Any of you have herding deer in your area.

[bigboreblr]

I have a lease in the central adirondacks hardiness zone 3A. In december when the snow is over a foot tall, my deer hit it for the nearby lake about 6 miles away. There's a hemlock swampy area around the lake, and the deer can all be seen in the houses around the lake. Come early april, the trail cameras start having deer on them.

All the red dogwood got me thinking of why I started to improve things over there. I am hoping to attract a few extra familes of doe on my lease, so we see more bucks. Trophy selection isnt the best due to nutrition and hunter density in these areas. MY plan has seen to be working so far.

Planting red dogwood and willow on the swamp edges and water spots. Planting clover and grain that come awake early. I even lime and fertilize the soft mast like adlers and more other small shrub trees in spots. Got a few crabapples and plum trees here n there, no big return yet after 2 years. Growing a little spot or two of lupine and see how that goes....

The lease is from a land management company that logs for paper pulp and for birch veneer for plywood. Cherry trees are protected. So, far as hinge cutting and cutting mature trees is a no no. But, we're allowed to maintain trails. Very pristine, wide, legume laiden ones....... Some years logging trucks trash my spots.. So, I got to clean up ruts. In the sunnier spots, i get a nice path. I also do trail intersections and a couple treestand shooting lanes for cameras.

I can magine herding deer in other areas for other reasons, elevation change summer drought and other reasons. Mine are the harsh winter.

Every 3 or 4 years, a nicer buck can be seen on camera sticking around during a mild winter.

 

[b116757]

Only place I’ve heard of Whitetail herding up is up north during heavy snow years in cedar swamp’s

 

[bigboreblr]

I am about 2500ft in elevation, no mountains really, just some rough foothills. I rent a less rustic cabin near my hunting lease for snowmobiling. Alot of -10 deg nights are very common in january nd febuary. The campground i rent from has deer that wander the property with no fear of humans. There are some flightly ones, you can tell the deer are out of town in the summer. You walk right by them in town 15-20ft away. Almost all ornamental trees n shrubs are bagged or fenced in.

About 10 years ago, the DEC used to feed the deer. They'd pour a line of soybean meal like 100 yards long alongside the road, you'd easily see 50-100 deer hammering this chow line. Wish I took pictures, I dont think they do that anymore, maybe been 8 years or so.

 

[H20fwler]

Ours herd up here due to hunting pressure and being chased during gun season.
Not uncommon to see bunches of 20-40 squirting out of a woods while bunny or coyote hunting late January or February.
They don't seem to start to disperse until March around here.

 

[Wind Gypsy]

They herd up around food sources like hay stacks in western mn and the dakotas and in good thermal cover in northern mn. I feel like the wolf population keeps the northern ones from yarding up as much as they would otherwise though.

 

[4wanderingeyes]

In my area, I would say smaller herding is common in the winters. Easier for trailing, thermals, and safety in numbers. It isn’t uncommon in the evenings to see 10-15 traveling in a group, then at nights to have 30-40 deer in a open field feeding.

I have a food plot about 50 yards off my back deck, and this winter which was my first winter living on my hunting land, I noticed something. The main group of deer will go right into the food plot, and I will see about 10 in the plot. But if you look back on the main trail going to the plot, there will be a couple deer that just hang out about 50 yards back from the food plot, and there will be another couple that go out the other side, as to watch over the group that is in the food plot. I didn’t really think much of it at first, but after seeing it almost nightly all winter, there has to be a reason for it. My thought was being this is wolf country, they are the lookouts for the big group feeding, but I haven’t heard of deer doing this before.

 

[bigbendmarine]

I'm in the DEEP south here (just outside Tallahassee, Florida) but do have the local population group-up a bit more than normal a few times a year.

Seems to be very much so based on feeding / some certain thing they're focused on at a particular moment.

Times I've seen it happen tend to either be just as bucks have joined back up in bachelor groups or shortly after they've dropped horns and are tolerant to other bucks being around and not giving chase to any does. Pic below was taken in April with the deer focused on crimson clover growing directly behind my house.

 

[b116757]

I think perhaps our ideas of winter herding is different. This is not my photo but representative of what I’m talking about for winter deer yards. Not a handful of animals grazing in a green field.

 

[homerj1]

View attachment 41887I think perhaps our ideas of winter herding is different. This is not my photo but representative of what I’m talking about for winter deer yards. Not a handful of animals grazing in a green field.

