I live and hunt deer in central Florida.

In the 2012/13 season, I killed 8 bucks on my various leases. I saw many big (for here) bucks. In 2013/14, I took fewer bucks and saw fewer. Same with 2014/15. Everyone I talk to in the same general area experienced the same thing. I didn't shoot too many. I have multiple leases. One is 27,000 acres. I took more than all the other members combined on that lease. In other words, the harvest over all was very low.

To totally eliminate over-harvest question, let me disclose that my neighborhood is crawling with deer. There is ZERO hunting. Guess what? I notice the same thing here. The bucks have disappeared the last 2 years.

Let me add one other thing that may or not be related. The fawns seem to be born later and later. Normally I see the first fawn in late March. The last 2 years they have shown up later and later. Just today, May 17th, I saw the first fawn of the year.

What do you experts make out of this? I am puzzled.

I don't know what could be happening in your area

My North Missouri lease is experiencing problems over the past 3 seasons because of die off caused by a combination of 3 different ailments

I doubt you are affected with any of them in Florida

I will be watching this thread closely to find out who the deer experts are

I'm definitely not in that group but hope yours and my deer population rebounds

Larry,
On the surface, both issues (lesser buck sightings and later and fewer fawns/fewer twins) both point to an unbalanced herd.
Likely too many Does, thus the bucks travel much less to find Does and thus less sightings. The Does go in the thick woods and are on lockdown with the fewer Bucks and you end up sighting lots of yearling deer and a few Does that are not, in fact, locked down.
Late fawns and fewer fawns also point to late breeding which would indicate an unbalanced herd as well as the Does didnt get covered in the first Estrous cycle.
To me, it sounds like your Buck/Doe ratio needs work based on this.

A lease that has 27000 acres deserves and can afford a biologist. My recommendation would be to contact your fish and wildlife people and ask the same question, you posed here and to recommend a consulting biologist,

I have the same predicament on my lease near Ft. Drum, Fla. I'm convinced that it comes down to, at least, 2 factors.

1) Constant land "improvement" by the land
owner ie. clearing and draining.
2) Coyote populations have exploded.

Don't know if disease is an issue, but we don't see signs of it.

I'm thinking your bucks are still there, they've just gone nocturnal, or moved to an area with less/no human interaction. As someone mentioned, a biologist, nightime spotlight survey would be interesting.

Spotlight surveys are very valuable...
Are you all running trail cams near feeding stations in mid/late Summer?

could also be the loss of consecutive fawn
crops 6-8 yrs ago.Probably from bad weather.
It shows up more readily in buck numbers I think
because there seems to be plenty of does present.
The loss of several annual "generations" leaves a hole in your buck numbers as your age classes mature.

Either that or herds of Burmese pythons

So many variables from one area/region to another, that there is no "One Size Fits All" manner to assess the real problems, even if there are real problems.

Many great comments/suggestions have been offered.

Game cams/trail cams are a great place to start. As another responder stated bucks can and will simply go nocturnal in their movement patters.

Another discussed Does hanging up in the brush with the bucks, I have been of the opinion for a few years now that the older bucks are the ones that find a little piece of habitat that provides food/cover/water, and simply wait for receptive does to move thru that area.

Another personal opinion of mine concerning white tails in America, concerning possible evolution/adaptation of white tails.

I have a theory that white tails may possibly be physiologically changing due to species numbers/food availability and changes in the environment, and at some point may be more like axis deer, in that bucks will be growing/shedding antlers and breeding year round and does will begin having fawns at any time during the year.

The rut/fawning cycles that everyone works under I believe will gradually change, but that is just a personal theory that really proves nothing.

On the properties my boss manages, hunters this year had many good bucks on their game cam pictures, but when season rolled around, most had simply disappeared.

One thing some here in Texas use in their arsenal for managing their hunting properties, are spot light surveys. Those have to be okayed by the GW's in the area, but after season and mid summer spotlight surveys can give an idea concerning deer numbers and movement.

Let me throw another oddity out there. On one of my leases, I have a feeder. I had a camera there for months. It has always been a primo location. I had a ton of deer on it including 2 shooter 12's. They were there every single day. Then boom, they were gone instantly. in the next 4 months a grand total of 6 does showed up on camera. What do you make of that?

quote:

Originally posted by larryshores:
Let me throw another oddity out there. On one of my leases, I have a feeder. I had a camera there for months. It has always been a primo location. I had a ton of deer on it including 2 shooter 12's. They were there every single day. Then boom, they were gone instantly. in the next 4 months a grand total of 6 does showed up on camera. What do you make of that?

I saw this exact situation this past season. Have no clue as to where they went or what happened to them.

Chupacabra

Thanks gentlemen.

There are some interesting comments. I buy some but not others. Remember that these issues are affecting a large area (from what I can tell, the entire region) one of which has ZERO hunting.

I have lived in my house for 15 years. There are tons of deer. One can often walk right by the deer, bucks included and they just stand there. There are no coyotes to speak of. They are under no pressure. I do not understand why their behavior would change.

My thoughts are as follows:

1- While all the properties are different, there is a single common thing that could have an impact. This is the weather. It has been too hot the last 2 seasons. There have also been bad winds, moon phase, etc.

