Anthrax wipes deer out. Happens naturally.

We have never enjoyed much of a deer population here in Washington. Nor elk. Our climate, lack of mast crops, and other factors contribute to our notable lack of ungulates in general. Even Lewis and Clarke made note of this situation after they crossed the Snake River, putting the expedition on starvation rations at one point for a lack of game.

As a hunter, this lack of game in my home state has made things rather inconvenient. I've pretty much given up on hunting my own state, choosing instead to travel to where the rest of you folks are having problems with them. Our general deer seasons are only two weeks long, elk maybe ten days. Our hunter success runs at about 20% on deer and 8% on elk. We only get one each per year. I've hunted other states where the seasons run three months or more, and the limit is more like our fishing limits - seven deer per day, for a three month season, is the most generous I can recall. That is simply unfathomable here in Washington. But, I guess they are a "real and present danger" elsewhere. Just not here.

In MI, our limit is 10 deer per hunter, I believe.
Even with that many, the population seems to increase every year.

My yard has deer tracks in the snow over every part of it and any arborvitae is stripped up to 6 or 7 feet up. I noticed yesterday, tracks all around the cars in the drive.

Deer have simply defoliated the woods behind my house over the past few years. They jump my back fence too and I've seen them sampling leaves from trees in my front yard before. Rarely see bucks, but their mates and offspring live in those woods ... here in the suburbs. I live in an urban county now (was my rural boy scout camp back then), and they were never seen here years ago. Now estimated to be 1 deer per square mile and they are out and about 24 x 7, all year long, not just at dawn & dusk, or during rut anymore. Cars kill a bunch and hunting doesn't happen in this area any more. My buddy used to have a house outside of Richmond ... lots of woods, etc. He HAD a patch of ivy covering most of his front lawn. A doe and her fawn would visit the ivy buffet at 5 pm most days and casually eat while cars passed by just a few feet away.

You need to use CAT5 cables and connectors to that dish for best performance!

I'm amazed when we visit fam in SW and NW Michigan that, especially in the boundary areas between fields and woods there isn't a single leaf below 6'. It's as if you had an upside down lawnmower...

I love to see the resurgence of the wild turkeys - we sure never saw them much in the '80s as a kid even in the TC-Petoskey corridor. The deer? Not so much. I don't like the destruction of people's plants or windscreens.

My nearest family never hunted so I wasn't really brought up with it. I do however know which is the pointy end of a rifle (OK scattergun for you southerners) and I'd take it up if I were there. Not sure about the "official" food safety guidelines but that lean venison would make for some awesome slabs of cured things like Bambi-bresoloa. Heck, I bet Corned Bambi would be tasty as well, and fully cooked.

Last day of the Season in Ohio today. Gonna be in my stand this afternoon if it doesn't get too windy. Wind is coming from the southeast which helps me in virtually every stand I have in the woods.
They herd up this time of year. Last few times I've been in my stand I've watched a herd of twenty go right around me about 75 yards away.

With growing up in northern Wisconsin during my first years, I was no stranger to hunting. I was just 3 years old when this photo was taken and I remember having to pose for it. A fresh deer carcass has a very distinct smell to it. I still flash back to that event whenever I smell it.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1644157392.jpg

^^^ Nice pic...I remember my father having pics from UP MI deer hunting camps.
Rows of bucks hanging.
They look large in your pic.

Slap one of those suckers in the back of your Subaru wagon and drive 40 miles home with it. Yeah that'll never happen again.

BTW.. I'm planning another trip up to Manistee the second weekend in March. I think we're running I75 up then cutting over to Clare to grab some fishing supplies. I might try to link up when we're on our way back down south.

That was in our garage. I think they put me way up on the step ladder next to them for size perspective. Those big Wisconsin white tails seemed much larger that the little ones down here in Texas. Even if I was a little tyke back then and everything seemed much bigger.

Cool...just give me a call. Clare and Evart are both on the Pere Marquette bike trail.
I've taken that a few times.
It links with the White Pine that goes from Grand Rapids to Cadillac.

from Evart, MI

It's a shortened version. The full length one tells how they included their friends, relatives, and neighbors in the 'plan'. They almost all ended up millionaires before the state fixed the problem with the lottery game.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PYfGXUQUnfY" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

WT^F Dude... Why don't you like Bambi? lol ;)

HA!

I will admit, in my innocent yoot, I bawled like a baby when I watched Bambi. That despicable piece of propaganda stuck with me for years. It tainted my whole life until I saw the light.

An epiphany!

Steve,

You want me to move the post?

Neat story!

^^^ Nah...it's fine with me there.
The story is three years old now...I'm doubting they make it into a movie. (I wish they would)

My brother is a avid deer hunter in Alabama. Alabama has more deer than humans. Their "limit" is one of each sex in possession, per day. It is however 100% legal to go out, get a buck and a doe, field dress them, get back to civilization and drop off the carcass at the meat processing guys, and go out and harvest one of each again on the same day.

My brothers record is 18 in one year. Mostly with bow and arrow. He does use primitive arms on the days when that is all that is allowed. And their season is long.

My sister, who moved to SC a few years back, asked one of the locals why she never sees adult deer.
They told her that she was seeing adult deer...they never get any bigger.