That's artificial herding. Those deer wouldn't be there unless they were being fed corn. Anybody in a northern location could create that same effect if they want to start feeding a few tons of corn every winter.

 

[bigbendmarine]

"I think perhaps our ideas of winter herding is different. This is not my photo but representative of what I’m talking about for winter deer yards. Not a handful of animals grazing in a green field."

Understood, but have to appreciate the estimated density around my area is around 15 per square mile and that's not a food plot... just my back yard and without a grain of supplemental food out in the pictures.

Not unusual for me to see that many if sitting in a stand all day over a dedicated food plot with smaller groups coming and going, but pretty unusual to see them bunched up in a group that big here... so all things relative that's "herding" here.

On the idea of "herding" being relative, think this find is pretty interesting as it's a map of deer density across the eastern US. Can't speak to how trustworthy it is, but still interesting to view. Red is for density level of more than 40 deer per mile, orange 30 to 40 deer per mile, yellow 15 to 30 deer per mile, and green under 15 deer per mile. Reason for my original contribution wasn't to show it as some incredible example of herding, but instead to speak directly to the timing and apparent factors that lead to "herding" -- being post rut and food focused.

 

[Bassattackr]

@bigbendmarine - Always love your photos.

 

[homerj1]

Understood, but have to appreciate the estimated density around my area is around 15 per square mile and that's not a food plot... just my back yard and without a grain of supplemental food out in the pictures.

Not unusual for me to see that many if sitting in a stand all day over a dedicated food plot with smaller groups coming and going, but pretty unusual to see them bunched up in a group that big here... so all things relative that's "herding" here.

On the idea of "herding" being relative, think this find is pretty interesting as it's a map of deer density across the eastern US. Can't speak to how trustworthy it is, but still interesting to view. Red is for density level of more than 40 deer per acre, orange 30 to 40 deer per acre, yellow 15 to 30 deer per acre, and green under 15 deer per acre. Reason for my original contribution wasn't to show it as some incredible example of herding, but instead to speak directly to the timing and apparent factors that lead to "herding" -- being post rut and food focused.

View attachment 41889

Pretty sure that's deer per square mile, not per acre

 

[Wind Gypsy]

Understood, but have to appreciate the estimated density around my area is around 15 per square mile and that's not a food plot... just my back yard and without a grain of supplemental food out in the pictures.

Not unusual for me to see that many if sitting in a stand all day over a dedicated food plot with smaller groups coming and going, but pretty unusual to see them bunched up in a group that big here... so all things relative that's "herding" here.

On the idea of "herding" being relative, think this find is pretty interesting as it's a map of deer density across the eastern US. Can't speak to how trustworthy it is, but still interesting to view. Red is for density level of more than 40 deer per acre, orange 30 to 40 deer per acre, yellow 15 to 30 deer per acre, and green under 15 deer per acre. Reason for my original contribution wasn't to show it as some incredible example of herding, but instead to speak directly to the timing and apparent factors that lead to "herding" -- being post rut and food focused.

View attachment 41889

Acre vs square mile mixup aside, that density switch on WI border is something else.. Has to be due to differences in how the states count deer?

 

[bigbendmarine]

Pretty sure that's deer per square mile, not per acre

100% -- thanks for pointing it out, as now corrected! (with the possible exception of the spot with the 100+ deer feeding on corn in the snow -- well over 45 PER ACRE in that pic )

 

[4wanderingeyes]

Acre vs square mile mixup aside, that density switch on WI border is something else.. Has to be due to differences in how the states count deer?

I dont think so. I live in the North Western part of Wisconsin, and I drove here every weekend from Southern MN for almost for 20 years, and once you cross the border line, it was time to watch out for deer. I wouldnt see a deer for the first 150 miles of my of my 200 mile trip, then as soon as I cross the border, and the last 50 miles to my land that I live at now, I could easily see 50+ plus deer along the road in the evening, or nights.

The wolves have a lot to do with success, and deer in my area. Wolves can easily clear out all the deer in a couple hundred acres in a few days. Not that they kill them all, but they chase them out, and it can take weeks before they return.

