Semisane

The bad news:

Last year our ten-man hunting club just North of Greensburg, Louisiana noticed an overall reduction in the number of deer on our property. This year it's even worse, as has been proven by low sightings and game camera results.

We first got this 900 acre pine plantation lease in 1997 and implemented a set of rules we thought would make sense for this 'less than prime' habitat. The goal was to maintain a decent deer population and still give every member an opportunity to take some deer. We limited the doe kill to two per man, allowed no bucks under five points, and allowed no guest except minor relatives of club members (with any deer killed by the guest counting against the member's limit).

The plan worked well. Members would see deer on almost every hunt. A few members had no interest in taking a doe and never shot any. Most would kill one or two 'meat does' each season. Some members would take any buck of five points or more. Some would only take mature seven or eight-pointers. For the next fourteen years we were happy campers, with a yearly kill rate averaging twelve does and seven bucks. It's as much a social club as a deer killing club.

Then we had a sudden decline in 2011/12. Of course, we had all of the usual discussions.

- Has the maturing forest greatly diminished the available food supply? (Yes, to some extent.)

- Has coyote predation gotten worse? (We've certainly been seeing more of them in the last few years.)

- Are we taking too many does? (Seems unlikely. We took the about the same number every year for fourteen years with no adverse impact on the population.)

- What about disease?

In October, the Louisiana Wildlife & Fisheries issued a bulletin titled 'Hemorrhagic Disease Outbreak in Louisiana White-tailed Deer'. (See it here: http://www.wlf.louisiana.gov/news/36024 ) Then last week we got a report from the Forester who manages the timber on our lease, and on many other leases in the area, that the tree cutters are finding a LOT of dead deer in the woods. Yesterday a buck was killed on our lease that had sloughed hooves, a sure sign he had recently survived Hemorrhagic disease.

We have now halted the killing of does on our lease at least for this year. It's probably going to take a year or two for the herd to recover.

For those who hunt for meat as much as (or more than) big racks, we're allowing the killing of bucks of any size. Regardless, it's going to be a poor season this year and possibly next year.

The good news.

The Swamp Dragon has fed. (More on this later.)

WV Hunter

Bout time, dang thing was starvin to death .... LOL

Josmund

Years ago I hunted Harding County South Dakota. We enjoyed many years of fantastic hunting. One summer Episodic Hemorrhage Disease came through and our heard was cut to near zero. One could smell the dead deer around any water source and we saw many a critter which was taken down. It took years to recover.

Sorry to hear about your deer heard and I can't wait to hear from the Dragon.

Blackpowdersmoke

Semi,

Hope you fare well in the next few years. I just read in the latest issue of Fur-Fish & Game that CWD has been confirmed in deer in Pennsylvania with those animals found solely on game farms that raise deer...for now. What next? We have more predators than we ever did and a Game Commission that has done its best to annihilate the doe herd and now this. I don't have to kill a deer to enjoy hunting, but I like to see deer when I hunt.

BPS

WV Hunter

Semi, your herd will bounce back. You guys are being smart to leave the does be for now. Like you said, it might be another lesser year next season, but should be getting good year after. I've heard of some massive EHD kills in the midwest this year, crazy numbers.

BPS, I live in a CWD zone in VA / and also hunt in CWD zone in WV. Its a joke if you ask me. I hope PA doesn't over react, that would be the worst thing they could do. Here in VA they have found 4 total in 6yrs of monitoring. LOL

My .02 is this... EHD, CWD, etc... its God's way of managing the herd.

