2022 Deer Season

Well not a bad season for me. Ended up with 2 bucks and tagged a doe this morning. 132 lb six , 107 lb fork , and a 100 lb doe. Plenty of venison after a freezer mishap lost about 40 lbs.
Sorry to hear about the mishap, that happened to me years ago with my basement freezer. It still haunts me to this day.
 
@RDG Any luck? At least you have a few really nice bluebird days to end the season.

Bob

I got he ML sighted in the week before XMAS so I was able to hunt quite a few days. We saw a few deers but nothing with antlers and nothing we could take a shot at.
My son and I still had a good time and now he's already making plans to hunt the youth deer hunt.

Guess it's back to chasing leftover phez/cottontails and some late season geese in CT with the dog
 
I got he ML sighted in the week before XMAS so I was able to hunt quite a few days. We saw a few deers but nothing with antlers and nothing we could take a shot at.
My son and I still had a good time and now he's already making plans to hunt the youth deer hunt.

Guess it's back to chasing leftover phez/cottontails and some late season geese in CT with the dog

Awesome, There is nothing like father son hunts.
 
Was sick a lot of the season this year. Was supposed to go to PA and never made it.

Shot one 125# 5 pt buck in archery. Saw a few does early on and let them walk.

Shotgun, saw zero deer after hunting hard a few days. Everything seemed noctournal on the cam. Didn't end up hunting muzzleloader but could have.........

Some guys in the area shot some nice bucks during shotgun this year from what I see from the Barre Sportsmans club sportsmans news.
 
Was sick a lot of the season this year. Was supposed to go to PA and never made it.

Shot one 125# 5 pt buck in archery. Saw a few does early on and let them walk.

Shotgun, saw zero deer after hunting hard a few days. Everything seemed noctournal on the cam. Didn't end up hunting muzzleloader but could have.........

Some guys in the area shot some nice bucks during shotgun this year from what I see from the Barre Sportsmans club sportsmans news.

So I’m trying to reconcile this. Zone 10/11 had unlimited ADP so they are signaling over population. But I keep reading how slow it was. I feel like I hunted pretty hard as well and really didn’t see much. My theory is the deer are just smart enough to tuck up into residential areas and avoid public land? It just seems hard to reconcile unlimited ADP with hunters saying it seemed slow.
 
So I’m trying to reconcile this. Zone 10/11 had unlimited ADP so they are signaling over population. But I keep reading how slow it was. I feel like I hunted pretty hard as well and really didn’t see much. My theory is the deer are just smart enough to tuck up into residential areas and avoid public land? It just seems hard to reconcile unlimited ADP with hunters saying it seemed slow.
I heard the acorn crop was bad this year. They may have had an impact. It's just harder to hunt when there aren't a lot of acorn dropping.
 
So I’m trying to reconcile this. Zone 10/11 had unlimited ADP so they are signaling over population. But I keep reading how slow it was. I feel like I hunted pretty hard as well and really didn’t see much. My theory is the deer are just smart enough to tuck up into residential areas and avoid public land? It just seems hard to reconcile unlimited ADP with hunters saying it seemed slow.
Like @peterk123 said this was the worst acorn mast year that I can remember.

Unlike Massachusetts, Connecticut actually surveys this kind of stuff including using small aircraft and FLIR units to do deer population surveys.

Connecticut considered this year a failed acorn mast year You can find the report here if you are interested : https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/CAES/.../2022/CAES-Press-Release-Oak-Mast-9-23-22.pdf

Hunters are slow to react to the changes in deer behavior and feeding habits. A lot of hunters were still hunting the acorn flats and spots that they always hunted and there were no deer there because the food wasn’t there.

How many times did you hear hunters say “Where the hell are the deer?” BTW, if you ask them about seeing squirrels they would say the same thing. The answer is the same. Find the food and you will find the critters that feed on it. Their life depends on it.

One thing I always do when I harvest a deer, after I have completed field dressing it, is to cut open the rumen to see what they are actually eating. It is really amazing what you will find in there. There have been times that the rumen was literally like a bag of marbles it was so full of acorns, other times it has been full of grass from chowing down on peoples lawns.

Deer are browsers so their rumens are usually contain an assortment of food items but there is usually a prominent food item there.

Whatever the hot food source is hunt it and hunt it right away. The hot food source can change overnight which changes the deer patterns just as quickly.

Fortunately, it has been a pretty easy winter for them so far. Hopefully it continues.

Bob
 
So I’m trying to reconcile this. Zone 10/11 had unlimited ADP so they are signaling over population. But I keep reading how slow it was. I feel like I hunted pretty hard as well and really didn’t see much. My theory is the deer are just smart enough to tuck up into residential areas and avoid public land? It just seems hard to reconcile unlimited ADP with hunters saying it seemed slow.
Deer definately react to pressure in those zones by going to places people can't hunt them. However, please note that our Fish and Wildlife division is heavily influenced by insurance companies to keep the deer population to almost nothing. They do not manage for hunters and quality hunting.

Drive around other states like NY, PA, CT and almost anywhere south of here and you'll see deer just driving around. In my area, I rarely if ever see a deer in a field or on the roadway.
We have a pretty low deer population and quality in MA in the Central/Western part of the state, and realistically should have zero doe permits given out. But the state wants quality low and deer numbers low.....so they give out permits to maintain that even though the hunting generally sucks here unless you put in gobs of time and effort. The hunters that do well out here are experienced, retired and have time, and generally take their bucks with a gun 90% of the time. A lot of time during pushes with lots of people. Even then, those same hunters are not shooting a quality buck every year........they shoot one once every 5 years maybe with a huge effort in time and patience. I know guys that go out every day around here and do not shoot deer.

