wis_rifle_hunter

WAY TO MANY DOES AND NOT ENOUGH BUCKS!!!!! The few bucks we see are small racked. We have HUGE bodies but small racks[:@]I'm working on fixing that problem

MOhunter46

The biggest change is the amount of land i can hunt. We(my family)had about 1400 acres to ourselvs. About 400 we had leased and the owner died and the kids sold it. Another 400 the conservstion all of a sudden said no hunting and it's been that why ever since.

tsoc

Less private land available to hunt,decreased amounts of deer on public land because of over mature forests and no logging being allowed on state land.Significant hunting pressure on the state land that is easily accessible.I know the hunting was better many years ago.We do have antler restrictions in place in a couple of management unit's hopefully that will help.
Unfortunately we have had most of ouer private land purchased by second homeowners from New York City and by and large they are not hunter friendly.Because there is very little consistent food at higher elevations because of the over mature forest we have our largest concentrations of deer on private lands down low.Not the best of circumstances.

drenal

most of my areas i hunt got alot smaller in the past couple years,
due to extremely heavy construction devolopment in my state,but the upside of it the deer really did not leave so it has made hunting alot easier .

early in

I hunt on state land mostly (bow only), and nothing has really changed except I see more bigger (not big)bucks thanks to AR's.

twildasin

HOUSES & ROADS!![:@]

treboryerf

The areas I hunt are mostly smaller plots and most of those have been cut and are to thick to even walk in,but the biggest change over the years has been the explosion if land that has been set aside or reforested which has really helped the deer population but has spread the deer out over a laarge area which also results in deer not moving much due to the fact that they practilly live in the stuff and have no reason the venturee far

jmbuckhunter

I used to have an apple orchard about a half mile to the West of me, and there is a 400 acre park to my East. About 100 acres of the park is a bike trail the rest is thick woods. The 2 were connected by a creek that runs thru my property. The deer would travel thru the creek bottom every evening to feed on the apples and the rest of the veggies grown there.

Now the apple orchard only grows $400,000 homes.They bulldozed every single apple tree out. Add to that, there are some new neighbors in my subdivision that let their dogs run loose and I don't see near as many deer around the neighborhood these days.

Now they have no reason to leave the park. Except to visit my food plot once in a while.

I also had an older couple that would let me hunt their property, just down the road. It has lots of oak trees on it and the deer would pile into their yard to feed on acorns. Now a young couple with 3 kids and 2 German Shepards live there. Not even worth asking anymore.

drenal

wow boys look like we are loosing alot of woods ,according to this
preety soon wewill be hunting from balconies and porches if it continues at this pace.

FOP23

I have two (2) areas where I hunt pretty frequently, my friend's 200 acre property on the PA/WV border, and the small funnels and patches around my housing development. The 200 acre property is heavily posted/patrolled and enforced. We have seen a remarkable improvement in the quality of bucks in the previous 4 years since antler restrictions have made it 4 pts. on a side. OVerall numbers of deer are down slightly though. The area around my house has seen an increase in hunters, mostly trespassing hunters. I have permission to hunt the area owned by a local university, very limited access. I found more lock on stands and tree steps on this "limited access" property than on public land. Sign of the times.