Breechplug

semi it seems as your old rules should have done the trick. Do you have a food source not natural but planted like beans, corn ect that the deer can feed on? It doesnt matter how big an area of land you manage, you have to have enough food to keep the deer there or they will relocate to a better food source.
Along with a good food source you have to keep the predators in check, if unhunted they will breed and take a toll on the herd. I know even with all we do to keep the deer on our propertys, if there's a better corn or bean field planted somewhere else that provides the deer with food and more security (Posted Land wich is'nt hunted) the deer will relocate there.
One piece of property we hunt that's only 265 acres has always been a deer haven with pleanty of deer available to shoot. This season the deer sightings were nill to none. 2 miles down the raod they planted a new corn field and the surrounding property is owned by non hunters, the deer whet there and why not, they have food and no on hunts them. We know this as we spotted the corn field at night and saw over 100 deer feeding, while we were'nt seeing any at our place.
Also another place we hunt usually has apples and acorns by the bushel. This year we had a Bad Freeze that ruined our apple crop for the year and the Red Oaks also suffered the freeze, thus the deer moved to where the food was.
Food is No1 with keeping deer on your property, then security, if either is changed the deer will leave.
Hope things change for you and wish you all the best.
(BP)

Semisane

What we have Breechplug, are 23 small food plots in the range of 1/3 to 1/2 acre each. Seven members have two plots and three members have three plots. These are "private plots" that the member has full control over. Each plants, manages and hunts his own plots. We've found that the vested interest nature of this private plot system works better then the community property and "work days" system many clubs use. The more you put in to developing your plots the better they are and the more you get out of them.

Most of the plots get planted every September with a mixture of wheat, oats, and clover. The clover usually lasts well into June. Most guys plant iron-clay peas in early summer, which the deer really hammer. I have three plots of 1/4, 1/3, and 1/2 acre. I keep the 1/4 acre plot in clover and chicory pretty much year round, though the clover usually goes dormant in July. When it revives in the fall I overseed it with wheat which tends to be pretty sparse but does add a little variety to the plot. I keep about half of the two larger plots in clover year round and plant the other half with wheat in the fall and peas in the spring.

The area we are in is pretty much either pine tree plantation or cattle pasture. I don't think there's a corn field or bean field withing twenty miles of us. Our competition for deer population is a river bottom with lots of hardwoods about a mile from us. We do have some oaks on our property. But they are no more than 5% of the total area.

I know what you mean about deer concentrating in an agricultural field. The parallel we have to that is when a property is the area is clear cut. The year after the cut the briar, blackberry and other brush is waist high. That stuff attracts and holds deer as well as any corn or soybean field.

oldsmellhound

Not taking does sounds smart for now. We've owned our hunting land for 10 years now and have noticed a big difference in deer sightings certain years. For example, this year there have been deer everywhere - we've always had multiple sightings pretty much every time we go out. Part of it may be due to the bumper crop of acorns on our property, but it can't be solely attributed to that. We think because of the very mild winter last year, a lot more deer survived it and therefore there have been more around.

We had a few lean years where we really didn't see much and there was less deer sign in the area. But we've never been able to really pinpoint all the reasons for this....

deer655

The area I hunt in Virginia sure had a drop in deer too. Started about 4 years ago. What is strange is that the 80 acres I hunt was clearcut 2 years ago. Over this past summer I had at least 6 beautiful bucks on our cameras. We got one in bow season and one in blackpowder season. There is only about 3 does that hang around consistently. Five to ten years ago it was nothing to see 10 to 15 deer a day, now its about 1 to 2 a day. I was wondering the other day when I was reading about blue tongue clobbering certain parts of the states and folks were saying it was because of mild winters. Then why doesnt a state like Texas get clobbered year after year since its winters cant be too bad, or for that matter, Semi, your state of Louisiana.

Semisane

As I understand it deer655, there are a number of factors involved. First off, there are several strains of the epizootic hemorrhagic disease virus. I guess that, like many viruses, it can mutate over time. Second, the virus is transmitted to deer by gnats which are worse when there's a rainy spring followed by a dry summer. Then, the scientist say that that the deer that survive the disease develop resistance to it and pass on that resistance to their offspring. But I suspect that fades over generations and/or may not protect them from a different strain.

Last year we had the warmest winter in years. I don't think it got below freezing more than a half dozen nights over the course of the winter. At no time did we have freeze levels during daytime hours. I'm sure that was a factor for us.