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Where they at?

gobbler32 said:
The last eight times I have hunted I've seen absolutely nothing; not a doe , a yearling or anything. Since archery season and through muzzleloader and gun I've only seen 5 bucks total. Im hunting three different farms to keep pressure down but it's like they've disappeared altogether.
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I have been taking my 9 year old with me to try and get his first deer and he has yet to see a deer in the woods. We have hunted public land close to home in Hickman Co. and a private farm in Maury Co. I have seen no does and only one buck on the only day he wasn't with me and it was on the run. I'm pretty sure he is done with trying this year and I don't blame him. We haven't even been seeing many at all crossing the roads or in the fields.
 
I feel a little guilty. We had far more deer this year than any year in the past, and our hunting results showed that. For the first time ever, every hunter killed a buck and all of that was accomplished in two weeks of hunting. Our sighting rate of older bucks hit an all-time high.
 
BSK said:
Our sighting rate of older bucks hit an all-time high.
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Would you say this was in large part due to all the acorn-bearing oaks on your place, which is surrounded by nearby big ag fields?

I believe most the inactivity most TN hunters have experienced over the past week is mainly due to an abundance of acorns and the rut-roaming ending. Deer sightings should now steadily increase, but may still be feast or famine, as in lot of sightings (bachelor groups of bucks, big antlerless families) or no sightings.
 
TheLBLman said:
Would you say this was in large part due to all the acorn-bearing oaks on your place, which is surrounded by nearby big ag fields?
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I would credit three factors:

1) Huge acorn crop. Our local deer population October through December is usually linked to the acorn crop. The more acorns, the more deer are drawn up out of the surround bottomlands.

2) Our habitat management and the fact we have more jungle-cover on the place than we've ever had before.

3) Greatly reduced deer hunting pressure in the area. We have more deer because there are more deer. For whatever reason, deer hunting is rapidly declining in my area. Part of that is probably due to landownership patterns in the area (all the large tracts of land being locked up by tightly controlled clubs/leases), but also the recent switch of so many hunters from an emphasis on deer to an emphasis on ducks. I'm absolutely blown away by the amount of the surround bottomland agriculture that is now diked for duck hunting. This trend keeps increasing at a very rapid rate year after year.

Interestingly, in past years, the acorn crop drove the local population, yet big acorn crops actually reduced buck sighting rates. Why? Food everywhere and deer don't have to move as far to feed. So in the past, big acorn crops drew more deer to the property but made seeing them more difficult. We would actually have our best hunting years in a moderate acorn crop. Fewer deer on the property but they moved more to find food and we would see them more frequently. However, to add one more reason to the list - and I'll call it 3b) - is a link back to the lack of deer hunting pressure in the area. What we have seen this year, and a little bit in the couple of previous years, is deer that are less and less wary of hunters. I am beginning to believe the lack of hunting pressure is reducing the local population's fear of Man. This is why I asked in a previous thread if anyone had seen deer less wary this year than years previous, and from the responses it sounds like the answer is no. If others are not seeing this, then the situation must be a local trend. But suffice to say, outside of a National Park, I have NEVER seen deer less wary than what we saw this year. Time and time again we would have deer at close range smell us and see us yet only hesitate a few seconds before continuing on their way. Every hunter had this experience multiple times.
 
megalomaniac said:
I'm like BSK... once you figure out how to run cameras and have enough cameras, there just aren't any bucks you kill that you didn't have pics of. Sure, it could happen, but we haven't killed a buck we didn't have pics of in over a decade.
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In season-long censuses where I set up and run the cameras, over 25 years, the percentage of bucks killed that had not been previously photographed is only 4%.
 
BSK said:
In season-long censuses where I set up and run the cameras, over 25 years, the percentage of bucks killed that had not been previously photographed is only 4%.
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That's pretty amazing.
Assume a significant percentage were only photographed only days before they were killed?

Many we kill, are later found to have been on some trail cam pics that no one had seen before those bucks were killed.
 
TheLBLman said:
That's pretty amazing.
Assume a significant percentage were only photographed only days before they were killed?

Many we kill, are later found to have been on some trail cam pics that no one had seen before those bucks were killed.
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I killed a giant buck one year and within a couple hours I had some pics of that buck from a lease down the road a couple miles away sent to me from the guy that runs the lease! I had that buck on cam the year prior, and he had it that year, but I didn't have any pics of him for the year that I killed him. Strange.
 
MUP said:
Strange.
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I actually think this may be more the "norm" than strange.

I'm seeing bucks not just do seasonal range shifts, but also, they may primarily use entirely different areas from one year to the next.

Much of this shifting goes unnoticed simply because most hunters aren't monitoring enough area to be able to see it. When the buck that was there last year, isn't this year, the default assumption is that buck is dead. But maybe not.

A particular buck may spend most of his life living over say 4 or 5 square miles, but he may mainly use only a few hundred of those acres at a time, not just seasonally changing, but often annually.
 
RedDawg said:
Keep in mind, Tennessee is a big state and conditions can be highly localized. I'm on 70 acres in northern Decatur County without heavy hunting pressure around. I have decent red oak acorns this year but far from the best I've seen. And I have little to no white oak acorns. My cameras have little activity in either woods or food plots in the last week. I'm still hoping the wheat and the clover might recover a bit from the drought destruction. The buck I shot in ML season wasn't a resident. My one and only picture of him was sent to me 10 minutes before I harvested him, it turns out. Good pictures of some other area bucks including Mr. BIG (we have a history 😡) but little activity this last week either on cameras or while sitting in the woods (where I am now).
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You cant be too far from me !
 
redblood said:
I dont what part of tennessee your in but here are a few pics from the last few days. Bedford/ marshall is rocking. Mature bucks are on the hunt for those last does. Trying to let all these except the palmated buck live.
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Redblood, you must have some sort of magnet there. Dang good bucks. I am in Bedford too and have absolutely nothing like that on our place. Haven't had anything close to that quality all season. Send some our way!
 
TheLBLman said:
That's pretty amazing.
Assume a significant percentage were only photographed only days before they were killed?
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Correct. I would have to look it up, but I would guess somewhere in the neighborhood of 15%. My theory is that these bucks shifting into the property for the rut don't know the property as well as resident bucks and haven't "felt" any of the hunting pressure yet, hence they travel into areas the resident bucks know to avoid and get killed.
 
Harold Money jr said:
I have a buddy who has a small wood lot beside his house. He has a 2yo 8 point in there that he can glass up 9 out of 10 times. The buck stays within the couple acres at all times. I'm thinking that's what my bucks are doing as well. They're mostly resting waiting for the next hot doe.
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What I'm doing right now from my house thanks to some changes in roads, onx and friendly neighbors. Had 6 does yesterday eating and laying down for a couple hours
 
This is my Deer season !
 

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