First day numbers

[Floki]

All I can say is out of the 17 minutes I’ve hunted this gun season. I didn’t see shit! I feel like this article is profiling people.

I suddenly feel the urge to dress up like a vagina and go protest.

 

[OO2]

Good amount of people in Athens area woods I hunt. Good to see people using the public ground!

 

[Joel]

Gun season is somewhat of a big deal around me, kids still get the day off school, but I didn’t see that many out Monday. A little more Tuesday actually. Heard some shots throughout the day but nothing like what I expected.

 

["J"]

The wind hasn’t helped the participation much either with these temps. The die hards are out, the guys who aren’t die hards went back too work or stayed home or in camp....

 

[Schu72]

I drove down to the Tappan lake area to do a pheasant hunt today. Didn't see a single deer hunter.

 

[Sgt Fury]

Very few gun hunters in my area anymore.
Lucky to hear a few shots off in the distance.
Seems most hunt with archery equiptment anymore.
My buddy that hunts his property in Vinton County jokes that he hears more rifle shots the first 2 weeks of November than the whole week of gun season. Some truth to this though.

You ain’t kidding! The guy who owns property next to mine in Vinton county says that there is a red pickup truck that rides the fields and stops to check out the wood line with binoculars. No doubt he’s roadhunting. All of the surrounding land owners (I’m the only non resident) have their properties posted. Evertime my neighbor drives up the road or comes out of the woods, the truck takes off. He called the warden so we’ll see what happens.

 

[at1010]

I’ll be the odd ball out here.

I think the deer numbers are up and steadily increasing.

Lots of younger guys aren’t into gun hunting

Older guys who grew up hunting rifle in states like pa - are getting to old to hunt or drive hunt.

People are not shooting does like they did 10 years ago. The idea of a 1-1 ratio has proven bogus and many guys are buck hunting only.

Shitty weather to top that all off.

I’ve preached low numbers in past and I am being a hypocrite now but I hunt a lot (18 sits in past 14 days, plus several others earlier) you cannot hunt one day or two days and determine the deer population.

Ps. During my sits recently I’ve seen no deer on some and 10+ on others. I’ve also ran cameras in heavily traveled areas to monitor deer movement since guns started blasting. Nocturnal is an understatement.

Just my opinions. Worth considering before you “sell the farm” cause no deer.

 

[Sgt Fury]

All I can say is out of the 17 minutes I’ve hunted this gun season. I didn’t see shit! I feel like this article is profiling people.

I suddenly feel the urge to dress up like a vagina and go protest.

 

[Carpn]

I’ll be the odd ball out here.

I think the deer numbers are up and steadily increasing.

Lots of younger guys aren’t into gun hunting

Older guys who grew up hunting rifle in states like pa - are getting to old to hunt or drive hunt.

People are not shooting does like they did 10 years ago. The idea of a 1-1 ratio has proven bogus and many guys are buck hunting only.

Shitty weather to top that all off.

I’ve preached low numbers in past and I am being a hypocrite now but I hunt a lot (18 sits in past 14 days, plus several others earlier) you cannot hunt one day or two days and determine the deer population.

Ps. During my sits recently I’ve seen no deer on some and 10+ on others. I’ve also ran cameras in heavily traveled areas to monitor deer movement since guns started blasting. Nocturnal is an understatement.

Just my opinions. Worth considering before you “sell the farm” cause no deer.

I think there are alot of deer as well . I was just pointing out low deer harvest on opener reflect a change in hunter dynamic more so than less deer . And it's been that way for a number of years

 

[giles]

DNR has made people learn how to manage their own deer herd.

 

[bowhunter1023]

DNR has made people learn how to manage their own deer herd.

Great minds think a like. Literally just made the same statement to my dad in regards to the same topic.

 

[brock ratcliff]

I.E.... irrelevant.

 

[Schu72]

Gun season is not the measuring stick it used to be.

 

[bowhunter1023]

I should add that my implications earlier were regarding one particular example of a "hunter" that I see quite frequently here. I would argue the best thing for the deer herd on our farm was the surrounding 240 acres getting leased to some good deer managers who happen to be from NC. They don't contribute to the corn pile issue either, like my neighbor with 14 acres, 3 feeders and 27 stands that they ride their SxS to...

