Buck Hollow Sporting Goods - click or touch to visit their website Midwest Habitat Company

I've talked to quite a few.......

T

Trapshooter1

Well-Known Member
Different groups that party hunt and the harvest numbers are way down during the first shotgun season. Talked to the 3 different local lockers and deer harvest numbers are down. Had 1 locker tell me, that they normally do 10 caped bucks a year, this year 0 caped bucks.......What's going on? There is still some corn around locally, which I'm sure is hurting. But can that be the only answer? Or are the deer numbers really down that much?
 
We didn't see the numbers we normally do. I think all the standing corn played a major role. Much more so in my opinion than numbers being down.

Sent from my SM-G930R4 using Tapatalk
 
Are you in an EHD hit area? Sounds like a few counties got slammed pretty hard.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Here the shotgun groups struggled a bit but I think it was because it was nice enough that the deer were out in the open. They weren't really in the timber much. Saw a lot when driving around close to dark though.
 
I felt the numbers were way down in western iowa. not any ehd in the area and not much corn around, just not very many deer. i think we have been over harvesting for a few years. doe tags haven’t changed though, so the dnr must think we have plenty.
 
Seemed way down here also. Corn in some areas but 30 miles away where no corn it was same thing. Drives that usually produce 30-50 deer were producing 5 to 10. Wind may have been a factor and so may have sanctuaries.
 
Tons of deer here. Just as many as ever. Very quiet though last weekend and mysteriously quiet out there this morning. Took a drive and saw no orange. Need some gunners here or next years rut is going to suck!
 
In Clarke I talked to 3 DNR and said North Central n east was absolutely horrible. On a 120acre public found 8 dead ehd n obviously not looking for them. Place where we see 30-50 deer only seen 3. On our farm had 10 target bucks for this yr only got 1 pic on Aug 13 than nothing. I'm just saying in spots were horrible. buddy had a farm in SW Clarke and had all of his target bucks disappear
 
Huntinguy said:
In Clarke I talked to 3 DNR and said North Central n east was absolutely horrible. On a 120acre public found 8 dead ehd n obviously not looking for them. Place where we see 30-50 deer only seen 3. On our farm had 10 target bucks for this yr only got 1 pic on Aug 13 than nothing. I'm just saying in spots were horrible. buddy had a farm in SW Clarke and had all of his target bucks disappear
Click to expand...

That is not a good report. When EHD hits the high deer number area, it’s pretty ugly.
 
We shot about our normal amount of deer during 1st season but noticed numbers were way down and we had to work a lot harder for em. Page County.
 
My neighbor called me .... his words "what the hell is going on"?

As in where are all the deer.

Numbers def down, but future looks good barring more ehd next year.
 
I usually don't post on "the numbers are down" threads because it seems like there is one every year and it can be so localized. My only first hand accounts this year are that my archery season sightings were down slightly from last year but both years were down by over 50 percent from 5 years ago. In Muscatine county. This weekend pushing some deer we had about 25 percent of our normal sightings in Muscatine and Louisa counties. Same thing from another group of friends this weekend.

One local taxidermist told me he is down 40 percent from his last two years.

One counter observation was from a group of friends that hunt two hours SW of Muscatine that had a great first season and tagged out early the second day.

So still somewhat localized but I am hearing more low number comments than I can remember for a long time.

Also of note is that we have not found any skeletons around to blame our low numbers on EHD.
 
I say a combination of too warm and the deer didn't need the cover to bed down so just stayed out in the middle of no where. I saw a lot of deer, just nothing I was looking for and will take a doe and hopefully use my buck tag during late ML.
Still a lot of corn in some areas and the deer just didn't leave the fields as they do with the colder temps. I'm sure there are placing that did loose deer to EHD and guessing that would impact the lack of deer being seen or killed. I didn't see a lot of hunters out during 1st season around my area either.
 
Late gun seasons like Wisconsin and Iowa will be down for overall harvest. EHD played a role in Iowa, but I think a key factor was both states experienced a cold November and deer moved/rut action.

Then it hit a wall for many hunters. I noticed it on trail cams. ...Wisconsin overall harvest was down 27% or something like that? That’s not all just deer numbers.
 
2-bucks said:
I usually don't post on "the numbers are down" threads because it seems like there is one every year and it can be so localized. ...
Click to expand...

I agree with the sentiments above, populations can swing pretty widely between areas that may only be a few miles apart. I don't remember if I posted this or not...but I spoke with a DNR Agent at the end of the first day of the first shotgun season and he told me that it was as slow as he had ever seen it. He had only seen 10-12 dead deer all day and one group reported seeing nothing all day long, which was a first for them in 20'ish years. This was Davis County, a county that normally would have plenty of deer sightings/harvests.

Granted, that one day was pretty mild and not a real "deer moving" day, but take that info FWIW. On our farm in NE Davis County, I only found one deer that I suspect was an EHD kill, although we may find more evidence of that when we start shed hunting, who knows. But it does not appear that we had anything widespread in our immediate area.
 
I had a good buddy tell me his small group found 30 dead on opening day of first season on about 500 acres (3 separate farms) in Warren County.
 
https://www.deeranddeerhunting.com/...il-wisdom/these-deer-harvest-numbers-dont-lie.

Here's a pretty interesting article talking about deer numbers in other states. I suspect Iowa will follow suit. I do not know if or why the population is down. What I can say is I seen a lot less deer driving around this summer compared to last. I thought maybe it was a good acorn year so they were in the woods then news of EHD broke. I did find some suspected EHD kills but not enough to make me think it alone wiped out the deer (Warren county may be the exception this year). I had a good year but worked hard and put on a lot of miles to find deer. I don't think what we're seeing is due to any one factor. I personally believe the following have all had an impact on deer numbers : EHD, more deadly gun calibers in shotgun season (improving accuracy and range), aging hunting population and over harvest of does in some areas. I think standing crops impacted sightings some this year as well. Not much can be done about my first two suspected causes but we can try to prevent over harvesting does in areas where the population isn't as high. I'm not a fan of late doe seasons. I understand they're useful for some in high density pockets but these pockets don't represent whole areas or counties. Many of the states mentioned in the article had booming deer populations and now hunters are struggling to kill deer. All I'm suggesting is we be careful allowing liberal harvests or we could be on the list too.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom