Never Had It So Hard


slughunter

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Been huntin hard since opening weekend back in early september with only 2 shooter buck sightings. One in september and one in october. I have only seen 3 deer in the whole month of novemeber. The weirdest part is that we lease 500 acres of bluff country that is supost to be "incredible hunting land" and I have only seen a handful of deer there in the last month.

Looks like ill be traveling to another state next year for deer season.

Anyone else having a tough year in the WI/Midwest area?

-shane

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It's not just bad there man, I have 100 acres private land, usually deer all over. First part of Oct. saw 2 does with yearlings, 1 doe by herself, and on Oct. 23 I took a 3yr old scrap buck to get him out the herd. I haven't seen a deer since. ML season here now, been everyday since Sat. morning, no deer. I am tellin' myself they are stayin' deeper in the swamp, beacause the acorns started fallin' last week. I really don't know what the crap is goin' on, never had a year like this, I do know it is still to hot for the middle of Nov.

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I hear ya, hunting has been screwed up pretty bad in our state...have gone from seeing 5-10 deer a night on average a few years ago, to maybe seeing that many in a season sadly. I can almost count on one hand the number of deer I have seen this year. The dnr keeps shoving doe tags down our throats, it almost seems like they are trying to eradicate our deer herd. We did not get a doe on camera all summer and have had maybe 5 different doe pics this fall. And we havent harvested a doe in two years. Makes rut hunting rather difficult because if there are no does, so that doesnt give the bucks any reason to stick around. I honestly dont know what to do anymore, makes it really tough to go hunting but I guess a guy has to keep at it cause we dont have the money for an out of state hunt right now. Very sad the way things have gone that our deer management is controled by politicians and insurance companies rather than people who actually know a thing or two about deer.

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Was a good first 2 weekends for me with a lot of deer sightings and two doe kills with my bow. No shooter buck sightings on stand this year and only 1 last year, so you're doing better than me this year than I have in the last 2 combined on that note slug. Deer movement seems to have slowed down for me since the middle of Oct. I'm hoping this weekend things pick up as shotgun season comes in on Friday.

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I hear ya, hunting has been screwed up pretty bad in our state...have gone from seeing 5-10 deer a night on average a few years ago, to maybe seeing that many in a season sadly. I can almost count on one hand the number of deer I have seen this year. The dnr keeps shoving doe tags down our throats, it almost seems like they are trying to eradicate our deer herd. We did not get a doe on camera all summer and have had maybe 5 different doe pics this fall. And we havent harvested a doe in two years. Makes rut hunting rather difficult because if there are no does, so that doesnt give the bucks any reason to stick around. I honestly dont know what to do anymore, makes it really tough to go hunting but I guess a guy has to keep at it cause we dont have the money for an out of state hunt right now. Very sad the way things have gone that our deer management is controled by politicians and insurance companies rather than people who actually know a thing or two about deer.

Sounds like us. We get maybe 4 or 5 different does on camera during the summer but you can kill as many as you want here, all you gotta do is keep buying bonus tags!! 7 or 8 years ago if you went driving around after dark you would see at least 5 or 6 deer on the side of the roads...but now I might see one deer a month while driving. The biologists keep saying the deer herd is better and better but I dont buy it. It doesnt help either that everyone around here shoots everything they see. I pass on little bucks, and little does but they walk onto the next property over and they get shot. No wonder most of the deer we see or get pics of are 2.5 years old or less. Deer hunting around here is going downhill fast.

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Don't feel bad I'm having the same problem. I've not saw a shooter buck all season and its getting frustrating. Could see them before season opened but not now. Maybe its turning around tho dad went down to my uncles farm where grandma grew up saw quite a few deer and a ton of sign. Plus a shooter.

Don't beat yourself up stay at it. I've been beating myself up and I ain't seeing no more deer either way.lol

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Been tough hunting in Michigan as well; usually by this time of the year almost all of the corn is down. This year there is still probably 80-90% of the corn standing. Our shotgun opener was on Sunday and with all the corn still up I assume that it's going to get pretty slow for the next week or two.

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Don't know Shane, not been a great year here either really. I did see a couple shooters in Wisconsin while I was there, and never really were in range for me. I did blow an opportunity on a really ugly racked mature buck my last day there. Think the corn was another hindrance up there in Wisconsin as the deer were staying in the uncut cornfields. Seemed the corn was a complaint for some of Randy's neighbors too.

I have not done much hunting here at home, but I have not seen a shooter here at home yet this year. The wife has seen two good bucks, both last week while out with the ml, one a great deer for this area late in the afternoon, he was following a doe. We are not seeing the number of does we normally do either though, really strange. Hoping things pick up this week, cooler weather might help, but we are into gun season this weekend.

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Been huntin hard since opening weekend back in early september with only 2 shooter buck sightings. One in september and one in october. I have only seen 3 deer in the whole month of novemeber. The weirdest part is that we lease 500 acres of bluff country that is supost to be "incredible hunting land" and I have only seen a handful of deer there in the last month.

Looks like ill be traveling to another state next year for deer season.

Anyone else having a tough year in the WI/Midwest area?

-shane

Shane,

The weather has been wacky this year, which I think has a pretty big affect on the deer. Not to mention that the WDNR has it's head up it's butt when it comes to deer numbers.

I have been seeing deer, but it's usually after legal light or I pick the wrong stand.

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Been huntin hard since opening weekend back in early september with only 2 shooter buck sightings. One in september and one in october. I have only seen 3 deer in the whole month of novemeber. The weirdest part is that we lease 500 acres of bluff country that is supost to be "incredible hunting land" and I have only seen a handful of deer there in the last month.

Looks like ill be traveling to another state next year for deer season.

Anyone else having a tough year in the WI/Midwest area?

-shane

My season as been the worst ever! I've hunted about 100 hours @ about 4 times per week since October 1st and haven't seen a single buck in the field near or far.

I've only had two does that were at shootable distances with clear lanes. I've hunted private and public land and have likely spent over 100 hours driving back and forth.

I'm waiting until the first week of December.

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