Chummer - That's good & bad news at the same time. I'll bet the more food sources you get established, the more deer you'll have around. My camp - and several other camps near ours - have all taken to planting plots and fruit trees for the deer & turkeys. At first we didn't see a stark change in numbers, but once the deer / turkeys find the food, the population starts to grow. I don't think it was all from new births, but some " grapevine communication " of some sort. We would be seeing 3 or 4 deer and all of a sudden, there were 12 to 15 within a day or 2. Keep the faith - good food, good cover = critters !!
My SLN trees typically lag the Cummins & ACN trees a bit, but have not failed at all. I think it's the nature of Antonovka rootstock to build deep roots first as opposed to fast top growth. After 3 years, the SLN trees are doing REAL WELL !!