Tony, last winter was the worst I have seen in my years where I reside. The snow cover was immense and it was simply real long. This winter so far, is shaping up to be worse. We have nore snow than we had a month from now last year. The deer are already struggling. I trudged through knee high snow yesterday to retrieve this card and was amazed to see lots of deer at high noon pawing at alfalfa way out in the middle of nowhere. I appears as though they are no longer making the trek back to the big timber as the energy resrves are already depleting. Instead they are staying in a tree row between alfalfa fields. Usually that won't happen until January.
On Sunday I was down at a friend's place to hang some more cameras. I placed one in his bale yard as he is already battling them in his stacks and having them work away at an old wooden grainery. Again, that type of behaviour is more than a month ahead of itself. Most years I selfishly hope that rifle hunters don't deplete next yrs stock. This yr, I am not even thinking about it as it'll be a drop in the bucket compared to what winter is sure to weed out again.