What are the deer densities where you hunt? It will be interesting to see the range of answers and the numbers in between.
Where I hunt in northeastern VT it is about 5-6 per square mile. It's tough hunting but I really enjoy the big woods experience and there is lots of public land and open timberlands.
It's 0 obviously!! :biglaugh:
I believe deer harvest is 15 per sq. mile...
I don't know what the published figures are, but I have been hunting deer since 1964. There are a lot fewer now than there were 10 years or so ago in the areas I hunt. It went from few deer to a seeming overabundance, and now down to a noticeable drop off.
Upstate N.Y. Adirondack and the foothills of them, it's poor. State says 3-4 deer per sq. mile and that includes .5 bucks. Yes that's 1/2 a buck. Now there are a "FEW" spots that prove those numbers wrong.......but darn few. When I hunted up North all the time there were many seasons where I never saw a deer, buck or doe. That's with bow, black powder and firearms....Sept. 27th to Dec. 3rd. Old growth forest does not make good food for a deer.
40+/mile in my county.
Indiana is 36K Sq Mi. We harvested 116K deer all methods. That's 3/sq mile, killed. A huge portion, 65%, is farmland. You have to extrapolate for yourself the deer per sq. mile, guessing at what % of deer were killed last year. Of course that doesn't include car-deer kills.
Total kill for all MO hunters was 3.79 deer per sq mile, so don't know how many there were to start with. Can't seem to find that.
On my areas that hold fewer deer we are working with 15 per square mile GA and WV. We work a few units here in NC with a solid minimum of 40 per square mile. We have a few counties with over 50 but haven't had time to hunt there.
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QuoteOriginally posted by Crittergetter:
It's 0 obviously!! :biglaugh:
Says the guy who's probably hunting in some of the highest deer densities in the US LOL
...all that being said, just because there's density doesn't mean they are easy to hunt
7.7 deer per square mile on Oklahoma. That's an average though in the western part of the state is more arid. I'd guess the eastern part of the state would be around 15 deer per square mile
QuoteOriginally posted by kennym:
Total kill for all MO hunters was 3.79 deer per sq mile, so don't know how many there were to start with. Can't seem to find that.
17.3 by the state average
usually our land we lease in sw ms is about at carrying capacity but this past year we only had a few. everybody around us was in the same boat. just one of those things I guess. we should be back to normal this fall. far as I know, MS still has more deer per sq mile than any other state.
In KY the goal for ag mixed habitat (mostly pasture and woods here) is about 24 deer/mile. In the mostly forested mountains of east KY it is about 15 deer/mile. The Farm Bureau would like 0/deer/mile but they don't rule my state agency. I cancelled my insurance with that company when I lived in Kansas.
My county has been above carrying capacity for at least 22 years (40+/mile since I've lived and managed here). We've had unlimited doe bags for all that time and more. The population hasn't changed.
Hemorrhagic disease occasionally does more reduction than hunters. Mine is entirely a private land county.
1.1 antlered bucks/ sq. mile harvested in my county last fall. For comparison, the counties where the huge population centers, Charlotte and Raleigh, are located, had well over 4 bucks/sq. mile harvested in 2016. Deer clearly prefer suburbs to mountain ridges.
Where I live and hunt it ranges between 15 and 30. No idea as to harvest rate.
I have always been happy with seeing deer one out of four times out. I guess that would be the deer density where I hunt. The hunters in my area setting over bait, I'm sure, would see more than that.
Somewhere between slim, and none.....
And if you don't know and want to check out this site.
http://www.i-maps.com/Qdma/frame/default1024_ie.asp?C=48449&LinkID=0&NID=0&cmd=map&TL=100000&GL=010100&MF=11000
2016 MS forecast:
"According to the Quality Deer Management Association's Deer Density Map, Mississippi has more deer per square mile than any other state in the nation. Most of the Magnolia State (especially the lower Delta, much of southwest Mississippi, the Black Prairie and several areas in northwest Mississippi) has a deer density greater than 45 deer per square mile. Only southeast Mississippi, along with a few other pockets around the state, fall into the deer density category of having less than 15 deer per square mile. "
I'm in one of the less than 15 per sq mi areas, but still was blessed to take two this past season :pray:
Read more: http://www.gameandfishmag.com/forecasts/mississippi-deer-hunting-forecast-2016/#ixzz4eSsNWGMw
Our general area has 30-40 per square mile.
QuoteOriginally posted by South MS Bowhunter:
2016 MS forecast:
"According to the Quality Deer Management Association's Deer Density Map, Mississippi has more deer per square mile than any other state in the nation. Most of the Magnolia State (especially the lower Delta, much of southwest Mississippi, the Black Prairie and several areas in northwest Mississippi) has a deer density greater than 45 deer per square mile. Only southeast Mississippi, along with a few other pockets around the state, fall into the deer density category of having less than 15 deer per square mile. "
I'm in one of the less than 15 per sq mi areas, but still was blessed to take two this past season :pray:
Read more: http://www.gameandfishmag.com/forecasts/mississippi-deer-hunting-forecast-2016/#ixzz4eSsNWGMw
saw 10 this past week. 6 this evenin feeding on kudzu. gonna be a good fall !!!
