on the ground by Thursday of rifle season.

We saw only 2 or 3 deer in a 3 day hunt. However, that was counting 36hrs of heavy rain, followed by mud bad enough to get my truck stuck twice. It was horrendous hunting weather.

Much more bucks & does alike.

NYS Catskill region.

-Ken

Less. Way less. For five years I have been on a campaign to reduce the neighborhood population by killing four/year. The cars were helping out right along too, they were getting ~18-24/year. This year the cars only got 11 and so far I have only killed 2. I would say my local population is down more than 90% now. This is getting down to where it should be. I live in a chunk of land that's about 1/2 section and what we had was about 10x what it could support and we were seeing them starving to death. I should have started a few years before I did.

There are not near enough hunters who live in the area. The area is cut up into small acreages which makes it difficult. The problem is widespread and dispersion will fill in what vacancies exist and in much shorter than I'd like and the numbers will be right back up there again.

Here in NE MO, we are seeing more. Lots more. Like 5 times as many as last year, now that we've gone to a 2 day Antlerless season instead of 10.

Here in western NYS we seem to enjoy a healthy deer herd. Only thing the seemed different was a higher buck to doe ratio than in past years. Also seemed that in prior years, the does were often in groups of 5 or 6. This year it was 2 or 3, without exception. I have 3 different woods that I hunt that are widely separated.
Have been traveling the last couple of weeks,but hoping to catch the last couple days of muzzleloader season next week. May actually have some snow on the ground, so will be interesting to see what's been going on.

I saw less deer and only heard shooting on the first day and second Saturday. I actually passed a couple of does I normally would have shot. The herd is down where I hunt.

Wisconsin

I saw deer every day I was out in the field. Only one gave me a good shot and he is now in the freezer.
The two years before this season I think I saw 1 deer.

My corn was picked a lot of the neighbors wasn't at the start of the Wisconsin 9 day gun season so deer sightings were down from previous 2 or 3 years. Yet enough deer so each of the 14 hunters in camp took a deer home.

Hunted Cousin's farm in Delaware Co.,N.Y.( 3 pt. rule). Saw lot's of Deer,but as luck would have it ,saw 3 different forkhorns,two at 20yds the other 35yds.Come back home to Long Island and have Buck's like this in the yard!!!!

I’m seeing far fewer deer this year but it’s been the weather more than anything. Crazy winds from all different directions, rain.

I saw fewer deer here as well as in western North and South Dakota this year.....

I hunt in S.E. Wisconsin and N.W. Wisconsin. In S.E. I think it is the same but I did see 4 bucks in 16 sits and 7 deer in those 16 sits . I saw deer a total of 4 times in 16 sits. I avr. about 1 deer every 4 sits so this yr is average. It will get better for me cause I am getting to know the land a lot better as the years go on. In N.W. Wis. I only sat for gun season for a total of 4 sits and my son Chas sat 4 sits also . He saw nothing and I saw a bear. No deer at all. It is so poor that the second week we sat for the last time of the year and Chas said Dad, lets just go grouse hunting. We kicked up 6 in 3 miles of walking . He saw 2 while deer hunting and I kicked up 3 while going to my stand 100 yds from the river. A total of 14 grouse were seen in on day . The bear numbers are high and so are the coyotes. Wolves come and then are gone in a day or so. I am sure it is all the over baiting down the road from where we hunt. They put out corn with their ATV's and you can see the deer walking towards them for the corn.

Early season it looked to be greaT. Saw 15-20 deer on a few hunts. The past two weeks ive seen maybe 4 total. No good bucks on cam

I hunt an area of the Huron National Forest here in Michigan. I have hunted the same area for over 25 years. I don't ever recall so few shots both close and distant on any rifle opener as was the case this year. Deer numbers in this area are way down though there are not a lot of deer in this area to begin with but certainly huntable numbers and always some nice bucks.

This area has had near limitless antlerless tags for years as part of a management plan to contain or limit the spread of tb which is prevalent in the area. This part of the Huron National Forest is on the fringe of the more concentrated problem area for tb. We have had 2 consecutive years of poor to nonexistent acorn production which further affects the deer numbers.

I hunted hard for 6 days and saw 2 deer. As alluded to by efw Michigan had some very poor weather conditions for the rifle opener which compounded our lack of deer sightings. There are also a lot of coyotes in this area. We hope to take out some of those after the first of the year when the deer season is over.

We hunt in North Central Wisconsin and overall saw fewer shootable bucks(3.5year olds) than any other year I can remember. I would up with a 2.5 year old in bow that had a a dislocated shoulder from getting his tail kicked and a doe in muzzleloader but only saw small bucks with the rifle or muzzleloader.
The weather didn't help us this year and normally the colder weather years with snow help a lot. The corn was off but the second rut was real slow.
There were more coyotes than I can remember and we will be adressing that.
Overall fewer hunters in the area and fewer deer seen but don't tell that to the DNR.

BTW, the bow buck took 4 calls to register and the muzzleloader doe took 6.

Fewest deer I've seen in the woods on opening day, in years. Usually have a half dozen or more doe scooting around me at first light. Not this year. Shot the only deer I saw early on opening morning, a small buck.

Plenty of deer around the area spring, summer and fall. Lots of nice bucks and it was a good spring for fawns, so deer numbers aren't the problem with not seeing many come hunting season. Just not as much hunter activity moving deer in firearms season this year, as there once was around there.

I.have heard the least ever shots this year ever .I think it's way less than 40 shots heard at deer .It use to sound like a war opening.weekend .The people across the street have 3000 acres and have not seen a deer in.three years now .I think the deer find bunny huggers where I.hunt and stay there all season .I am going to clear some food plots to see if that helps .I am not seeing many tracks either .I tried to put out some feed and it just rotted.I am going to try on.The river after Christmas and see if that's where they are .I know I.have seen vert few road kills too .It's crazy and gets old just watching squirrels .I do need to.kill off some turkeys I.have tons of them they eat all the acorns .Hopefully timber goes up so.more people will select cut .We just lost 200 acres of woods above me they cleared into.pasture.I think burning off runs
Deer off for years the state does it too much.here on public land and there are no deer there either .I.see the end of deer season coming here in my.life time .The fish and game can.shut it down.when the population is below 10 per square mile .It's below 5 per square mile in the mountains where I live and you.never see Deer or deer sign.there !

Saw very few deer so far. Still got a buck and a doe. Hopefully I start seeing more because they are here.

I heard less shots on opening day than i can remember but saw more bucks than does and took a nice 8 pt. This was WV where typically folks around where we hunt shoot the first legal deer seen. On the property we hunt we have been trying to let em grow. Not sure if this is helping or not.

In my part of Eastern Colorado the deer numbers are dramatically lower. Probably the smallest counts in the last 30 seasons. I think the primary reduction factors here are the plowing out of the majority of Conservation Reserve Program grass acres and an abundance of coyotes. My family and friends still filled 5 of 6 licenses and all our hunters were happy with their deer ( 3 bucks , 2 does--2 WT & 3 Mulies), but the animals are few and far between. I don't think we'll even try to draw licenses here at home next year.

Very few, central IN.
Let em all walk so far.
Of course the guys around the corner didn't.

I have seen more deer this year after years of decline. Maybe we have turned the corner? I sure hope so!

Didn’t see much this weekend.

Seen far less deer numbers this year in southern middle Tennessee... Not sure if the predators or a heavy crop of acorns is more to blame? Thankfully disease hasn't struck our area yet.

You saw all the deer that walked past you dead hanging at the neighbors? Thats amazing.