The Season In Retrospect

[348Winchester]

As the end of this season draws nigh, a look back is in order as usual. Some things I noticed this year was a decrease in overall deer sightings. A normal season provides me around 120-130 sightings during muzzlloader and gun. This season I have had 92. Most of this is probably due to drought, heat, and an above normal mast crop.

Did any of you experience a similar decline in overall deer sightings in your area?

Do yo normally se fewer deer when there is abundant acorns?

 

[deerhunter10]

As the end of this season draws nigh, a look back is in order as usual. Some things I noticed this year was a decrease in overall deer sightings. A normal season provides me around 120-130 sightings during muzzlloader and gun. This season I have had 92. Most of this is probably due to drought, heat, and an above normal mast crop.

Did any of you experience a similar decline in overall deer sightings in your area?

Do yo normally se fewer deer when there is abundant acorns?

Yes and yes. Also the lack of big shooters for us. First year ever where we didn't have the amount of mature deer we usually have. Still had a good year but had to work for it more then usual. Also weather was honestly pretty bad all season. The cold fronts were few and far between and just stayed in a weather pattern lull. Same patterns for several days straight. Mass crop makes it tough but it is very good for the animals. With the drought and everything if we didn't have the mass crop we have and the food plots just ok and the natural browse also getting hit by the drought this year the deer herds could had been in a world of hurt with January and February coming.

 

[backyardtndeer]

Did any of you experience a similar decline in overall deer sightings in your area?

No, about typical. Really without any food plots in this year, I was very surprised that we had as much activity as we have had.

Do yo normally se fewer deer when there is abundant acorns?

We have some acorns every year. When there are more acorns, we may see an uptick being that we have several mature white oaks on our edges.

 

[archer19]

It would take a decade of hunting in Unicoi county to have 120 sightings.

 

[BSK]

As the end of this season draws nigh, a look back is in order as usual. Some things I noticed this year was a decrease in overall deer sightings. A normal season provides me around 120-130 sightings during muzzlloader and gun. This season I have had 92. Most of this is probably due to drought, heat, and an above normal mast crop.

Did any of you experience a similar decline in overall deer sightings in your area?

Do yo normally se fewer deer when there is abundant acorns?

I think I'm the exception. I've talked to a lot of hunters who said they've had a down year. We had one of our best years ever. Although we've been keeping hunting data for 37 years, we generally only look at the last 23 years, which we call our "Modern Era" of hunting - the point at which we started to place an exceptional amount of pressure on the place compared to previous. Starting in 2001 - the start of our Modern Era - we tripled and in some years quadrupled our hunting pressure. For the Modern Era (2001 to present) this year was our third best deer sighting rate and our top year for percent of hunts with deer sightings, buck sighting rate, percent of hunts with buck sightings, 2 1/2+ year-old buck sighting rate, and 3 1/2+ year-old buck sighting rate. Definitely one of our best years ever.

But to answer one of your other questions, normally in a great acorn year we draw more total deer and more total bucks to our upland hardwood property, but sightings decline because deer have to move so little to find food and the food they are finding - acorns - digest slowly so deer have to feed less often. But this year was an anomaly. With the massive acorn crop we experienced this year, we definitely had more deer (we shattered our all-time record for the number of bucks photographed on the place) but instead of declining sightings like a normal bumper acorn year, we broke records for sightings rates.

 

[knightrider]

Saw way fewer this year than years past, but expected when all they have to do is stand up and eat and lay back down. Outside of rutting activity our deer didnt have to move more than ten yards to get their belly full this year, all mountain hunting.

 

[Ski]

I've never counted deer sightings but probably should begin keeping a journal of some sort. Maybe that'll be my new year resolution to start recording notes at the end of every hunt, keeping tabs of which deer I see and where.

This season was a little odd for me because none of my habitat work or pre scouting factored in to any of my kills. My food plots were complete failure due to drought so deer weren't using them, and subsequently weren't using the bedding areas I thought they'd be using. They weren't even following the normal trails & travel patterns. My traditional trail cam locations were lackluster as well. The deer were on acorns early and stayed on them, but it took some effort to figure out the method to the madness. Although every tree was dropping, the deer weren't spread out everywhere. They were focusing on one specific tree for a few days then migrating to another tree. I suppose at any given time one tree will taste better than the others??? Whatever the reason, it was a pattern so I followed along and got it done on two of the three bucks I wanted this year here in TN, and had opportunity but passed on a buck I was after in Ohio. None of them from any of the many pre-set stands I'd worked all off season to adjust and hang and cut shooting lanes, etc. In fact had I not went mobile I'm not sure Id have killed anything. Felt like playing whack-a-mole but paid off.

Otherwise pretty normal season lol. A little aggravating that all my off season work was for nil but I still got some meat in the freezer. Overall I think herd numbers seemed about par in my hunting areas. And it seemed there were a lot of really good bucks put down & posted up on the site here, so folks must have been having success. Pretty good season by my standards.

