A beautiful morning to deer hunt but as the hours ticked by my tolerance for looking at a lifeless woods was at zero. Before going completely bonkers I gathered my gear came home. I don't know if going out this afternoon will be more of the same or not. I couldn't imagine trying to keep a kid interested in this game when the opposition doesn't show. Time to rethink all of this stuff.
I had enough
X7_
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Back in August ... at 0230hrs, an alien space ship came by North America, undetected, and sucked up 75% of the deer herd to bring home and cultivate as a food source.
Not seeing deer this year has been a common observation from people I've talked to from Ohio to the east coast.
Not seeing deer this year has been a common observation from people I've talked to from Ohio to the east coast.
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X7, hang in there things can change in a heartbeat. Don't burn yourself out. Hunt the cooler mornings this week and do something else in the balmy afternoons. Get in extra early and try different locations near the thickest cover. Hey man, it's hunting not digging a ditch so pace yourself and stay positive. Who knows maybe the orange battalion may push something your way.
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As disheartening as it is, you can't kill em from home. I feel your pain though. Hang in there and keep going out
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Yeah, that's weird. Some people complain about it every year but it does seem a little more widespread this year. The Division thinks it's the acorns; that the deer are there in the same numbers as always and bow hunters just aren't seeing them. We should know more about that after this week because killing on a drive doesn't depend on deer moving away from acorns. If the clubs have a good year, they were right. If the clubs don't get them in good numbers, well, they will have to come up with another reason why we still have soooo many deer, but no one sees them any longer.
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Saturday should be a good day for an all day sit. Looks like it could be a little warm but with the week people are having, their should be a lot of guys in the woods moving deer around. After Saturday this week, I will focus strictly on afternoon hunts. Since the guns started going off, less and less daytime activity with most movement in the last few minutes of daylight at least on my farm and Im used to seeing at minimum 10 - 15 per sit. I saw 4 last night. The deer are feeding on bait piles heavy all night long and heading to bed before the first hint of daylight. You can literally get in your stand at 3 pm and not miss much of any thing this time of year after 6 day. I say after 6 day because the number of hunters is less on any given day and guys will start packing up shortly. The bait piles will start drying up. I think the best time to hunt that nice buck you been seeing is late season when things start quieting down a bit with a nice coating of snow and a cold snap.The die hards will hang in until antlers start dropping which seems to be getting earlier and earlier, probably because the deer are so stressed and brown and downers will hang in to the end. Im sure the numbers will be way down this year. I just hope people start waking up and laying off the trigger. If you are not seeing deer, now is a good time to let those does walk. Go to shoprite and buy yourself a steak. In Illinois, I have shot 0 does in 3 seasons. In NJ, we have shot 3 in 2 seasons and we could probably take a few more and still have some good deer numbers. I like seeing deer while deer hunting even if we are letting them walk
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Doesn't look that steady to me. Looks like you had a huge drop from 2012 to 2013, and then even further for 2014. The 5 year average before that was 607 deer per year. The 2014 kill represents about a 28 percent decline from the 5 year average. I guess we'll see where it comes in this year.
check out your hunting spots a day or two after the first snow... Last winter my best spot I couldn't take a step without seeing a coyote track. I found maybe 5-6 sets of deer tracks in a 500+ acre woods and would pass through several hundred yards of mountain without cutting a deer track.
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407 Posts
Everyone here has the power to make a change. While the state says you CAN take six bucks and unlimited doe, you don't have to. Each piece of property is different and if you are smothered in deer, then harvest them appropriately. But if you're not, wait for that mature buck or take a doe for the freezer but you don't have to fill every tag.
Unlimited is the main issue..buck tags another making folks feel obligated to fill it no matter what kind of buck it is. 3 days of shotgun in some zones before buck week is even worse. The kicker to me is letting you shoot does during buck week in some zones. Drivers used to push deer and have to let the does go now they just shoot everything. The herd is hurting no doubt. I hunt two private pieces very little deer seen.
