My buddy I mentioned in the other thread has been talking with a buddy of his, he too has seen the declining deer numbers and the place he hunts is also behind his house and it borders one of them shoot a bunch of does clubs. I know all about that club and that area, since I hunted the vicinity for 10 years or so and ran the club.

That area behind this fellows house is a pine plantation that is about 12-13 years now, just N and W of this area the pines are 15-16 years old, the hardwood bottoms are pretty much cut thru with only softwoods not acorn trees being in there. This area is about 1500-1800 acres of continuos pine that has only been poisoned and planted and left be. 4-8 years ago this area produced lots of good bucks and plenty of deer sightings. Just North of that area is a very good mix of habitat, from there in N/E/W directions is once again diverse habitat and some cropland to the east.

guess where the deer are?


Mature hardwoods around here supposedly support 15-20 deer a square mile, young tender cutovers about 60 deer per square mile and a mix of those 2 habitats support 20-30 deer a square mile. Not sure about mature pines but I'm guessing really low numbers since the overhead canopy keeps out the sun.


There are good greenfields thruout, from this guys back yard and all thru the club. However in the immediate area (500 acres or so) behind his house there might be 5 acres total of greenfields, 4.5 of which is on the club.

That all reminds me of another deal where a club was absolutely livid about the does being killed off around them. That year was a bumper acorn crop, their club was 99% pine, most of which was getting up close to maturity. They had maybe 2-3 percent in greenfields and about 1800 acres total.

Very few tracks were in the roads etc..... The biologist told'em to wait til January when the acorns were gone and the hunt the younger pines and cutovers. They put the smack down on the deer that January.


My 3rd scenario is about pressure and just plan luck, how many know guys that kill a big buck at will without any effort. Known a few that killed a big buck first time out and killed good ones every since while doing everything wrong as smart deer hunters know.

Another place I hunt is shared by shoot anything that moves and has horns groups. Driving right up to any shooting house/ladder/stand and hunting rarely sees anything but manages to shoot a lot. Another group stays in there all the time but hunts the wind and the last hunter hunts the wind or tries to until he finds hot sign, he hears lots of snorts. Talking to these guys there seems to be not many deer,
2 guys that used to hunt in there killed does relentlessly and seeing deer all the time, they hunted when the others did not. No one hunted in there last year it seemed and I killed 3.5 and 4.5 yr old bucks, only hunted it 5 times and seen deer.

just to the West of this land is land that is not hunted much at all, extremely poor soil but manages a few greenfields. From one vantage point one can see 2 of those greenfields and 3 of ours. Looking to theirs and seeing 20-30 deer on those 2 fields, one BB on our 3 fields total.

I didn't realize that vantage point existed til this year.

One of theirs is on the other side of ours, so only about 150 yards between the 2 and hunter observation on each place would be opposite of each others deer count.

I hunted that property next to ours a few years back, seen deer the first 3 hunts, and then noticed the declining sightings.