2- One property is 7,500 acres that is high fenced. Before you all go crazy over this, let me say that it is 7,500 acres of the thickest, nastiest stuff you have ever seen. Seeing a shooter, much less killing one is not assured. In fact, I did not kill one there this year. They high fenced this to stop poaching and increase herd quality. They introduced genetically superior does that have been artificially inseminated as well as released some genetically superior bucks.

I think the problems are :

a- Too many members
b- Too many feeders
c- Poor acorn crop
d- Logging of selective areas at horrible times.
e- Some of the members are dumb asses who do stupid things like drive a 4 wheeler through every scrape on a scrape line.
f- Culls are not being shot.

3- The 27,000 acres gets relatively little pressure. I think the problems are:

a- too many hogs.
b- poor acorn crop.
c- There has been a lot of logging but I see deer in the logged areas within 1 hour of the loggers leaving.
d- I may have spent too much time trying to kill one buck.

4- The 1,700 acres gets little pressure except spring gobbler. There are only 3 members. I have personally hunted deer there 1 morning. Yet the other 2 see the same thing that I see elsewhere.

5- The area where I live is the most puzzling. It does seem to have the fawns substantially later than the other areas. There may well be an excessive numbers of does. I am willing to bet that more survive there than they do in truly wild places. It is clear that they are being bred later. Why would they disappear? We do have more bears than we used to. There is ZERO hunting. The deer are so tame that one can walk within a few feet of them and they just stand there.

6- There is another 600 acre piece but we only turkey hunt there. I never saw a fawn in spring gobbler.

I hope it is better this year.

quote:

Originally posted by larryshores:
Let me throw another oddity out there. On one of my leases, I have a feeder. I had a camera there for months. It has always been a primo location. I had a ton of deer on it including 2 shooter 12's. They were there every single day. Then boom, they were gone instantly. in the next 4 months a grand total of 6 does showed up on camera. What do you make of that?

When that happens to me, It is usually due to increased predator (mtn lion, coyote, bobcat, etc) or hog activity in the area.

Larry,
Are you sure that predators aren't the answer? Here we have an exploding coyote problem and too many lions. I haven't seen a fawn this year.
I kill any predator I see but you don't see them very often.

have you found any dead deer? we had a bad case of blue tongue a few years ago here. In a month period we found over 60 dead deer on differnt properties

We found no dead deer.

I do not think it is hogs. They would show up on the camera.

Predators other than bears rarely show up on camera. The 7,500 acres has an exploding bear population. We have seen more bears in my neighborhood in the last 2 years than we have seen in the prior 13 years.

Other than the area where I live, we do have coyotes. The coyotes get hammered on the 7,500 acres. We set snares on every hole under the fence. I do not see excessive coyote sign on the 27,000 acres. The workers shoot coyotes on sight.

Very strange to me.

Larry,

My recollection is that the rut becomes less organized/regular as you travel south on the Florida peninsula. This could partially explain the lack of fawn sightings during turkey season.

Tom

TWall:

You are correct. However, when fawns are seen in spring gobbler for over 30 years, I think something else has caused their absence. It may well be the hot weather.

They are Union deer and are on strike.

I would think the turkeys would be the first to go if you had a high number of predators.

Nature will manage wildlife populations through all manor of diseases. Your only way to get a real answer is to hire a qualified biologist. Speculation from the internet brain trust will lead wild guesses, not answers.

A couple of Buck pics from the past.

quote:

Originally posted by Poyntman:
Larry,
On the surface, both issues (lesser buck sightings and later and fewer fawns/fewer twins) both point to an unbalanced herd.
Likely too many Does, thus the bucks travel much less to find Does and thus less sightings. The Does go in the thick woods and are on lockdown with the fewer Bucks and you end up sighting lots of yearling deer and a few Does that are not, in fact, locked down.
Late fawns and fewer fawns also point to late breeding which would indicate an unbalanced herd as well as the Does didnt get covered in the first Estrous cycle.
To me, it sounds like your Buck/Doe ratio needs work based on this.

You need to shoot some does. When there isn't competition or does, you'll have a hell of a time seeing any bucks. In other words, they don't have to travel to get all the does they want, then they spend all night feeding. They are likely still there.

Here where I live the state is BIG.

We have urban areas, suburban areas and lots, and really lots, of woods and sparsely populated areas.

I have deer on my property every night. Over this winter they absolutely browsed most of my shrubs and bushes down to devastation. I thought most were goners. But fortunately most have actually sprouted and are recovering.

Up in the remote wooded areas, where there is big timber, and deep snows, 10 feet, the deer are sparse. Down in the suburban areas they are all over and proliferating. Specialty, licensed exterminators set up on back decks and shoot at night using lights.

Up in some areas, upstate, the locals tell me that they used to see the does with fawns crossing open areas regularly. Now they see does with no fawns. They hear the coyotes howling every night.

I read that you have a serious over population of coyotes. That's your primary problem. Look no further until you bring down their numbers and get things back into control and balance. Coyotes are exceptionally resilient, cunning, and very adept at survival.

Unfortunately you may never get them back under control in acceptable numbers.