I do almost all of my hunting on my farm in NE Davis County. The numbers on our farm this past hunting season were peculiar. We had more than normal deer early in October, but things faded throughout the season by mid-November it was pretty obvious things were definitely down. I suspect that the very low deer numbers in semi-nearby areas drew deer off of our place throughout the season.
Mature buck sightings were definitely way off throughout this season on our place. We passed many small bucks and several mediums, but only really had one close encounter with a biggie all bow season and he was smart, or lucky, enough to stay behind some branches. So we didn't even shoot at a buck this year. If you would have told me that was possible a couple of years ago I would have thought you were crazy.
But even more dramatic was what we saw on our travels to and from our farm. To get to my farm it involves a drive through southern Johnson County, and segments of Washington, Jefferson, a little slice of Van Buren and then Davis. Just a few years ago we would see many, often dozens, of deer on the drive to and fro. This past year...many round trips were made where either NO or very, very few deer were seen.
This drop was so dramatic that I almost couldn't believe it. It was common to have to stop or slow way down for deer two or three times per trip. This year we didn't even see two or three deer per trip.