Where did they go ?

[Pine]

Been getting very good trail cam pictures for the past two months .
I haven't got a single picture for the past two weeks .
No deer sign at all .
No scat , no rubs , no tracks ....    
It's very baffling , I've been hunting this land for three years and always at least seen fresh tracks .

ACORNS!!!!!!

Bisch

[Pine]

Acorns are all over the ground where I'm at .

[Shadowhnter]

Graps, how often you been checking the cam?

[johnnyk71]

Originally posted by Shadowhnter:
Graps, how often you been checking the cam?

Either that, or find out what your neighbors are feeding, haha!

[Pine]

Check the camera every two weeks .

[fnshtr]

Same here. They have acorns dropping. They are sticking close to them.

[Cyclic-Rivers]

Hunting season has started, I would suspect the neighbors have a feeder somewhere and now that there is pressure and a  consistent food source, they are pretty much nocturnal.

[Friend]

Deer movement may be predicated upon food sources, crop rotations as well as other factors.

Last season, my hidden 3/4 acre forage oats field next to the internal sanctuary was lush and hot throughout the entire season. Hunted the 8" lush field for the first time this season last weekend. Deer started to mob the foodplot an hour earlier than last season and entered the field from different directions than the previous year.

Visited the forage oats field yesterday and was caught by surprise. The deer had cropped the complete field to the dirt.

[Shadowhnter]

Im not saying it cant be a rich food source pulling them elsewhere, it happens. But the man did say he's hunted it for 3 years straight and has always had at least some track and sign, plus he has acorns right there where they have previously been hitting them. He is now experiencing a complete ghost town of notta, nothing, zero, not even a single track. That all makes me doubt the validity of that thought.

Is this the first year you ran that camera there?

Graps, im not going to candy coat this, knowing you, I believe you like it straight so here goes.  If you think about it, you've been running that camera quite a while now. At every two weeks checking, I would consider that an aggressive invasion if I were a deer. Ive seen it before. In wild core areas, if continued human presance persist, they will vacate that area. Its a pattern, of seeing lots of deer at first, then deminishing as time  goes and recurring human visits persist, until the point that no deer sightings plauge you. I dont know how often you've checked for sign, but in order to know how much track and sign was there or not, you had to walk out where the deer have been traveling. That too, compounds the same effect. If this is indeed whats going on as I suspect, they wont recover for a while even if you completely quit visiting that spot. May be worth while again in a month or so, if you leave, and dont go back at all until then, and then only to hunt. You may be able to find a spot up or down trail a ways if they arent skirting you to widely where activity is still going on. Just my $.02 worth, sorry its so grim.

[K.S.TRAPPER]

I had a cam on one of my favorite spots at a pinch point in September and was getting on average 300 picks a day (24hrs) then boom 7 picks total. Next check 3, but I knew acorns were falling crops were getting harvested and they just changed there travel pattern even the turkeys weren't coming through.

I didn't worry this ridge is always good in October so I pulled the cam didn't go tramping around and let it sit. Hunted my stand there yesterday and had deer everywhere, took tons of video saw at least 15 deer, turkeys were roosted near by and had a great morning. It will get better there just off somewhere else were the food is better or the acorns taste better.

I pretty much move all my cams to scrapes from here thru the rest of the season but I'm chasing big bucks. The does are already hitting the scrapes and marking them around here so don't think you won't get both.

 

 

Hope this helps some.

Tracy