 

[Wind Gypsy]

I dont think so. I live in the North Western part of Wisconsin, and I drove here every weekend from Southern MN for almost for 20 years, and once you cross the border line, it was time to watch out for deer. I wouldnt see a deer for the first 150 miles of my of my 200 mile trip, then as soon as I cross the border, and the last 50 miles to my land that I live at now, I could easily see 50+ plus deer along the road in the evening, or nights.

The wolves have a lot to do with success, and deer in my area. Wolves can easily clear out all the deer in a couple hundred acres in a few days. Not that they kill them all, but they chase them out, and it can take weeks before they return.

Hard to imagine the habitat and regulations are that drastically different from MN, IL, and even NE IA to cause such a drastic difference in density but maybe so.

Obviously MN firearm season dates don’t do deer numbers any favors but I thought WI still had comparable or better hunter success rates.

 

[4wanderingeyes]

In my county of Washburn, they have given out between 11,000-14,000 doe permits a year for many years, just 1 county.
But a hard cold, snowy winter, or 2 can be devastating to the herd.

 

[homerj1]

Obviously MN firearm season dates don’t do deer numbers any favors

That's the reason for the major difference

 

[b116757]

I grew up in Wisconsin as hard as it maybe for some to believe those deer numbers maybe more accurate than some would think. My brother three sisters two uncles and their kids most of us shot two bucks a year one archery one rifle and several does some years it would be so bad they would make you shoot a doe before you could kill a buck we called it earn a buck. Wouldn’t be that terribly uncommon for us to process a dozen or more deer a year at my mothers place growing up. Also very many folks would feed corn year around artificially boosting their numbers. The State has since nearly outlawed baiting/feeding. They had the wasting disease sweep through several years ago near my brothers place and he is on the boarder of agriculture ground and national forest closer to the national forest it has taken several years for his local deer herd to come back to even barely huntable numbers. I now even a 10 miles from him the deer numbers bounced back much much faster in the agricultural area near Lake Superior north of his place. The deer up there some years have little choice but to yard up regardless of if they are artificially fed or not. To put this in perspective I have hunted the Wisconsin rifle season which is always Thanksgiving week on snowshoes the deer had snow 1/4-1/2 way up their sides that rifle season. Tracking was interesting and a lot of fun that year. People that don’t live in areas that receive that sort of snow load have no idea the nature yarding in the massive cedar swamps the deer herds utilize in the winter.

 

[yoderjac]

I'm in 7a and we do see herding, but not yarding as I've seen the terms used. Here, we seem to have familial doe groups that anchor on our small plots during most of the year. I've got a wireless camera network that runs 24/7/365. Normal pictures are 2 or 3 does per pic during most of the year. This seems to persist during our archery season into early muzzleloader. At that point, the rut kicks in. We see lots of stray fawns alone during that period and bucks moving more looking for hot does. Does seem to abandon fawns at this point. They are either hiding from bucks in cover before they are ripe or with bucks when they are. As we move into modern firearm season, deer become pretty nocturnal with the hunting pressure here. As time goes on during firearm season, herding begins. Both hunter observations (which we log for every hunt) and camera data both show fast or famine. We you see deer, there are a half dozen or more, but again they are pretty nocturnal. This herding seems to continue for a bit after our season.

We don't have harsh winters here. They are not yarding for thermal cover or food. Deer here seem to herd in smaller numbers but we see a clear change in behavior over the year. I would speculate the drivers work like thisL

Our does, when pregnant in the spring, tend to identify and hold and even defend a fawning area in cover. This separates them. As fawns drop, they begin to come to the fields to get quality food to replenish themselves after fawning and their fawns join them. The seem to regroup a bit in family groups. Perhaps a mature doe, a younger doe, and a couple fawns. They are likely genetically related. These small groups seem to distribute and anchor on small plots. We seem to get repeated pictures of the same deer on the same plots. That is not to say they don't roam around and visit other plots, but they seem to be at one plot more often than they others. This continues through the summer into fall. I think the rut drives the break up of these family groups. After the rut, I think hunting pressure is what causes deer to group again. We see more mature does together than at other times. I think it is simply a matter of more eyes and noses help with safety when the pressure is on. It take a while after the season is over for deer to adjust. They seem to stay more nocturnal and continue to herd until spring when the cycle repeats.

This is largely observational over the years for deer on our land. It is rolling with mixed habitat, pines, hardwoods, and fields. I'm sure there are other drivers that affect deer differently in other areas.

Thanks,

Jack