Sssssssshhhhhhh…quiet…here comes the deer — season
Just a heads up,
I am working on a story for the Saturday Outdoors/Recreation section on the upcoming deer season. So far in my interviews, I have heard that numbers are down this year.
- Joshua Russo
(Geez, I didn’t see Josh there in his camouflage. He means the outdoors-recreation section of the, uh, paper news product - long known as the Rapid City Journal. On a personal anecdotal level, I’ve seen a significant reduction of deer in the meadows between here and Highway 385 along Rimrock Highway this year from 2008. K.W.)
October 30th, 2009 at 11:02 am
The overall poulation out here is about the same as years past. The differnece is that hunters have been targeting does for the last 6-7 years. We now have a mix of 50-50 does/bucks with some growing to HOLY MACKERAL size.
October 30th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
There is no significant reduction of adult deer on hwy 44 west. My yard is full of them all day and night. I also dodge them on the highway every morning and evening. However, there is a significant reduction of fawns in the area. Most does that had fawns only had one. Other years twins were the rule.
jt: Thanks. Anecdotal information is just that, hardly a scientific survey. It might just be timing. Maybe I just missed them. And there’s still plenty of deer along Rimrock Highway. What I haven’t seen this year are the herds of 50 or more that I saw last year and the year before virtually every time I went up to the basin or Rochford or Silver City fishing. They were always scattered across four or five big meadows between town and 385, a total of 300 deer at least, I’d guess. This year, I’m been more likely to see a total of 40 or 50 on that same drive. K.W.
October 30th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Cecil, I wish you could convince my neighbors and their hunters that doing as you have, does exactly what you say it did. I tried for several years to keep the hunters shooting does and saw bigger bucks, only to have the neighbors hunters shoot them. Now, anyone wants a buck on my place, shoot him! I am tired of trying to help the trophy deal out. Matter of fact I am at the point of thinking maybe I need to get hunters in and take out every buck we can find!
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:11 pm
I’ve heard, too, from friends around the hills that numbers are down. I’m don’t believe that to be the case, though. I do see deer - loads of deer - in places I usually don’t see them. Since we’ve had a couple years of basement-flooding rain and tree-breaking snows, we’ve had feed and water where I usually don’t see it either. Deer need just a few things - food, water, and shelter. No need to wander down to the coziness of homes in and around RC where residents put out the feed bag every evening. They have all they need up here in God’s Country. If the warm and dry weather continues this winter and we aren’t burried by Thanksgiving, they just might stick around longer and avoid migrating down hill. So, don’t look for deer where they “always are.” Look for them where the got what they need. And, yeah, there are some real dandies out there. So, if you don’t want to travel more than five minutes from RC, that’s fine with me!
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:13 pm
redennis, I feel your pain, brother. Don’t give up yet. You’re doing the right thing!
November 5th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
I’ve said before that Black Hills Deer are seasonally migratory. They tend to move off of summer range beginning as early as late August but normally it’s mid to late September before the movement starts in earnest. By early October, most years, deer from the limestone plateau and points north and west have already re-established themselves on their winter ranges closer to the eastern foot hills of the Black Hills. Certainly, there are a few “resident” deer that remain in the high country for a longer period of time but the vast majority move in September and once again in late April/May. Winter home range size is a bit over 1 square mile and summer home range size is something less than 1 square mile. It would not be uncommon for the animals to return to transition ranges in between summer and winter range in the Black Hills if the weather cooperates. Average reproduction/recruitment ranges between 75-90 fawns per 100 does. Twins are not the norm in the Black Hills as they are elsewhere in SD where the feed is better and more consistent.
I visited with a WCO earlier in the week and he stated emphatically that we have far fewer deer in the Black Hills than we had as little as two years ago and there are very few animals left in the high country. For those folks who continue to see about the same number of deer around or near their homes and haunts, it is likely that those animals have escaped the heavy public land hunting pressure experienced in most popular hunting areas in the Black Hills. According to the GFP folks I’ve visited with, unlimited antlerless youth deer, antlerless muzzleloader deer, antlerless archery deer and few restrictions on the number of licenses a person can have, has taken a huge toll on deer populations on public lands while leaving private land deer herds mostly untouched. The WCO I visited with told me about one family living in the Black Hills that included a father, son and mother, currently possessed over 80 deer tags in numerous areas of the state. It is not unheard of, and actually pretty convenient, to shoot deer out one’s back door and apply an east river antlerless whitetail tag to it. Pretty difficult to prove the animal wasn’t taken east river if one can even learn of the infraction in the first place.
I’ve been doing quite a bit of poking around in the woods in favorite spots looking for a suitable site to put up a tree stand for a December archery hunt as well as prepare for a late season rifle hunt and I will confirm that I am not seeing half the number of animals I saw two years ago when I hunted with a rifle and my trail cameras have been almost inactive on customarily heavily traveled deer trails. Yup there are deer in peoples yards and along suburban highways but they aren’t there in usual public land hunting areas, largely due to being overshot the past three years.