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 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.
) but little activity this last week either on cameras or while sitting in the woods (where I am now).