A lot!
I really have no idea of the average density per square mile here. It's pretty good though. Of course deer don't look at maps and try to stay evenly dispersed mile by square mile. Preferred habitat across regions, counties and individual properties will have higher concentrations. On my place in southeast Ohio it's fairly normal to see 10-25 deer out on a fine evening. That would seem to make the density about 200+ per square mile which is of course ridiculous to assume. Some properties hold few deer.
2 weeks ago a friend's wife hit and killed a deer on her way to work. The highway patrol arrived 15 minutes later. While writing up the collision report there was a screech of tires and a thump. Another deer dead to another driver. My friend saw the whole deal.
We've done work in the middle of town and come back to find deer tracks in the dirt next morning. ODOT puts up as many deer crossing signs as they do stop signs.
I'm going to say .001 pers square mile. :laughing:
In all seriousness I'm not really sure. I actually saw a decent amount of deer this year compared to years past, and I'll contribute that to the antler point restrictions. One thing that I've noticed though is that I've seen a lot less does than in past years. I think a lot of guys don't want to wait for a legal buck and are just shooting the first doe that they see.
Deer densities...poor.
NO HUNTING sign densities...off the chart.
According to the website BAK posted I'm in a "Greater than 45 per square mile" area.
Bisch
Noble County, Indiana is 417 Square miles. It is farm country and has 109 square miles of deer range. We harvested 2714 deer in 2016. The way I calculate it, we have a harvest density of 24.9 per sq. mile.
We have had several bad winters lately so our population is way down. This winter we lost maybe 20% again and I'm surprised any survived at all with the deep snow and cold. I'm sure reproduction will be down as does abort when they are extremely stressed in starvation .We had too many deer about 10 years ago natures way of taking care of things. I have no idea what the density per sq. mile would be things are so varied in ND the SE part of the state has hardly any deer and the central and Badlands have the most.
I havent seen recently published figures but I know that north of bangor it used to be .5-1/sq Mi. Much of the northwoods is spruce, pine and fur and is a heavy moose/deer overlap area. You dont see nearly half the deer you do in the southern part of the state but they are corkers if you do. I see more near the rivers when flyfishing so we are planning some float hunts in the future. Most of our "forestry protesters" have not clue how much good forestry practices improves the habitat for wildlife. back in the good old days of logging, the deer hunting was much better. In the southern part of the state where there is more agriculture, there are actually expanded hunting zones where you can get multiple tags if archery hunting. Hunting here is pretty good but the average age of alot of the deer is alot younger there...of course, Maine is the most heavily forested state in the union and even here...big bucks roam!
30-40 Northwest NJ
Deno
On Long island it is listed on the map posted 15-30 per square mile. In the woods I hunt I would guess closer to 15. In the housing developments where you can't hunt I would guess closer to 30. They know where the food and safety is. The only thing that has helped is the deer fences but people usually don't fence in their front yard so that's where they are.
No idea. I dont see nearly as many deer as 5-10 years ago. I used to watch 8+ deer in my alfalfa field (MN) mid-day during rifle season. Lately if I see three or four in a whole day I think that is pretty good.
Although two years ago, in ND I regularly had multiple deer within shooting distance each evening. Just not the right one. This past fall, I only saw one forkie all season, but i knew there was one nice one around.
We have deer that migrate. In places where we see few in July, we may see see 100 during migration. Hard to tell, and localized deer are what we hunt-even then they may not pattern like white tails. That's why they call it hunting
CA has an estimated "herd" of about 400k total. The entire state is about 170k square miles. That puts us at about 2-2.5 deer per square mile on average. Our mountain deer migrate but our coastal deer are mostly resident. So the averages aren't very informative.
Our buck ratios are totally out of whack at about 13-15 does per buck -- mostly due to our buck-only restrictions. Public land success rates are usually less than 10%. It has been said that if we had the success rates of other states, our entire herd would be wiped out in a year. Our local management objective is to maximize the number of recreational hunting days (more hunters hunting more days). I sense that this is another way of prioritizing tag revenues over population health.
Sometimes I question my skills as a hunter. But I have to consider the base rate of success out here.
The most recent figures for the county I hunt in West Virginia is 1.48 deer per square mile.
In our river bottoms perhaps about 50 deer per square mile or more. In the non woods areas away from the river less than one deer per mile. Two weeks after the deer season opens it is probably about 5 to zero on the public land, but the land adjacent to the public land, the numbers go up during hunting season. It is amazing how those deer no where the property lines are. Maybe, they can read the border signs.
One public land spot in KY had as high as 100 per square mile, and another public land that I love to hunt was 10 per square mile, and as I understand down from that now. It is 95% forested. I still intend to hunt it, and took a small deer there last year ,in spite of the bad numbers.
I quit looking for deer on the road day or night since moving to New Mexico. I've seen one road kill in 10 years. So I'm thinking one deer per 50 square miles.
The state park I hunted in for years has seen a huge drop off...don't know the numbers for sure but the sign was so scarce last season I don't know if I'll go back this season