# season is over



## TomC (Aug 14, 2007)

Deer season is over, howd it go for everyone? I know the deer were dancing this morning because they made it through another year!


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## Junebug2320 (Apr 23, 2010)

Had better years. Got a doe gun season. Made a memory with my brother who’s sick. Didnt see but two “shooter” bucks all year. One of which was shot by another hunter. Passed on deer early in the year, only to have them go nocturnal after some pressure. Enjoyed the time though. Looking forward to my first bear hunt in NC come November. 


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## ironman172 (Apr 12, 2009)

Not as many seen in past years, but with 2 decent size in the freezer (1 buck & doe) it was a successful season..... dang weather is hindering my firewood gathering with a bunch new on the ground , have no,idea whats down where I can't see ..... just hope the shooting house made it through and some ladder stands


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## ya13ya03 (Sep 21, 2010)

Had a great season. Got a doe and a nice buck. My son got his first buck and did it on our property. Got my brother in law on a nice buck. Lots of great memories. Ready for spring fishing now.


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## Muddy (May 7, 2017)

I had a good season. I went deer hunting exactly 50 times this year between bow, youth gun, regular gun, bonus gun, and muzzleloader. I never killed the buck that I was after, but I saw him 5 times. I passed a lot of nice bucks. I ended up killing a couple does. My 8 year old son went with me quite a bit. He got his first buck ever and killed a couple does. I'm already working on next year, it never ends for me. I've got some darn nice bucks that made through all of the seasons and should be even better next year!


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## turkeyt (Apr 13, 2006)

The good bucks we had from last year moved except for one and he was harvested mid Oct. There was very little acorn mast in our area this year and the deer scattered. Did manage a good 10 that i had on camera. From cam pics i thought he was marginal until i saw him on the hoof. Had lots of bobcat pics which will be death on game more than a coyote. The turkeys will take a hit from the fact that there is no season on bobcats. Other egg sucking varmints, will leave the hatches vulnerable too.

Anyone else wonder what happens to the up and coming bucks from the year before. Some show back up but some seem to disappear and you never see them again. I have noticed year after year this “phenomenon“. I don’t think they are harvested because the hunters around us would inform everyone if that was the case.


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## fastwater (Apr 1, 2014)

As long as I am blessed to get in the woods...it's a good year.
Bagging a deer...just takes it to another level of being blessed.
Three decent bucks and three doe's killed out of our group of hunters for the overall season.
Sooo...we had a very blessed season this year.

Here's a pic taken just a few days ago from a buddies property down by Wayne Nat.:









There goes the neighborhood...


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## Jason151 (Mar 3, 2020)

Mine was horrible this year and the past few years, I actually saw my first deer of the season on the last day of the season and it was a small button buck which I passed up lol I hunted almost every weekend and every chance I got. It was a rough lol


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## Misdirection (Jul 16, 2012)

Across the line in PA, I got 2 doe and a 10 pt. On the last Saturday of Flintlock, I missed another doe. Need to double check that gun as it was a make able shot!

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## TomC (Aug 14, 2007)

good season here, I got a trophy 10pt, my son took his first, a 6pt at 150yrds, my wife took her first a 4pt at 125 then I finished up with a big doe. if it wasn't for covid my youngest would of been oit to get his first. 

I saw plenty of deer including a first. two sparing bucks which was cool, then saw a monster that came 40yrds from me from a bedding area 150yards away. What made it cool was he was grunting every few feet. I'd never heard a mature buck grunt in the wild before.


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## Muddy (May 7, 2017)

It’s never over! I found my first shed yesterday after work.


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## Muddy (May 7, 2017)

turkeyt said:


> The good bucks we had from last year moved except for one and he was harvested mid Oct. There was very little acorn mast in our area this year and the deer scattered. Did manage a good 10 that i had on camera. From cam pics i thought he was marginal until i saw him on the hoof. Had lots of bobcat pics which will be death on game more than a coyote. The turkeys will take a hit from the fact that there is no season on bobcats. Other egg sucking varmints, will leave the hatches vulnerable too.
> 
> Anyone else wonder what happens to the up and coming bucks from the year before. Some show back up but some seem to disappear and you never see them again. I have noticed year after year this “phenomenon“. I don’t think they are harvested because the hunters around us would inform everyone if that was the case.
> View attachment 482938


There are a lot of ways that a deer can die throughout the course of a year. You might be loosing deer to mortality outside of hunting season. Most of my mature deer on film return year after year. Some disappear. Sometimes new ones show up and surprise me(the stranger). I had a new deer show(3.5 or 4.5 year old) up about 3 weeks ago that I haven't seen before. Once he showed up he never left. I killed a big deer several years ago that was not on film until a month before I killed him. Another hunter had him on film all summer about 1.5 miles away, then the deer moved to my property once hunting season started and people pressured him. Once he moved I had him on film every day all of a sudden. I run camera's all year and move them around as food sources and patterns change. I keep a close eye on what's happening. It seems to me that mature bucks will find a preferred patch of cover and live there as long as it's left alone. Human pressure can push that buck out, and he may travel quite a ways until he finds a new patch of cover that he feels secure in. He may not leave his new home if he isn't pressured. And every buck is different. Some rut harder than others, and will move further. The deer I hunted all year this year is a real homebody, but he's 100% nocturnal outside of the rut. He's on film almost every night for 2 years, but never moves during daylight outside of the rut. That's how he got to be big. Herd dynamics also come into play. Buck:doe ratio, buck:buck ratio, and age structure can determine herd structure. Some mature deer won't tolerate one another. One will become dominate and push others away. I've killed certain bucks before, and "Poof" within a week or two another mature deer shows up and never leaves. There's no exact answer's to any of it, but that's what makes it challenging and fun.


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## Moo Juice (Jan 20, 2021)

We have a lot of deer mortality out of season. It's called route 62. Gets the big one every year during the rut.


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## Muddy (May 7, 2017)

Yep, I have Route 42.


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