Season Summaries

[356]

While we all desire to have those hunts when 15 bucks are in the plot and the challenge is ”which of the 5 year olds do I want to shoot”-- that is not a reality for most of us. Here is a summary of my season hunts on our property (more than one hunter)
Cabin: September bow, only, 11 hours hunting, one doe sighted, missed the shot.
Farm/Home: 68 hours of hunting, 26 deer sighted, two bucks and two does harvested.
Deer Camp: 34 hours of hunting, 11 deer sighted, one buck, one doe harvested
Mentored Hunts: 42 hours of hunting, 47 deer sighted, 2 does, 3 bucks harvested

Based on these logs, one deer was seen for every 2.5 hours of hunting. During the rut those numbers were higher and in the early and late season, they were lower. What was your season like based on logs or estimates?

 

[swat1018]

2.42 deer / hour for me.

 

[bueller]

Way less than 1 deer per hour of hunting for me. I didn't keep a log this year but seeing zero deer on a sit is not uncommon at all. Seeing a single buck or group of 2-3 doe is typically a good sit.

 

[356]

Way less than 1 deer per hour of hunting for me. I didn't keep a log this year but seeing zero deer on a sit is not uncommon at all. Seeing a single buck or group of 2-3 doe is typically a good sit.

During the three days of the September opener (15th - 17th) I only saw one deer. My time in the woods was interrupted by a busted bow string, but I still only saw one deer in about 12 hours of hunting. Despite lower than usual deer/hour sightings, this was a great season.

Today I took down a couple of ground blinds, officially marking the end of the season. Now begins passive camera surveys and habitat improvement work.

 

[Natty Bumppo]

Sweet Jesus....I saw exactly ONE deer in our two and half month long deer season. That's 6 weeks of bow, a 2 week shotgun season, and then another 3 weeks of muzzle loader. No idea how many hours i Invested...but I'd estimate around 50 or 60 hours afield in one way or another.

My absolute worst deer season since I began hunting in 1986. Just abysmally low deer numbers right now in NW Mass.

edit....just remembered I spooked 2 does while tracking one day. Make that 3 THREE total.

 

[4wanderingeyes]

I saw 5 deer hunting 9 days of 6 hours per day minimum. Then 3 other times bow hunting after the rifle hunt I saw deer, same doe 3 different times. It was by far my worst year for deer.

 

[4wanderingeyes]

This was last winter, I wasn’t feeding them, just dropped some trees for them.

 

[gjs4]

Summary- "Worst season ever (NY & OH) for both quality and quantity"

 

[Mozark]

Probably a little better than one per hour, november rifle season was very slow with no deer a few evenings. December ML season was much better, the red oak acorns got cleaned up finally and the deer started pounding the plots. Averaged around twelve deer per evening sit for the entire week. Saw nine bucks total for all of the seasons combined, no shots fired. My property is tiny at fourteen acres, it is progressing slowly but headed in the right direction.

 

[SwampCat]

Was a little slow here. Had a huge acorn crop. I have ten inch tall wheat - deer did not use food plots much and I dont have many oak trees on my land. Probably averaged seeing six or eight in a three hour sit. Years past might see 15. Had more mature bucks make it through season than ever before. Of the eight of so possible shooters to start the year, my grand daughter killed the only one. Have pics of all of the rest in the last couple weeks

 

[Turkey Creek]

I would guess I averaged between 1-2 deer/ hr. Seemed lower than the year before, but I didn't keep as good of notes in 2022. I feel like post season deer numbers seem to be pretty decent. I was wondering if EHD didnt take out a few deer for us this past year. I know deer numbers up in Nebraska from all those I spoke to up there were significantly lower than they have seen in a number of years. I feel like fawn survival was not as good here last year as well. It was rare to see a doe with twins, which in Ag country is not the norm.

 

[Hoytvectrix]

On public land in MN I could count on one hand how many deer I saw across the entire archery season (about 10-12 sits).

On private land in MO, I think there were two sits where I didn't see a single deer and that was because I was hunting a specific buck. Most hunts it would have been between 1-2 deer per hour.