But, (RIP Ted Young) there's always a but, for every one of those guys, there's 10 retired guys from out of state with feeders and four-wheelers. With the way farms have been broken up in the last 30 years around here, there's a deer hunter of some variety every 100 yards around here. And a lot of them don't even live in this county.

 

[bowhunter1023]

DNR has made people learn how to manage their own deer herd.

I was one of those people. I'm largely self-taught and early on, Bill Jordan, Will Primos and the Drury brothers taught me when I "knew". I also believed the DNR had the best interest of its constituents in mind. Obviously, I was a gullible young man. I also learn the hard way. We killed more does from 2005-2010 than will likely be killed from 2011-2021. We're at 1 since 2011, we killed 4 in 2006 alone. I have almost the same deer numbers (85-90%) now as I did that year, but we'll never kill 4 does off 80 acres in a season again.

I'm off the numbers bandwagon as I can live with the status quo and at least in the neighborhood of the farm, the current status is due to the local deer managers, not guidance from the DNR or the Drurys.

 

[RedCloud]

Gun season around my ground are just as they have always been. A bunch of guys out Monday that I was really surprised were out do to the crappy weather. Heard a bunch of shots fired throughout the day. I have no idea how many actually connected but it sounded like a small war going on out there.

With the huge increase of bow hunters on our properties over the past 5 years I'm seeing the crunch on both sides. Use to be able to hunt all of bow season alone or with one other guy. Last 10 years we have now added up to 15 other guys that have permission to hunt. Plenty of guys hunting out there from out of state and from out of town. Pretty crazy.

My stats so far this season:

17 sits
63 hrs
7 deer seen

Of those 6 deer seen I know I have seen a couple on more then one occasion so I don't count repeat encounters. These numbers come from 3 different farms here and include my sits at Strouds.

Edit:
Forgot a buck I seen and had to add.

 

[giles]

I was one of those people. I'm largely self-taught and early on, Bill Jordan, Will Primos and the Drury brothers taught me when I "knew". I also believed the DNR had the best interest of its constituents in mind. Obviously, I was a gullible young man. I also learn the hard way. We killed more does from 2005-2010 than will likely be killed from 2011-2021. We're at 1 since 2011, we killed 4 in 2006 alone. I have almost the same deer numbers (85-90%) now as I did that year, but we'll never kill 4 does off 80 acres in a season again.

I'm off the numbers bandwagon as I can live with the status quo and at least in the neighborhood of the farm, the current status is due to the local deer managers, not guidance from the DNR or the Drurys.

Bub, we all had our bendy straws out back then.

 

[Bowkills]

No doubt that Monday of gun season is nothing like it once was. Saturday of gun season seems about the same to me. Amazingly, Sunday is like it ain’t even happening. The entire thing has changed, some think that’s bad but imagine if had changed from what we have now to what we had in the 80s and 90s. Everyone would be crying about the woods being raped. Lol. Deer did not act right for a month after gun season back in the day. I like it the way it is today.

This is still reality. There are less hunters now but almost all of our landscapes get pounded still until the deer get run into Indiana or untouchable places......I wish it was like you describe, maybe some day...

 

[brock ratcliff]

This is still reality. There are less hunters now but almost all of our landscapes get pounded still until the deer get run into Indiana or untouchable places......I wish it was like you describe, maybe some day...

No they don’t. The deer you had pictures of on Thanksgiving will still be in your neighborhood next week, unless they were killed. And the vast majority of them will survive this week.
On Monday I received a call from the landowner of the farm I was hunting. He had just seen 12 deer go into the patch of timber a buddy of mine was about to push for me. It’s a mini-drive we know how to do... I saw a doe, two fawns and a three point buck. It’s a small patch of cover yet we didn’t find at least 8 deer. They are like magicians. They will reappear when they choose to...and they will still be in Ohio.

 

[Floki]

The numbers game will always be an issue. Some people have better places to hunt with more deer. Some have places that have been wiped out. Some have mediocre places.

People will judge by the area they hunt. Intstead of the overall of the state.

As it’s been said. We are own conservationists. That simply what people are going to need to realize as a whole.