Your thoughts

[Nomad]

So I’ve hunted the same piece since ‘88 , shot my first bow deer the first year I bow hunted there in also in  ‘88 , and every year since it was relatively easy to take deer in bow and gun . I’d average 3-6 deer per sit , if I went two sits without any deer I started to wonder what was going on .

And so it went for 31 years , till the last two, when most sits I don’t see one deer, and rubs and scrapes are few . What’s puzzling is my summer pictures are better then ever 12-14 deer at a time in the fields  including several good bucks , season starts , zippo .I’ve seen 3 doe so far, a couple of  shooters at distance and a couple of young bucks , that used to be a morning sit . I don’t bump any as I walk in or out , there’s seldom any in the fields either , when before I’d have to glass as I came and went so as not to bump them .

I have it to myself btw  , it’s hardwoods and a thicket with crops all around it nothings changed land wise .

Heres a couple average summer pics

[rob-c]

How about surrounding properties , Anything change on them new owners that hunt , food plots , etc. 

[Nomad]

12 minutes ago, rob-c said:

How about surrounding properties , Anything change on them new owners that hunt , food plots , etc. 

nope , most of it is the same farm ( it’s 3000 acres , patchwork over several miles ) , we each have our own section to hunt , and it’s like one guy per piece . The large farm that is South of my spot is largely open crop fields with very little hunting on it . To the north it’s about half a mile of crop fields , then one Hunter on his piece ,where he lives .

If anything there’s less cover now on neighboring land .

Over the years I’ve seen tons of hunters, driving etc,  to no hunters  , standing  corn all season , no corn, dry ground  , flooded ground , some years few crops, and every year no matter what I had deer to some degree .

Edited November 7, 2021 by Nomad

[wolc123]

Maybe the local herd is evolving around you.  You could try upending your techniques and do things almost the opposite of the way that you have been doing them.

  I noticed the same was thing with fish.  For a year or two, guys were killing the smallmouth bass with Ned rigs.  That bite started going flat, as the fish evolved and learned to avoid those.  

On my home farm, which is made up mostly of small fields separated by hedgerows, the deer seemed to learn how to avoid me after many years of doing basically the same thing during gun season.  I had a banner year, when I first started using a gun with enough range to get them in the next field.   Now, the hedgerows are mostly grown up too thick to shoot thru, so I had to come up with a new plan.  
 

The last few years, that has been hunting my parents place more, which never was as productive, but now is much more so. 
 

You might try hunting some different ground or hunting different times and approaching stands from different directions than you have been doing.

[crappyice]

Are the other neighboring parcels and hunters reporting the same thing?
I hate to ask but, EHD?


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[Bigfoot 327]

Nuisance tags on neighboring farms? Say, within a mile?

 

[SpacemanSpiff]

Has the thick cover been pushed out to have more tillable ground? Have the once thick hedgerows and thickets grown to more mature open woods? Cover holds deer. 

Edited November 7, 2021 by SpacemanSpiff

[Nomad]

I have acres of good  heavy cover on my ground 35 or so . Here’s the thing I have all kinds of pics through summer tons of deer, and yes some bucks will disperse every year ,but for some reason the last two years most deer have .

There’s probably no other bow  Hunter with in a half mile in all directions , there’s no nuisance permits as I have hundreds of acres of the farm I hunt around me and 400 or so on the farm that boarders me to the south that doesn’t have any permits  . Half the bucks I have on camera in the summer I’ll have back next summer .

Theres not been any major changes to the farms  or land around me . It’s just odd .

[SpacemanSpiff]

Well thats not the issue then. We have had years like that when the deer just vanish. However there is usually standing corn involved in that scenario.