Cougar Mag

In the areas I currently hunt there are fewer big bucks, although a nice population. Fewer nice bucks but more does due to higher pressure because of more hunters. In fact not enough does are taken. Sharing the areas with other hunters now has put lots of pressure on the herds and their natural travel patterns have changed.

kshunter

The deer numbers have gainedsince I started hunting, but the trophy sized bucks have become lower. All of this mainly because of hunting pressure. Body size it's the same, rack wise the same..

killzonearchery

really not much has happened in my area. The deer still come and really this size is about the same. But we are goin to let it sit for a year with no gun hunting and hope we get bigger ones in.

Siman08/OH

Thereare a few more houses and people, but ive spent more time in the woods and noticed more larger bucks than ever before. Im lucky to live where i do, and im lucky that my family owns many acres that will never be touched by a development.

rybohunter

Lets see, I will try to keep this brief so much has changed in 20+ years of hunting the same spot.

Land-The forested area was predominantly black cherry & other mixed hardwoods, and the rest was abandoned strip mines that were VERY rugged and thickly overgrown. Access to all the surrounding properties was excellent. Selective logging has produced far fewer cherry trees, but still good numbers of oaks, and huge thick bedding areas. Almost too many. The old strip mines were reclaimed, smoothed out and left as fields. Some remain mowed, others have grown up a little, but not much. Access to surrounding properties has been cut in half.

Deer-Populations were ok. Not scarce, but not that many. Late 80's early 90's they started booming and accelerated with the logging. Currently we have WAY too many. Everyone has fallen under the "no deer left" mantra that has hit other parts of the state, but not this one. Also with more limited access and people's resistance to shoot does the numbers have boomed.
Mature bucks have also gone up. Not exactly sure how much, because back in the day, a 100" buck was a monster so my idea is probably a little skewed. I wish more people (of the ones that hunt there) would shoot does. Its heavily pressured, but not heavily harvested.

Schultzy

The woods I hunt is my dads woods. Its 160 acres of ag and wooded land, half in half. Back when I was a kid 17 or so years ago this woods was on fire come mid October. It would be no surprise to find 100+ scrapes in the woods. Lots of 6 to 8 inch rubs also. We even had a few 12"+ trees getting hit for a few years. It would literally stink and smell like buck piss when you walked in the woods, It was awesome! A year or so later they had a 3rd gun season, they said not enough deer were shot the previous 2 weekends so they opened another weekend for the slug hunters in my zone. It sounded like WWIII going on. I was steaming being I thought it was a bad idea to begin with. That next spring we found over 100 dead deer within a mile of where we do our hunting. 90% of the deer were all wounds, meaning gut shots, etc. We found 2 140" bucks dead and a pile of 1.5 olds also. This was back in 1991 I believe and now finally the last few years its starting to show some sign of what it use to be like back in the late 80's early 90's. The wonderful Minnesota DNR doesn't have a clue in what they are doing, all they care about is revenue! Minnesota was one of the top states for B&C bucks, reasons like I just explained are reasons its going down hill and will keep going down hill.[:@]

recurver167

Great post,I was thinking about this last week.I've hunted the same farm for 27 years and wow has it changed.The farm sat at idle for 22 years and was growing up nicely.Then they leased it out to a farmer and everything has went down hill.Clearing and farming has madhuge changes in the deers patterns.In the middle of the farm was a 1 1/2acre apple orchard that was all overgrown.I killed 7 bucks out of there with my bow.Now they even cleared that for farming.[]The rest of the farm has spots that are getting thinner too.It just don't have the cover that it did.My other spots would be better if you could find a tree without a stand already in it.[:@]

Hoyt_Viper

I guess Im pretty fortunate. I grew up in the city of Richmond, VA and when my wife and I decided to get married and buy a house I was totally against any neighborhood setting. I searched and searched rural areas surrounding our choices. Finally a place jumped off the page and I just had to see it.

Had to take the interstate to get there 22 miles outside of Richmond, and took an exit called Goochland/Oilville. Drove 3 miles down a rural route, saw farms, equestrian ranches...and right in the middle was a 5 acre tract with a home, pond, and borders a major powrline. I had to have it! After meeting my neighbor(s) one turned out to be my age with a child similar to my daughters. He was a custome home builder who just happened to own several hundred acres of land he had hoped to develop. Turns out that each piece had been sitting still for 10 plus years and nobody given permission to hunt it.

I had a party at my house, welcomed him and his family, did a few shots of Makers mark bourbon, and by the time the party was over he had given mea 5 year leaseto hunt it all. After a year of hunting, and seeing tons of wildlife and the potential to start food plots, etc. I had him sign a lease which gave me ultimate hunting rights. The previous owner grew straw there, so all of the overgrown stuff is a product of just unmowed, overgrown weeds, briars, etc.

This land is in a county with very low property assessment, and with his other projects he has going...will be 10 plus years before he ever decided to do anything with it. I also have a 200 acre dairy farm across the street where the farmer splits his crops between oats, alfalfa, and corn. I happened to see him drive in his driveway one day and asked if there was anything I could do to help out with his farms.

A smile as big as Texas came over his face and he denied, but thanked me and asked if there was anything he could do to help out our new family. I did not hesitate and told him I was a bow hunter and asked if he minded I walk his 1000 plus acres of ag and cows to find a tree for my climber and he gladly accepted.

I dint see any growth other than a few more head of cattle and battling the decades old hunt club lands surrounding me. Hell, if all else I can sit in a stand in my yard over a pond and shoot a nice 6 pointer Ive been watching.

As far as as changing, its just getting better! If a developer does put up a house around here its rediculously priced and seems to sit on the market for years. Nothing is happening in this hick town...at least not this one!

Here is the area Im gonna clear to maybe 5 acres of just field!

shed33

i'll add one more thing.. food plots are MUCH more popular here now and only adding to the nutrition of the critters that come down from the mountains especially in the winters.. I know one ranch that feeds over 200 elk a winter.. with standing winter wheat and alfalfa ... yes its a big controversy but personally I see more elk numbers since the ranch is just over the mountain from my place.. each spring the elk disperse out of that southern facing ranch and over into my northwestern facing property.. mine and my neighbors ... the cows seem to like to calf over near our places.. cooler and thick thick timber behind my place...we hold them on our places with oat plots.. dang do they taste good after feeding on oats all summer .. and oats last much longer than alfalfa here.. they last into Nov .... Alfalfa/clovers, etc all dry up and are done in late August early Sept if they are not irrigated..

So to make a long story short.. Logging plantations scattered all over the mountains combined with low land privateplots offer up great feed year around for the critters... if it wasnt for our hvy predation/harsh wintersthis country would be ridiculous in deer and elk #'s

bloodcrick

Mine changed with the way it was managed. We leased it (i know bad word <<&lt It was very very over loaded with hunters that killed everything. Most of us that are leasing it have became picky, and like big antlers so for the last five years we hav been passing numerous bucks and starting killing some 3.5's- 4.5's They have certainly grew is size and numbers due to phasing out most of the hunting pressure.