While I readily lament few sightings myself...here's what else I've learned by careful observation hunting highly pressured areas of public access.
1) I see no deer and don't get busted or blow them out on my way in or way out.
2) I find fresh rubs and scrapes made overnight,in the same area I hunted yesterday and left at dark..and now find them in the dark next AM going back in.
What I've come to believe (can't prove, but logic suggests) is that our local deer have become more sensitive to hunter activity. They've learned to pattern us better'n we pattern them!
We used to see tons of does circle around us all day long...knew we were there, but while keeping a watchful eye, we'd see the same group/groups of does cycle by us repeatedly during the day if we stayed relatively motionless. It was entertaining. We weren't a threat and they tolerated our presence.
NOTE: In PA back then we only shot at does a few days per year...And while we'd see bucks scouting before season or spotlighting when legal, we saw darned few bucks when the hunters hit the woods.
Now I have to wonder if I'm seeing sign overnight regularly...and deer all around on the drive in along roads, but nothing during daylight...have we really dessimated the herd?
Or...or have WE now taught does that they are indeed "prey" and they, like the wily bucks, have changed THEIR behavior to allude us and have gone nocturnal?
If so, there is still "cause and effect" between the more liberal doe shooting ability and the does learning they're prey and making themselves scarce. Bucks continue to be ellusive as bucks always did...till the rut folks say...but not if there is more intense human pressure, then sign suggests breeding and chasing is happening at night! And perhaps "off property" where it's posted???
I still also contend that with the increasing "Patchwork" of available hunting..with so much "NO HUNTING" land interspersed within and among the areas we can hunt...we might just NOT be "encountering" deer during legal shooting times and because we can't see them, we assume they don't exist.
Of course, if you shoot more there are less...but now since we've been hammering more does, what does I do see are now towing behind them not a single yearling, or twins...but freakin TRIPLETS...
Nature abhors a vacuum so it tries to replenish the numbers where food is sufficient. I think that deer have changed their behaviors drastically and their haunts...along with the increased pressure...and we haven't.
Just my thoughts...but phantoms aren't making all the overnight sign I see from the SE to the Central parts where I hunt... yet no deer are seen by any of us sneaking in, staying all day, watching our scent...etc. Deer are there, but not when we are!
FWIW..