Deer Hunt 2020-Rifle

I hunted mostly solo in WMU 64a and half a day in WMU 63a.
During the rifle season, I hunted on 8 separate days (some were only half days), and I only saw 1 deer during that time, a young buck, which I unfortunately missed somehow. The hot weather (23 C on a couple of days, and very warm on others) was a real bummer, and I left early a couple of days since I didn't have any scent-free sunblock :). The amount of buck sign was typical for the area I hunt - there wasn't a lot. The scrapes and rubs started to appear towards the end of the rifle season, but I confirmed with the guy on the neighbouring property who has trail cameras that most of the activity was at night.

I also hunted during the muzzleloader season on 4 separate days (one was a half day). I didn't see any deer.

During the archery seasons I hunted 9 separate days (all half days or less) and I saw 12 deer in total, only one decent buck, but he was running, so I didn't have an opportunity for a shot. I passed on a little fork horn on Halloween, and of course, I am regretting that now that I have an empty freezer.

Personally, I think that last winter didn't help the herd. It didn't snow a huge amount here, but I seem to remember that there weren't any really warm spells to melt the snow, so a fair amount accumulated. Then the spring was initially pretty cool, so green-up was seriously delayed, which probably resulted in some starvation.

Plenty of deer 92 1st season I was done Tuesday morning, then my son-in-law got another buck out of same stand Friday

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Originally Posted by Sam Menard

Have you experienced bad winters?

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Not really......but lots and I mean lots of moose in our area.
Some claim moose and deer cannot live together so if that's true it would explain the lack of deer

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Originally Posted by huntnmachine

Not really......but lots and I mean lots of moose in our area.
Some claim moose and deer cannot live together so if that's true it would explain the lack of deer

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Usually deer thrive and moose populations drop due brain worm. The parasite is not fatal to deer but they play havoc to moose.

This year I chose all my sits to hunt with favorable wind, didn't wander around all over the place to hunt, and completely stayed out of my property starting early October so as not to leave any human scent throughout the woods (no more doing weekly trail cam checks, etc). Sample size of 1 year, but it was night and day how many deer I saw this year versus previous years.

Tough to do obviously if you don't have full control of a piece of private land, but it was pretty interesting what having a low pressure area in a sea of high pressure areas does. Just some food for thought.

Hunted on private land in WMU 60 for a few days during both weeks of the rifle season.
Saw zero deer myself, and my hunting friends also saw none.
A few deer were only showing up at night to pose in front of cameras.
After that one friend managed a young buck during archery season, and that was our singular harvest for 2020.
As of January we are seeing a bunch of deer hanging around - and laughing at us - as they enjoy all the nice food that we serve them! ;D

Here are my quick stats for the 2020 deer season.
I hunt a family farm in 64A with high deer density and some property close to home that I have gained permission on in 68B that is lower deer density farm country.
My goal going into the season was to hunt around home more often than usual partly because I have a young family at home and also because despite the lower deer numbers the bucks around home seem to grow a lot bigger headgear.
64A - hunted 7 days (3 during rifle season and 4 during bow season) and saw 56 deer. This includes deer I saw on my walk out from stands (just after dark). I had one encounter with a shooter buck at about 50 yards on my first bow hunt of the year and didn’t see another buck bigger than a spike the rest of the season.
68B - I hunted 17 days (3 during gun season, 4 during muzzleloader, and the rest during bow season) and saw 30 deer. I was after one specific buck (but would’ve gladly taken any 3.5+ yr old) and saw him once at 200 yards during muzzleloader season.
Overall it was a good season despite not filling my tag. The last 2 years I had actually seen more deer and more bucks but also spend a lot more time hunting in 64A. Luckily I got a moose in Sept so was still able to fill the freezer.

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Originally Posted by Sam Menard

Usually deer thrive and moose populations drop due brain worm. The parasite is not fatal to deer but they play havoc to moose.

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I can tell you up my way there are always deer and Moose on the same range and its been that way for at least 25 years, no big numbers of each but both always there.

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Originally Posted by Gilroy

I can tell you up my way there are always deer and Moose on the same range and its been that way for at least 25 years, no big numbers of each but both always there.

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Brain worm may not be an issue. It’s not in the western provinces. An intermediate host of the brain worm are snails.