 

[slimedart]

My son and I hunt a 40ac property in northern MN. We were super happy with our season. We were 2plus deer per hour sat. Our goals were to try and keep the deer on our property until dark when they will go to the field on my neighbors property. Opening night we got an eight point buck and saw 16 deer. Our neighbors who hunt our property line saw 2 deer between the 3 hunters. I get along with my neighbors but I don't spend my time and energy to provide deer and opportunities for them. We did not harvest our target buck but nobody did ( I have pictures of him on Christmas Eve). We had only a couple sits during bow season and 8 sits during rifle season. 8 deer was an average sit most nights.

 

[omicron1792]

My yard at my house in the city today. Sitting in kids treehouse I made my shooting house.

 

[Derek Reese 29]

I love spreadsheets and made one referencing my logs from last year and this year. I hunt 3 private properties, my own, my family’s and my in laws..all have food plots and 2/3 have some sort of habitat work done on them. I averaged 0.2 bucks in range per sit and 0.9 does in range per sit. Had 3 good buck encounters the first weekend in November then didn’t see an antler in range till mid December. Passed on some smaller bucks and a lot of does and don’t regret it at all. This season demonstrated that plots are a great attractant to hunt over (we killed 2 bucks, a doe and a turkey out of one stand that is well hidden just off our big plot that we finally took the time to mow, spray and seed correctly). In that regard the season was a success but I didn’t fill a tag…

 

[TWIG]

Another awesome year here in PA! I'm not going to sit down and do the math but I'd guess that I'm somewhere around 10 deer per hour seen. Most of my sits are generally 3 hours and I usually see about 30 deer per sit. Shot the highest scoring buck I knew about in my area and every big buck I wanted to see make it through season is still alive.

 

[Telemark]

I saw at least 8 deer in 3 hours of a morning hunt in Ohio. I saw a few before sunrise, but I can't be sure they were not part of the group of 5 does I saw later. Had shots on all of them, and took one of them.

Then I saw 5 deer in an evening sit later that day, probably about 3.5 hours. Had a shot on one, but already had a doe hanging. The other 4 were on someone else's property.

 

[roymunson]

I saw 2+ per hour. Our deer numbers are high.
Not 1 buck to kill all year, but that's ok.
Saturday of muzzleloader season I sat for 3 hours, saw 9 deer. No shooters.
I spent a lot of time not seeing deer, but then usually by the time I get down, I've seen 8 or 9.

I think we killed 20 or so off of our 350 acre mini co op. We have taken 20+ each year for the last 4 or 5.
Still plenty more there. We killed 1 buck off the main farm this year.

the neighbors got a bunch of 3 year olds,but we have a good crop of 4 year olds that are going to be a lot of fun next year.

I hunt about the same area where Telemark does. We don't have deer population problems. Our struggle is the age class.

 

[cbw]

The highlight of the season was being with my 15yo daughter when she dropped her first bow deer. 30yrd broadside. She tracked and field dressed all herself. Proud dad memory.

Property Summary:

* 4 doe and 1 buck shot on our property
* Avg doe field dressed weight was 107lb (compared to 83lb last year)
* The buck we shot was a 3.5yo bully 8pt that weighed 187 field dressed and scored 122”
* Had 3 mature deer to chase throughout the season, but only one encounter.
* Habitat improvements seem to be working. Need to keep refining the mature buck hunting strategy.
* Was able to get teeth from a neighbor to send in with my buck to get them aged.
* Observed 79 bucks and 154 does&fawns from the stand in 92 sits (all hunters). — close to a 1:2 buck to doe ratio sightings.
* 42 stands/blinds on the property and 11 stands were not used this season.

Personal Hunting Summary:

This is the first year that we kept a log of our hunts in a Google form/spreadsheet:
* Had 61 sits and saw:
* 42 - 1.5-2.5yo bucks
* 19 - 3.5-4.5yo bucks
* 1 - 5.5+ yo buck
* 102 does & fawns
* Averaged seeing 2.5 deer per sit.
* Disappointed that I only had 1 encounter with any of our 3 mature deer. Granted, Oct/Nov, I was hunting the largest, but most nocturnal of the deer — daylighting less than 20% since September. But it shows I have some learning gaps to fill in my pursuit of mature bucks.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[356]

...

This is the first year that we kept a log of our hunts in a Google form/spreadsheet:

This was my first year using the log provided by the NDA and MDC. Old school, but it worked.