EHD this year?

[CuppedAndCommitted]

Ya'll look out now. The MDC will start limiting where you kill deer, because of the reduced population. Pretty soon you'll find yourself at a CA at 5:00am waiting to draw a pill to see if you can hunt.

[Warmouth]

In '98 it hit Kirksville area, and there was a big effect. Deer sightings were down 30-40% easily.

That is where the blame was put anyway. The year before that during the first weekend of gun season, 26 deer were killed on that farm.

[Two Tall the Neanderthal]

To further this topic, I?ve noticed a drastic decrease in deer numbers at a farm I?ve hunted for 10 years in Ray county.

This year I?ve seen one doe from my treestand and 2 small bucks. Fresh deer tracks are scarce. Still a decent number of scrapes, but it doesn?t take many bucks to do that.

Hunting pressure is far less than what previous years have been. I?m at a loss.

No signs of dead deer, but not much sign of deer at all.

In late august my father was glassing over 20 does and a dozen bucks using one beanfield. They?ve vanished. I understand that they break up, but this is nothing like I?ve ever experience on this farm and the neighbors place.

[JimDog]

Last night I hunted my honey hole for the first time this year. I placed a stand there at the end of August, and had not been back since. And I don't know of anyone else who has been back in there since then either. Last night with a light wind out of the south, I thought I would give it a shot, since it is a stand location that favors a southerly breeze.

I saw 6 deer - all does. Last year, a week before gun season with the conditions what they were yesterday, I would have seen 40 deer easily. There is definitely something going on - no doubt about it. I just don't know what it is. I've seen no dead deer. I know that the unlimited doe tags have had an impact - but I refuse to attribute more then maybe a 10 - 20% decline to hunting. I know that when I hunted the area in January, after all of the gun hunting was over, I was still seeing a lot of deer back there. So unless they were poached after the season - hunting just can't be to blame. I wish the conservation department would offer up some insight - they have to know what's up.

[TobyfromMO]

I attribute it to the increasing Mountain Lion population.