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I decided to hunt opening morning of 6 day with my crossbow on bow only municipal property thinking the orange army would push them... well, not only did I not see a deer, not 1 shot! Black River WMA is down the street, Clyde Potts Res Mendham hunt going on across the street and not 1 shot! Went to another spot on Tuesday morning with the slug gun and joined the orange army... nothing and no shots!!! Went to Chester in the Afternoon with the bow and had a small 6 come in at last light, that was it and that spot usually rocks! A lot of sits without seeing deer in Long Valley, Flanders, Randolph, Mendham and even the spots that I don't take doe at and just keep for buck, trail cams do not have good news... Well, didn't hear the first shot until Wednesday morning, and then 2 shots in the afternoon... And I thought it was the crazy bumper year of acorns and they just were not moving, might be something else because I hear the same thing from a lot of guys that have some kick ass spots.... Blue tongue.... EHD???
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Yup the problem is obvious
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The kill numbers just dont support your statement (see the chart I made below).
In fact, the number of deer taken in that 2009-2010 season was amazingly consistent with the number of deer taken just last year. A "difference" of 0.001%, which is really incredible!
This I agree with. But we already know the bow kill tally is down and so it's highly likely we'll be down from last year. But this doesn't shock me in the least bit given the mast crop this year. You have guys who are 65 years old who've hunted since they were teenagers saying they've never seen as many acorns (favorite food) as this year in their entire lives. You have guys on this site (perhaps exaggerating admittedly) who claim they walk paths in the woods that are literally so covered in acorns that they cannot avoid stepping on them even if they wanted to. With all the food in the woods, deer have absolutely no reason to leave deep cover. This is the theory given by many, including NJ F&G, and it seems completely logical to me.
The chart is available on State of New Jersey .gov website, and the numbers come directly from "NJDEP Division of Fish and Wildlife, 2011".
Yes; 100% true. Every. Year.
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Acorns? Just because there are acorns doesn't mean that the deer numbers are high. This is a tactic fish and game is using to pacify hunters. " the deer are in the woods eating acorns" there are no acorns in the spring and early summer where do the deer go then? Vacation!!! Bunch of bullshit they are spewing
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So after the pissing match I think it's safe to say that physically deer numbers are down (this coming from the majority of the people who actually hunt". Read all the charts you want it's not getting you anywhere. There's a cull hunt in my town. First year they shot 150+. Last year 43 (blamed it on the harsh weather...bs) and so far this year they've shot less than 15?? How the hell does that make sense? 10 sites throughout town and only 15 deer?? "Experts" from the state predicted there's over 2,000 deer running in the area they hunt. Sooooooooo let's just say this state is the biggest bag of white dog $hit. Why would the state say the numbers are declining? Declining numbers = less money. They're not that dumb...
Benedict: Honest question here (my ignorance): Am I interpreting your charts and figures correctly when I conclude we harvest roughly 50k NJ deer per year on a population of roughly 115k or so? So, we kill roughly 4 in 10 deer every year? We can kill 40-45% of the population annually and it stays stable?
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Again, you are relying solely on numbers that do not represent reality. Also pretty consistent with your chosen, highlighted in red numbers, are the kill numbers from 1994-1995 at 51,442, yet your chart shows the deer population was nearly twice as high then, as was last years estimate.
There is a big difference between looking at numbers that have no way to be proven consistently reliable, and real world, in the field observations. You spend too much time in the numbers and, I suspect, very little in the field. The numbers alone don't tell the story.
I can tell you for a fact we (my area of Salem County) have far, far fewer deer around now...with higher kill numbers...than we had in the 1980's when the kill totals were lower. I was seeing 25-50 in several fields...in each field... around my home growing up and hunting in the late 1970's and early 1980's. They are not there any longer. If you see a dozen after covering 30 miles, you've had a good evening of glassing.
How long have you been hunting NJ?
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People will shoot deer no matter what. It doesn't matter if 2 come by or 20. if you shoot one of 2, that's going to effect the heard worse then if you shoot 1 of 20. I am not familar with hunters per sq. mile in N.J. but if the numbers of deer are lower and the same number of deer are being harvetsed then it's doomed to fail. We are screwing ourselves, very few are willing to sacrafice. I could be wrong , the deer are probably all eating acorns, in the secret acorn forest!
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