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What is "Seeing a lot of deer?"
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<blockquote data-quote="TheLBLman" data-source="post: 5264574" data-attributes="member: 1409"><p>For me, a "lot" is some combination or balance between recent trail cam pics (where I'm hunting), the number of separate deer sightings while hunting, as well as what I "hear" while hunting. Sometimes I "hear" a lot of deer, without actually "seeing" any.</p><p></p><p>Then there are the issues of the type habitat being hunted, the food sources deer are primarily utilizing for the date being hunted, as well as the stage of the rut.</p><p></p><p><em>EVERYTHING</em> needs to be put into some kind of balanced perspective.</p><p></p><p>I hunt a lot in some very similar "ridge & hollow" land to BSK's.</p><p>It would be extremely unusual for me to see double-digits of deer in an all day sit.</p><p>An average day would be more like two sightings, maybe hear a couple not seen.</p><p>But many days, no deer are seen or heard, especially hunting thick areas late season.</p><p></p><p>This year we may have had the largest acorn crop I've ever seen. That, and that alone, has eliminated much of the post-rut linear distance deer movement because those acorns are still available and apparently still "good". This has also caused any significant linear distance movement to become almost totally nocturnal. This is not a hunting pressure issue so much as it's an acorn issue.</p><p></p><p>Adding to my irony where I'm hunting near BSK, I no longer have an "acorn-driven" deer herd. These deer have excellent year-round food sources, and acorns are more just a "bonus". It's just that the deer prefer those native acorns more than our cultivated deer food plantings!</p><p></p><p>Also, many may not realize that acorns are typically very slowly digested, so deer can fill up at night, then lay bedded most of the next day with very little feeding. During the days of a great acorn crop, deer will often spend most of their days just "chewing their cud" from all the acorns they've filled up on during the previous night.</p><p></p><p>Making it even harder to see a deer for me now, they are often bedding & feeding on acorns in the same places, traveling essentially no where over a period of days. Get close enough to intercept their movements, you often get busted before getting on stand, then those deer just mover over a couple hundred yards and resume laying around chewing their cud.</p><p></p><p>There is also the issue of bucks getting back into bachelor groups, and doe families joining up together post-rut. This means there are a lot more eyes, ears, and noses likely to detect your presence before you detect theirs. They often just slip away before you see them, but they saw, heard, or smelled you first.</p><p></p><p>In more average acorn years, I can usually hunt just inside field edges post-rut, and see quite a few deer, sometimes double-digits in an afternoon. But not this year, never mind we have more deer than last year.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="TheLBLman, post: 5264574, member: 1409"] For me, a "lot" is some combination or balance between recent trail cam pics (where I'm hunting), the number of separate deer sightings while hunting, as well as what I "hear" while hunting. Sometimes I "hear" a lot of deer, without actually "seeing" any. Then there are the issues of the type habitat being hunted, the food sources deer are primarily utilizing for the date being hunted, as well as the stage of the rut. [I]EVERYTHING[/I] needs to be put into some kind of balanced perspective. I hunt a lot in some very similar "ridge & hollow" land to BSK's. It would be extremely unusual for me to see double-digits of deer in an all day sit. An average day would be more like two sightings, maybe hear a couple not seen. But many days, no deer are seen or heard, especially hunting thick areas late season. This year we may have had the largest acorn crop I've ever seen. That, and that alone, has eliminated much of the post-rut linear distance deer movement because those acorns are still available and apparently still "good". This has also caused any significant linear distance movement to become almost totally nocturnal. This is not a hunting pressure issue so much as it's an acorn issue. Adding to my irony where I'm hunting near BSK, I no longer have an "acorn-driven" deer herd. These deer have excellent year-round food sources, and acorns are more just a "bonus". It's just that the deer prefer those native acorns more than our cultivated deer food plantings! Also, many may not realize that acorns are typically very slowly digested, so deer can fill up at night, then lay bedded most of the next day with very little feeding. During the days of a great acorn crop, deer will often spend most of their days just "chewing their cud" from all the acorns they've filled up on during the previous night. Making it even harder to see a deer for me now, they are often bedding & feeding on acorns in the same places, traveling essentially no where over a period of days. Get close enough to intercept their movements, you often get busted before getting on stand, then those deer just mover over a couple hundred yards and resume laying around chewing their cud. There is also the issue of bucks getting back into bachelor groups, and doe families joining up together post-rut. This means there are a lot more eyes, ears, and noses likely to detect your presence before you detect theirs. They often just slip away before you see them, but they saw, heard, or smelled you first. In more average acorn years, I can usually hunt just inside field edges post-rut, and see quite a few deer, sometimes double-digits in an afternoon. But not this year, never mind we have more deer than last year. [/QUOTE]
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What is "Seeing a lot of deer?"
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