35 degrees in the hills near Athens this morning. I want to see that first frost so badly to know this junk is over for the year.
2025 EHD?
- Thread starter Smawgunner2
- Start date
Bighoun52
Active Member
Hunted (aka bird watched) Athens last week. Horrible at my place.....saw a spike in three days an heard a dwind hater (think it was a doe and fawn ive had on cam) on the neighbors. Not ideal conditions but seeing corn and food still there tells me the nightmare is real. Have noticed a localish outfitter azzhole is still running hunts claiming its regional, and so is the City of Athens. cant express my anger enough or online for such ignorance that rapes our resource.
The real hunt was meeting some out of area buddies at Crown City (and just got back). Same sad story. So little sign. I saw the only buck and think there were 5 does seen between the 4 of us from the stand. If you know the area, the intersection with the beaver swamps wouldve gagged a maggot on Saturday due to the smell of death.
EHD- little to no research, smashing herds everywhere and made the worst example yet in seOH.
The real hunt was meeting some out of area buddies at Crown City (and just got back). Same sad story. So little sign. I saw the only buck and think there were 5 does seen between the 4 of us from the stand. If you know the area, the intersection with the beaver swamps wouldve gagged a maggot on Saturday due to the smell of death.
EHD- little to no research, smashing herds everywhere and made the worst example yet in seOH.
We got a decent frost just outside Athens this morning.
EHD might be coming to an end for this season but the death toll will continue to grow. These 2 fawns have been orphaned for a little while and no mature does have been around to show them how to put on weight for winter. If I was a betting man I'd say they both die this winter. They were skinny and eating dead leaves. Mike and I stood there watching these 2 for about 20-30 minutes about 15 yards away. They don't see humans as a threat because they were never taught by their mother or other adult deer.
EHD killed deer for months now and will have other side effects for this winter.
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Mickey Merrie
Junior Member
My dad dropped his deer (his first archery deer, 8-pointer) off at a processor in the Athens/Washington county area. He was told by the owner they hadn't even hit 100 deer processed so far this year.
Saw this one yesterday, he kept saying it’s off by a huge amount. Kept referencing 120 deer per square mile. Has me questioning that number to begin with. Not saying the numbers are significantly down, but 120 deer in a square mile seems awfully high for a normal count.
Mickey Merrie
Junior Member
I thought so as well, J.
I can tell you this though, in NW Penna I sat watching 76 acres of hidden field last night and saw 25 deer and many times on the last day of rifle I can see up to 30 deer in that same field. In that same, roughly 1 mile square I can drive the 4 roads around it and see an additional 50+ deer in the various fields and yards each night, mostly doe and young bucks. I have never seen that in Ohio.
In NY as the deer migrate off the higher ground down toward the lake Erie plane to avoid the (up to) 300" of snow that they get, you can see hundreds of deer yarded up in late winter and early spring.
at1010
*Supporting Member*
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I have had this conversation with a few friends who are biologists, and there does seem to be a lot of confusion about these drone surveys on DPSM. Maybe JB @jagermeister could weigh in a bit as well on this.
I can say I've listened to several drone podcasts, and these guys always say the same thing: "Most areas have more deer than they realize." The one gentleman in MO referenced how many farms were in that 120-160 dpsm.
All that to say, if I had to guess, it is probably true that A square mile could be at 120. However, that likely isnt repeated in Ohio, on all adjacent sq miles. You end up with "sinks" that create voids or lower DPSM in other areas. I dont know for certain, but I believe that if/when a DNR does a DPSM, they would likely use a larger area and then take an average. So if you do a township, sure you'll see some huge areas of high DPSM, but others with far less, which drives the average down to around 35-60 DPSM in most areas.
I personally dont feel that even the highest levels of academia have a GREAT grasp on DPSM, distribution, re-distribution, compensatory reproduction, etc. Not that they dont understand it, but because of the number of variables that impact the white-tailed deer. I believe that these drones, in the correct hands, will be very helpful in understanding that topic in the future, which will have hugely positive impacts on hunters but also ecological habitat/harvest decisions.
Just my 2 cents!
It takes away any sense of compassion you might have. Yes. Now you're down to NW Ohio numbers. Boohoo. I hunted there years ago (Hocking/Vinton). You could walk from the stand to your truck on the backs of the deer and never touch the ground. Never seen anything like it on my life.
That said, I've seen EHD firsthand. It sucks for sure. I don't think the guy knew his density which makes me question anything he said. It's just a guessing game. To be fair, I watched 5 min and zoomed forward thru a lot of the drone footage. Got tired of listening to him. It didn't seem believable. He seemed dramatic. When he said he deployed his resources into other areas to hunt and make videos I sort of lost any compassion. Then I Skipped to the end for a summary.
Mickey Merrie
Junior Member
Back in the day, Penna. issued antlerless deer licenses based upon a county by county allotment. There are 67 county's in Pa and the county treasurer and their department issued them and were paid to do so. Then the PGC stated that the system wasn't efficient in controlling deer numbers as there were pockets of over-harvest and under-harvest, so they were going to correct that by going to wildlife management units (WMU's). So now the cost to issue is higher, the allotment is higher and there are only 21 WMU's covering multiple county's each... It always was about the money as these licenses are issued through the PGC directly, or through retail outlets now.
A better indicator in my mind at least would be insurance data on deer collisions. But even there one would have to run a calculator...
The Hunting Report
Here is the New Updated Ohio EHD map! Things aren’t looking good, it is not headed across the western and northern part of the state! The DNR is slowly confirming actual EHD deer deaths now in...
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