You hit the nail on the head Chuck!
Back at the family farm in WI, seeing a deer in the 70's made the newspapper. In the 80's you would see 20-30 a day.
Bring on the 90's and population was more healthy and so were deer racks.
2000's come on Chronic wasting and deer eradication. (Not to mention some of the largest bucks ever seen before)but very, very few deer.
The population is recovering a bit.
When I moved to Upstate NY, I can drive an hour in any direction and have decent deer populations.
Go into the Adirondacks and well, lets just say I have yet to see a hunted deer there in 4 years.
Its amazing how populations can change in any given area! Like you said chuck, it depends on food, habitat and liberal tags issued to hunters.