About half the size of northern deer...they don't do near the car damage.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1644255369.JPG

These are "Key Deer" that live only on a few of the Florida Keys. They are little tiny deer. Not much to eat on the keys, and surviving a hurricane must be a real challenge for them. They are all federally protected, so no hunting them. They are pretty tame as humans are no threat, and often a source for food. We threw out a banana peel and it was gobbled right up.

Alabama seems reasonable and on the right track. But I’m wondering why Alabama isn’t more aggressive in ‘culling the herd’?

I’d offer a bounty on the beasts.

There are lots of backyard deer processing places around here. But even with that and the fees..buying beef or pork from the store is close to the same price.

Weird, I was in Seattle in 2000. We had no work to do one day, and decided to drive to Mt Ranier since we had seen it from the space needle on another day. We got to Rainier and then drove to Mt St Helens and then back. I saw what seemed like tons of deer in that drive that day. I think it was 10-12 hours of driving. I probably saw 30-50 deer from the road that day.

My per pound cost for venison with processing is cheaper than any beef I buy... until I add in jerkey, snack sticks, summer sausage.

There are always more than 50 deer in just one particular field near me. I was talking with a friend about the deer population and resultant damage just a couple of them can do. 'A couple!, he says, Jump in the truck. So we're driving down a two lane blacktop in farm country and he stops. 'What?', I ask. He points to the tree line on the far edge of an 80A field. 'What?' I ask again.

What I thought was a stand of undergrowth and brush in the trees was actually a solid line of deer. At least 50. Now the interesting thing to me was that he was totally confident that on that random day he knew exactly where a gigantic herd of deer was loitering at dusk.

When you stop at Jay's in Clare, check out their venison seasonings. They may not still carry as much but you never know, they might. Worth a glance.

Thanks for the tip! I was going over their website and it looks like they do offer a lot of different seasonings. I didn't even know what Jays was till I drove out of my way from Grand Rapids to Clare and then to Manistee to help my friend out. He called and said he bought some lures in Clare. I said "we go by there on the way up!" not knowing it was to the east of me... so I went and upicked up some lures for him. Would have done it knowing it was out of the way since the guy was taking me fishing on his boat. But having been to Jays now I'm "hooked" ;) The place really is impressive.

NC began to allow hunting on Sundays a few years ago .... them heathens are gonna burn in hell :D. My uncle told me it was lobbied through by the Insurance biz ... I think there were like 200,000 auto damage claims here annually from deer hits before that.

Disease is gonna have to cull the herds here.... and it will.

We can only hope, KC.

I helped pass the high fence bill in Texas, 1997. They like to raise (grow) deer in Texas, but the reasoning behind the fence law was to keep the predators out. Lol.

I haven't pulled the trigger on anything in almost 20 years.

One of my local friends is a retired federal judge. He sold his house and some land in Santa Monica and a lifetime membership to a golf course he got from selling some land to the golf course to use for the course. He moved back home to Oklahoma, and bought a square mile of land in eastern Oklahoma county with the proceeds. It is his nature preserve, and he has hundreds of no trespassing, no hunting signs all along the fence at the property line. On a regular basis he catches people on his land, and he confiscates all their gear, everything, and escorts them to the fence line and tells them to call the police if they have any questions or complaints. When they return expecting to get their equipment the police are there to write them a trespassing ticket, and give the equipment to the Oklahoma wildlife department as punishment for illegal hunting on posted property. If they were poaching out of season they are often handcuffed and taken to jail.

He sets up in blinds, and takes pictures of the wildlife. His property, his rules. Their house is almost in the middle of the property, so he is surrounded by the trees and wildlife. He has entire families of deer named and can recognize them as individuals. He has a pair of bald eagles, and lots of wild birds, turkeys and every critter imaginable.

Sounds perfect!

I was hoping some might find warmth on my grill but alas, Feb 6 came and went and the deer didn't cooperate :(

It will kill you if you create your own preserve. My former employer did it, high fenced, turkey, quail, deer. Too much. He died in December 2021.

There's a guy about 10 miles from me that has hundreds of deer he raises on about a square mile. Probably 10 different fenced areas as to age. He's been doing this for prob 20 years.
He has a portion of the land that he puts the trophy bucks. He then sells the rights to hunters to shoot one.
The racks are incredible.
He makes out real well. He told me once how much hunters pay for a trophy....it was in the thousands for each.

People doing that aren't "hunters"

^^^ That's true...but he recognized the need for an easy trophy kill.
The guys that want one, prob throw the meat away.

Canned hunt. Not for me, but some people will pay.

Yeah sadly there's a need to be filled with people just looking for a trophy. Some consider me a "trophy" hunter. I let bucks walk that aren't bigger than what I've got on the wall already. This year is the first and last season that I harvested a buck with a smaller rack than any of the three largest I have on the wall. I was part of a "biggest buck" contest that I wish I hadn't entered. In a normal year I would have let the one I harvested walk and took a doe.

I'm generally not a 'trophy hunter' either.

That's the last concern I have when those da** red squirrels run across my yard with a walnut in their mouth. (although the large ones are easier to hit)

I found a few of the nuts on top of the engine of my Fit. :mad:

Trophy Squirrel....
https://i.etsystatic.com/7321322/r/i...10048_cfwp.jpg