In the eastern part of the state, there will be honey holes, and since there is a fair amount of unhuntable land in some towns the sanctuary that provides will provide decent hunting if you can access it. However, realize, when you start banging away heavy at does, that one deer you take out, just took out 3 for next years herd. It doesn't take long to decimate a honey hole if there isn't quality sancturary around it.
 
Deer definately react to pressure in those zones by going to places people can't hunt them. However, please note that our Fish and Wildlife division is heavily influenced by insurance companies to keep the deer population to almost nothing. They do not manage for hunters and quality hunting.

Drive around other states like NY, PA, CT and almost anywhere south of here and you'll see deer just driving around. In my area, I rarely if ever see a deer in a field or on the roadway.
We have a pretty low deer population and quality in MA in the Central/Western part of the state, and realistically should have zero doe permits given out. But the state wants quality low and deer numbers low.....so they give out permits to maintain that even though the hunting generally sucks here unless you put in gobs of time and effort. The hunters that do well out here are experienced, retired and have time, and generally take their bucks with a gun 90% of the time. A lot of time during pushes with lots of people. Even then, those same hunters are not shooting a quality buck every year........they shoot one once every 5 years maybe with a huge effort in time and patience. I know guys that go out every day around here and do not shoot deer.

In the eastern part of the state, there will be honey holes, and since there is a fair amount of unhuntable land in some towns the sanctuary that provides will provide decent hunting if you can access it. However, realize, when you start banging away heavy at does, that one deer you take out, just took out 3 for next years herd. It doesn't take long to decimate a honey hole if there isn't quality sancturary around it.
Interesting. So when 11 and 10 have unlimited adp it doesn’t necessarily mean overpopulated, might be more like, starting to be a healthy population but not in the eyes of insurance companies.

Should I be thinking about out of state hunting trips for next year? I started scouting my local woods yesterday and was pretty excited to see some sign and stuff close to home.
 
Interesting. So when 11 and 10 have unlimited adp it doesn’t necessarily mean overpopulated, might be more like, starting to be a healthy population but not in the eyes of insurance companies.

Should I be thinking about out of state hunting trips for next year? I started scouting my local woods yesterday and was pretty excited to see some sign and stuff close to home.
Deer will be overpopulated in towns and spots that you cant hunt them in Zone 10/11. Where you can hunt, .....the hunting won't be so pretty. If you put your time into some door knocking and find private land in these towns (if they allow hunting) you'll get some good hunting I'm sure. The large amount of unhuntable land will keep deer hunting good in the spots that have sanctuary. Where you can hunt in those towns, the large amount of doe permits will have those spots destroyed rather quick.

Where I live in zone 5/8, walk on hunting is available on thousands of acres. But the deer know the drill and are very noctorunal and are deep big woods creatures. You won't find them right off the road or in little patches unless those little patches are posted. Only in shotgun season do they see enough pressure to be pushed around a little bit. Otherwise they find a nice comfy spot and hang there until food is exhausted most of the year. They get heavy predation by coyotes, bears, fisher cats, and bobcats.........and the woods is more mature, and less sustaining.
And I'll argue there are groups that do drives out here in shotgun season that shoot does with unlimited permits from zone 10 and the like that ruin the herd as well. The state does not take into account the predation and tag trading losses that go on out here. Continually the hunting tends to get worse year to year, we've been blessed with easy winters for the last few, which should have had the population skyrocket, but it hasn't.

Like any area that has a low population, the deer will be bigger and there will be some nice bucks taken.
 
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I'm down in zone 12, don't know the area enough to have a sense of hunting pressure/crowdedness down here. I'm trying to work out if it makes more sense for me to just learn the areas local to me, versus making the drive to learn bigger areas like Forbes Swamp up in middleboro or Myles standish or something like that. Sounds like I'd be best suited trying to get permission for private land around here. I guess the whole "unposted is fair game" thing is not exactly true to hunting etiquette. I was figuring on using public access to walk in and "not posted is not posted" but the more I read the more I get the feeling it isn't a welcomed habit
 
I'm down in zone 12, don't know the area enough to have a sense of hunting pressure/crowdedness down here. I'm trying to work out if it makes more sense for me to just learn the areas local to me, versus making the drive to learn bigger areas like Forbes Swamp up in middleboro or Myles standish or something like that. Sounds like I'd be best suited trying to get permission for private land around here. I guess the whole "unposted is fair game" thing is not exactly true to hunting etiquette. I was figuring on using public access to walk in and "not posted is not posted" but the more I read the more I get the feeling it isn't a welcomed habit

Now is the time to start scouting and planing for next season. Once the spring green up hits it is a lot harder to see the sign.

knocking on doors is great but you will normally get a lot on ”no’s” before you get a yes so don’t get discouraged.
 
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No acorns was the reason I moved my stand closer to the swamp ( half way threw the season ) in my hunting area. I found a lot of tracks and signs closer towards the swamp and for the few guys that hunt the area no one goes down by the swamp as its a harder drag out.
 
No acorns was the reason I moved my stand closer to the swamp ( half way threw the season ) in my hunting area. I found a lot of tracks and signs closer towards the swamp and for the few guys that hunt the area no one goes down by the swamp as its a harder drag out.

Plus they like to eat the red bush buds. The majority of hunters don’t think beyond agriculture and the mast crops when there is so much more to consider.
 
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