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Zone 10 6 day

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#3 ·
Zone 2 was equally bad. Hope this is not an omen that the liberal doe a day and gunnin till February has come to roost. Let's face it, the herd gets slammed on the huntable land and grows in the suburbs or areas off limits.
 
#4 ·
Isn't zone 10 one of the most liberal deer harvest zones for many years? enough said
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Sorry to disagree BHC,

Not enough said...I have been hunting in zone 10 all season and I would agree Monster bucks assessment of the action during 6 day. I saw surprising few deer.

What does mean about the deer population...nothing...I was seeing 3-4 times the amount of deer in the same spots only three weeks ago!!!

All that is confirmed by the lack of daytime sightings...is that the deer are not moving during the day...

Just to prove that point further one night last week in less than a 4 hr time span I had 8 different bucks in front of my trail cam. Over the sorounding two week time frame do you know how many of those bucks showed up during daylight hours?...one...and that deer only showed up in the last 30 minutes of shooting light on a few overcast days.

In summation, the amount of deer I saw during 6 day had absolutely no correlation to the relative amount of deer that are actually in the area....

JC
 
#5 ·
I hunt in zone 16 . On public land and it stunk for another year .The unlimited seasons have to stop .Also ,the very liberal doe days in january have to stop .Not all gun clubs drive does on these days but ,the ones that do hurts the herd for next season.Also,the solo hunters dont help it either.
 
#6 ·
What does mean about the deer population...nothing...I was seeing 3-4 times the amount of deer in the same spots only three weeks ago!!!
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I agree. I was hunting in 10 during Permit Bow at the beginning of November and saw many deer. In the woods, in the fields, in the front yards of houses, in towns at bus stops. Everywhere. Crossing 579 at high noon. ;)

These NJ deer are very educated and there are many places for them to hide. Unlike the deer in books, they like to hug roads. How many posts on here the last week of guys bumping deer in the parking area safe zone? I've been hiking in pretty deep, but I'm wondering whether I should be bothering. The snow is showing the deer basically walking 4' parallel off roads. Mostly at night of course. But maybe a cloudy morning will find laggards.
 
#7 ·
2 night last week in zone10 private land most deer were right by my truck when i came out coincidentally theres 2 houses right there
 
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#8 ·
I heard a lot of guys blaming M/L for the deer going nocturnal but I think they went nocturnal for there own reasons before M/L. I've had more sightings in the last week than the last 2 weeks of November. I think there coming out of it if the weather returns to a normal pattern
 
#9 ·
i pay to hunt here....do you "pay to hike here"
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I love that sig! Should be a bumper sticker or Tee shirt.
 
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#10 ·
thanks john you commented on it before[up]did i tell ya the story behind it? quickly...me and pops eating lunch at the gap hikers come by and say your not gonna shoot us are ya? my dad says of course not they start walking away my dad says by the way..i pay to hunt here do you pay to hike here
 
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#11 ·
It was pretty dead all week. 3 guys saw about 12 deer. Killed 2-3pt's. Worst I seen it in 20 years
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I'd say if you have been hunting the same spot for 20 years than you may well feel that way since DMZ 10 has been under a herd reduction program for over 15 years now and intencly so for the last 5.
Still I have to agree with everyone from JC on down that there are still PLENTY of them left and they have hunters patterned better than we have them at this point in the game. I know they are here in numbers as I live in this DMZ too and know what I see driving at night.
 
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#12 ·
i really think the more south eastern part of zone 10 has been banged up pretty good not as many does a lil west and north of the zone i cant really speak for
 
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#13 ·
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#14 ·
I heard a lot of guys blaming M/L for the deer going nocturnal but I think they went nocturnal for there own reasons before M/L.....I think there coming out of it if the weather returns to a normal pattern
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Randolph,

We have been experiencing the exact same patterns. The area I hunt the deer all started going more nocturnal just before early MZ season even though the hunting and scouting pressure was not overly heavy.

Now, in the last few days it seems that the deer are starting to move a bit more predictably, albeit at the extreme beginning and ends of the day, (with a minor amount of doe movement during lunch).

As best I can tell...the deers third major feeding/bedding pattern switch was occuring and coincided with the start of MZ season. With the added hunting pressure the deer just naturally turned off during the day for a short while while they transitioned to new areas. Now that the transition to more traditional wintering patterns is concluding they seem to want to start reverting back to more daytime movements..

JC
 
#15 ·
We have been experiencing the exact same patterns. The area I hunt the deer all started going more nocturnal just before early MZ season even though the hunting and scouting pressure was not overly heavy.
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The moon phase guys would tell you it was the full moon around Thanksgiving that knocked down daylight activity. Now with the moonless nights, they are moving again. If you believe in that. ;) Could also have been the first really cold weather.
 
#16 ·
The moon phase guys would tell you it was the full moon around Thanksgiving that knocked down daylight activity
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While it is fact that the moon will effect deers behavior, I don't know of a single biologists that would suggest that the moon phase would cause a wholesale shift in the deers entire pattern of daily activity...;)

In fact it was the magnitude of the shift in the deers daily activities that signaled that something more than simple hunting pressure was effecting the deers movements. For example, the deer didn't just simply show up at there prefered feeding areas later at night or leave earlier in the mornings...they stopped using them almost entirely. As a secondary result of the change in prefered feeding areas, the deer then began using different bedding areas as well.

So in the end, while the moon may have influenced the rate at which those transitions were made...I highly doubt they were the cause of the transitions themselves...

JC
 
#18 ·
It was a overnight occurance where i hunt in zone 10.

No deer monday dur to high winds, tuesday was a bonanza and i took a 8 pointer from wensday on i saw a deer here and there but that was all. Mind you the past few weeks i had 6 to 8 bucks chasing does and anywhere from 20 to 30 does feeding in the winter wheat fields. The only explanation i can come to is somewhere along there normal pattern route they were cut off by gun fire which changed there routine overnight.
 
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