GregBickal
New Member
How much did this years flooding affect the deer populations? Could it have permanantly relocated some deer?
Fishbonker
Life Member
I talked to a guy today who hunts the Skunk River bottoms. He felt like 75-80% of fawns were lost in the floods. He saw the same number of older does but very very few had fawns, when in years past he always saw them with fawns.
The 'Bonker
The 'Bonker
PointBlank
Member
All of my friends hunt NE iowa- Fayette and Clayton counties. It is a consensus that there has been a significant decline in deer numbers this year. I had been keeping it tongue in cheek all bow season thinking that it was due to the late corn harvest, but shotgun season was a good measuring stick- definitely a drop in numbers. Don't know if it was last years hard winter, the terrible floods this summer, or putting the hammer on all the does, but it seems to have gone too far. i have never had so many unused doe tags as this year, and it isn't from a lack of trying.
WhitetailWarrior
New Member
IMO the flooding and hard winter took its toll on the deer population. While shed hunting my 600 acre farm I found over 40 dead deer that I attributed to winter kill. Most were fawns and yearling bucks. There were even sometimes groups of 3-4 fawns that were all bedded next to each other and it looked like they just froze in place. I am lucky that the river frontage on my property is only 200 yards wide then goes up the bluff into the timber. My friend in Southern Illinois isn't so lucky. He has 1600 acres on a river that is comparable to the Wapsi. He and his group has literally counted 4 fawns all fall long. The high water pushes the deer onto little pockets of high ground but then it stayed high for too long and the does had to leave their fawns to go find something to eat.
I personally still have high deer numbers on my farm but I am working on that. When I drive around I don't see as many deer as I used to out in the other parts of my area so I think as a whole the deer numbers are down in the area.
Not sure if this is already posted on here somewhere but maybe someone can get the contact info for the deer study comission and our legislators so we can tell them what we are seeing...
I personally still have high deer numbers on my farm but I am working on that. When I drive around I don't see as many deer as I used to out in the other parts of my area so I think as a whole the deer numbers are down in the area.
Not sure if this is already posted on here somewhere but maybe someone can get the contact info for the deer study comission and our legislators so we can tell them what we are seeing...
GregBickal
New Member
I just talked with one of my local gun hunters who hunted first season and I asked him how first season was around here and he said the deer were "few and far between".