Predictions for deer season 26

[LBrandt]

I predict I will have 19 muzzloader preference points going into 2027.
Our whitetail numbers are abysmal in western ND. Wish they'd at least shut down doe season in our unit.

You and me both. LB

 

[KDM]

Oh I remember all those years. I also remember a few of those years, especially 96-97 when the only way anything survived was in farmer yards. Or in towns or anywhere else they could find something to eat. Because everything was buried in 4 ft of snow.

The question is what are you gonna do to help wildlife. I can say I have probably done more than most of you on here combined. While you guys plant your 2 acre food plot thinking you’re doing any good. Maybe that is why I have never seen a decline in deer around here.

But, it’s easier to blame the guy that’s out here the whole year seeing what happens. Everyone is an expert when they see the land 2 weeks a year

I hear the frustration your post, but it's not always adding habitat. The deer have to want to be there during the tough winter months. Around here the deer are scattered all summer and through the fall from the fields on top all the way to the river bottom. However, you can have the best 100 acres of pine grove, sloughs, and food plots in the county up on top and ALL the deer will move into the river bottom once the snow hits. It's what they do and have done for all time. My own 40 acres is included. I've put in trees and bushes and kept cattle out of it for 5 years now and the deer still vacate the place like cops when the doughnuts run out. Nothing I can do to help winter survival if they aren't on my land. What I can do is help ensure that there are good pockets of food down in the river bottom. Such as my backyard. There are many pics of my backyard full of deer. That said, not many folks can do what I do. Sometimes caring folks are just plain shrite outta luck when it comes to getting deer through the winter. It is what it is. Those same folks however, can call out the dismal management practices. That will always help.

 

[bucksnbears]

^^^.

I find you know damn well how it works.

Winter food is important but thermal cover Trump's it.

 

[Obi-Wan]

Pronghorns are migratory, wrong comparison.

Did the habit at change in the years the antelope season was shut down?
was it the loss of habitat or was it the severe winner that decimated the antelope herd?
has the habitat changed along the Missouri River corridor in recent years?
Was it the habitat change or EHD that decimated the whitetail herd along the Missouri River ?
why did the G&F still depredation tags south of Bismarck with the local herd at less than 10% of its average over the last 15. yrs.

 

[SDMF]

Oh I remember all those years. I also remember a few of those years, especially 96-97 when the only way anything survived was in farmer yards. Or in towns or anywhere else they could find something to eat. Because everything was buried in 4 ft of snow.

The question is what are you gonna do to help wildlife. I can say I have probably done more than most of you on here combined. While you guys plant your 2 acre food plot thinking you’re doing any good. Maybe that is why I have never seen a decline in deer around here.

But, it’s easier to blame the guy that’s out here the whole year seeing what happens. Everyone is an expert when they see the land 2 weeks a year

More deer survive those ugly winter w/habitat than treeless harvested bean fields.

I don’t put the blame on guys trying to make a living on razor-thin margins. It’s unfortunate how a farmer’s products/pricing-power can be so influenced by world politics. Vast markets shut off like a light switch. Couple that with a very tight labor market and the absolute need to get crops in/out efficiently and as fast as possible (to beat the weather mostly) once you start.

It galls me to see all the top-soil that’s in the ditches every spring as the snow melts but the need for speed seems like it must be worth turning everything black every fall.

All that said, I find the idea of farms getting positively enormous and/or being corporately owned far more concerning, especially if those corporate owners are based on foreign soil.

I doubt we’ll see MD ever again covered by an ocean of CRP. That said, we don’t NEED oceans of CRP. A few yards either side of a creek, drainage ditch, fence line, maybe a few tree-row planted @ intervals that don’t interfere w/the newer larger/wider equipment.

 

[Bacon]

I’m guessing you are in the eastern part of the state. You won’t see a black field over winter here. Those guys out there love their tillage. By all accounts it seems deer are making a bit of a come back. That is without crp and habitat cause apparently that’s all gone. My guess is that the nice couple winters have a lot to do with it.

 

[lunkerslayer]

There is also other factors as well that keep nunbers down besides habitat or diseases for that matter and that is more predators and human development into areas that didnt have 20+ years ago. Its a shame on development when parts of cites have infrastructure that extist abandon and instead of rezoning those areas for future growth its sits. And with no demand for fur you get cycles of increase pressure from predators that take out the younger population.

I remember my dad talking about the hunting back in the 60s and 70s where deer populations were really presumably lower, where the technology we have now made it much harder to get a guaranteed bag that year. Majority back then party hunted in my unit which is 2d, deer were kicked out of clusters of trees or the gourge itself. Then later that day if you happened to glass a dear out in a shelter belt at low light from the road and managed to shoot it, you tracked that animal until you found it because deer were hard to come by. I knew many families in my high school that didnt care to eat venison because it was so gamey compared to the venison we are used to now. I remember hearing stories of hunters driving down crp and kicking up deer to shoot them from the box, most never did that because many never owned a 4x4 pickup to be able to do that but those who did sure as shit did, because back then people did things that were rarely enforced. Most hunters in this area untilized jeep wagaoneers or the international scout because it could go places other vehicles couldn't that were more affordable readily available or you hunted with the family car. Even in the early 90s when i started hunting we still party hunted because it was a traditional thing to do and it was all that we knew how to do, to be more successful at bagging a deer especially in the 2d unit. Now the baiting and deer stand thing has become a better option because less of my family either passed or don't hunt.

Thats why i dont understand how the ndgnf can estimate with any accuracy as to how many deer are in the 2d unit which has got to be or if not has the most habitat and still i haven't drawn a tag in three years and no we didnt get hit by the boogeyman that many claim is killing large population of deer called cwd.

So where it starts is a better process of actual numbers of deer populations is key to understanding how many deer tags can be alloted to the hunters every year. Its not like we dont have the technology to actually find out and track numbers, with gps trackers and thermal drones that can actually make it an easy process to count a herd during the winter months. The ndgf could easily hire people during the winter months especially during this time of year where deer are more active during the day, yesterday i must have seen 8 doe family groups that came out of the river bottom to forage.

Im not a leader when it comes to actively pushing a political agenda into the public and more so a keyword activist. But i have no problem contacting my local representative if i feel an agenda needs to be addressed and the ndgf would have no problem hiring parttime help doing surveys during the winter months finding and getting the data needed to find out with relative accuracy as to how many deer are in a particular unit. So with that said my rambling actually has a solution that could work if the right people were involved in making it happen, what the actual logistics to make it happen i dont know but i would have no problem calling or putting my information on to a survey to help the ndgf find out how much support is from the public to get the people and the technology to actually make counting deer possible. So anyone here know of anyone in the ndgf that can actually ask them why my solution isnt a viable option?

But i know this for certain why besides the above reasons as to why deer populations are lower is because big interest groups like insurance companies dont want to help bring up a sustainable deer populations for hunters. The insurance companies are seeing higher prices to fix automobiles when deer causes an accident, I got rear ended a month iand half ago in my 2019 ford f150 and since its got an aluminum body it cant be fixed like a traditional steel body can, instead of replacing pieces of sheet metal the whole box needed to be replaced because aluminum flexes and stretches causing ripples in the box. It was over close 15000 dollars to replace the box, tailgate , bumper and tail lights.

I feel your pain my hunting brethren but the bottom line is we are fighting against forces that have deeper pockets then majority of you and i who dont care to help make our deer populations number better and it has less to do with farmers when they are doing what they are paid to do produce a product that is sustainable for our very existence.
Thats why if i dont draw again i will go to Minnesota this fall because hell or higb water i want some langdon locker sausage in my freezer.