NH I feel your frustration. I had 20 bucks on camera this summer an early fall. 6 of them were studs! I have no clue where they went. I had very high hopes for this rifle season but did not see one mature buck. Like you did I made improvements from last year. Mainly in increasing my food. This yrs acorn crop didn't help. My farm is new to me an I'm thinking it's just gonna take years of conditioning the deer to feed on my place. These are acorn deer with huge core area's. Much tougher to hunt in my opinion. You have some truly awesome stuff going on with all your habitat work! I'm sure next yr will be better!
Jordan, I remember seeing your buck pictures earlier in the year, and yes, it was incredible how many high quality deer you had. It's hard to believe that you didn't see at least one of them during the rifle season - especially considering the great habitat you have and the low pressure environment you have provided.
In both of our situations I would say that the massive acorn crop made a difference, but at my place the change actually started early in the year before acorns became a factor. So many things were different from 13 versus 14, I can't explain them. Examples:
I started 2014 with entirely different bucks than I ended 2013 with.
Hunting Season in 2014 started with exactly the same deer I started the year 2014 with.
Nothing left and nothing new came in during 2014. (except for just a couple of quickly lost rut visitors)
There was no summer to fall transition movement like we normally have.
The number of noteworthy deer (mature bucks and good future prospects) was 20% or less in 2014 compared to 2013.
My reason for starting this thread was twofold. First, I wanted to see if others had "up and down years" like this, and second I just wanted to gain knowledge and understanding of it. From the responses, it seems that others do see similar things.
Good responses from everyone - keep it coming.