 

[MUP]

I hunted maybe 7 to 10 sits this season, all since opening day of rifle season here on the East side. In the very little time I've been in the stand, nearly every buck I saw was a potential shooter, which is 6 shooters out of a total of 8 racked bucks, spikes and buttons not counted, and I killed one of them. Maybe a total of 14 does, that is if every one I saw from different stands were different groups. I just wish I wasn't dealing with health crap right now where I could have gone more, I would have likely had one of the best seasons ever, not that it wasn't a good one, but could have been exceptional.

 

[deerhunter10]

This season was a little odd for me because none of my habitat work or pre scouting factored in to any of my kills. My food plots were complete failure due to drought so deer weren't using them, and subsequently weren't using the bedding areas I thought they'd be using. They weren't even following the normal trails & travel patterns. My traditional trail cam locations were lackluster as well. The deer were on acorns early and stayed on them

We notice the same with bedding areas and normal trail cameras areas with an exception of a few communities scrapes. Had to relearn farms we have been hunting for 25 years. Moved more stands during season even broke out the climber several times then ever before.

 

[philsanchez76]

Bow season was fantastic. Above average deer sightings and once the last week of October rolled around above average mature buck sightings as well. If you were near a white oak or a scrape you would see action. Muzzleloader and gun season have been the total opposite. I've only killed one deer since muzzleloader opened and sightings have been much fewer. I'm chalking it up to an extreme amount of gun pressure this year on public and the large amount of red acorns. As soon as they made it through all the whites, they could literally find reds anywhere and everywhere.

 

[Snake]

Just did four sits but seen deer each time.

 

[Biggun4214]

I think I saw 18- 20 deer all season. I saw 4 bucks one day and 5 does on two separate days. I know that 16 of them were different deer.

 

[MickThompson]

I probably didn't break 20 sightings from the stand for the season. I've done that in an afternoon on public. Never saw a buck. Barely had any on camera. It was one to forget.

 

[BSK]

I probably didn't break 20 sightings from the stand for the season. I've done that in an afternoon on public. Never saw a buck. Barely had any on camera. It was one to forget.

That's crazy. What do you attribute this to?

 

[rem270]

I ended up with 267 deer sightings total. 70 bucks and 197 does. I killed my buck on 11-22 and only hunted 4 times after that. One was Thanksgiving morning with my cousin as we do every year and 3 times in Dec. Ended up having 54 sits for this season.

 

[BSK]

I ended up with 267 deer sightings total. 70 bucks and 197 does. I killed my buck on 11-22 and only hunted 4 times after that. One was Thanksgiving morning with my cousin as we do every year and 3 times in Dec. Ended up having 54 sits for this season.

54 sits! THAT is a lot of hunting!

 

[TX300mag]

Above average in our area.

 

[rem270]

54 sits! THAT is a lot of hunting!

I usually save close to 3 weeks of vacation for deer season! Would've been well over 60 but once I tagged out on my buck it made it harder to go. Did go and get another doe tho. I didn't keep up with data last year but best I can tell I was at 60 or little more sits last year. I hunted a lot more in Dec last year and more early Sept afternoons last year where I didn't this year. I have several different stand locations and play the wind 100 percent of the time to keep from blowing mature deer out as much as I can.

 

[TN Larry]

This has been one of the worst seasons ever for me. If I don't kill a deer Sunday afternoon, it will be the first year since I was young that I haven't killed a deer (even though I could have) and the first in many yrs that I haven't killed a good buck. Most years I have punched all of my buck tags but not this year. I even filled them both last year and seen more bucks when I got to hunt even though I couldn't walk much due to hip issues.

I didn't bow hunt this year due to hip surgery but hunted hard in November so no excuses there. I saw several deer and smaller bucks, but a 2.5 yo 8pt is the biggest I've seen. It seems like I haven't been able to make the right decision this year on which stand or place to hunt. It also seems that the wind direction has been all kinds of crazy this year and not exactly blowing as forecasted. I normally rely heavily on thermals in the places I hunt, but this year as been crazy. Due to that, I've been busted more this year than probably the last 5+ yrs combined.

My kids have had a pretty good year with 6 total between them. I have to work tomorrow but will hunt after church on Sunday so it could still happen. It's just been a weird year for me especially since good acorns years are usually great in the places I hunt.

 

[Bushape]

I saw a good bit of deer but I was spending most of my time in hardwoods. My lease had the fewest amount of deer killed that I can recall. I definitely experienced a drop off in deer sightings outside of the woods. Last year everything burned up so bad it wasn't uncommon to see hordes of deer grazing on roadsides at 2-3 in the afternoon. This year, because of acorns I assume, I saw very little daylight movement anywhere. Horribly dry here from August-October so it want grass they were consuming.