# deer numbers in ND



## bornlucky (Jul 24, 2007)

Last spring, I shed hunted a farmers yard and found 14 dead deer carcasses. After informing the farmer about this, he said the neighbor a mile away found 15 dead deer in his yard. The corn is off in SE ND and the reduced deer herd is really showing up. One farmer told me that he has seen more coyotes than deer while harvesting this fall. Going to be slim pickin's. Make sure you buy a fur bearers license and kill those coyotes!

What are you seeing in other parts of the state?


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## joebobhunter4 (Jul 19, 2005)

I hunt in southeastern ND and have seen plenty of deer running around. Could be certain areas that the deer numbers are way down in but hasn't seemed to affect the area i've been hunting yet.


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## barebackjack (Sep 5, 2006)

Being seeing more deer this year than the last two. Lots of yearlings and fawns which tells me production is back on after the poor fawn crop of 2009.

Still more than plenty deer around.


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## wurgs (Mar 3, 2008)

Where I hunt the numbers are about half of what we've seen the last 2 years. We have'nt even seen any twins yet, all single fawns.


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## Centerfire (Jan 13, 2006)

I would say from my observation 50 pxt decrease accurate for eastern nd


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## snow123geese (Feb 3, 2008)

Deer are few and far in between in eastern nodak. . . We had deer gathering on our land last winter and we ended up finding 47 dead ones due to coyotes, car collisions, and hunger.


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## indsport (Aug 29, 2003)

As I posted previously, in my area of SE ND, numbers are way down, coyotes are up and fawns are missing for the second year in a row. By this time in the season, I normally filled my tag for 19 of the past 20 years the first weekend of the season. This year? haven't even taken a shot yet and have seen nothing to shoot at. No standing corn left anywhere in my neighborhood and the last of the CRP has pretty much been plowed under. Black dirt as far as the eye can see.


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## barebackjack (Sep 5, 2006)

Overall numbers are definitely down over the last few years. But numbers before that were at ALL TIME HIGHS. Something was bound to give sooner or later.

Still plenty of deer out there, just actually have to HUNT to kill one. ND hunters have gotten pretty spoiled over the last ten years. I hunt in a few different areas, but my main area im seeing more deer this year than the last two.

Now out west, the late EHD outbreak really kicked em in the teeth. But I bet they'll be back. :wink:


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## Dick Monson (Aug 12, 2002)

An irony of the season is that a good sized buck that the guys were after here, was killed on the interstate last night. Same thing happened about 10 years ago. I'm not seeing too many deer when out bird hunting but am seeing more now that the rut is in full swing. I haven't seen a soul walking since the first 2 days of season.


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## indsport (Aug 29, 2003)

Clarification, numbers are lower than anything I have seen in the last 20 years. As to hunting, is 5 hours every day since opening day, walking at least half the time, count as hunting?


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## tvtrav (Oct 11, 2003)

Hunted the last two Saturdays in Eastern ND....sun up to sun down......still hunting the mornings and evenings, pushing CRP/Cattails/Brush/Belts during the mid-morning and afternoons.

Haven't seen a buck on the hoof yet. Easily 10 miles of walking each day....a total of 10 does seen in areas we've always seen and killed bucks in.

Either REAL bad luck, or the numbers are way down.

My two cents.

PEACE.


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## xdeano (Jan 14, 2005)

I'm in your general vacinity and my first night out, this friday night. I saw a 4x4 running does really hard, only saw a few does. The farmer I talked to that next day said he had seen 11 bucks on 1 section of land, didn't shoot any of them. Second night out last evening and the 4x4 was out again, the old man shot it, because he didn't want to waste anymore time. I was seeing 6 does at a wack with the couple small bucks that i was seeing. It's all in where you hunt and how hard you hunt. I wasn't hunting very hard. There are plenty of deer out there. Getting on the right land is the challenge.

xdeano


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## shaug (Mar 28, 2011)

indsport said,



> Black dirt as far as the eye can see.


This year most of the small grains were infected with diseases such as scab. These types diseases will live in the stubble over the winter and weather permitting they will infect and cause heavy losses next year. One way to eradicate them is till the stubble. I also tilled a lot of my acres because of the wet. There is water uzzing out of side hill seeps that we have not seen in 70 years.

Lots of coyotes, Deer numbers down.


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## Duckslayer100 (Apr 7, 2004)

If seen just as many, if not more, deer this year than last year. Went pheasant hunting in south eastern Nodak and kicked up two bucks and eight does after just a couple of hours.

On opener, I shot my doe 15 minutes after legal time, then took my buck the next morning.

Some place the numbers might be down, but it seems to me there still are plenty of them out there if you know where to look.


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## Nick Roehl (Mar 7, 2002)

I hunt 2H we saw a fair amount of deer in our area but numbers are down. They have been since the G+F decided to hand out extra doe tags for 5 years straight. Then a few bad winters, all the CRP going out, coyote numbers are up and guess what deer are down. Not that difficult to figure out. 
Without out good cover the deer herd will never get back to the good years, same with pheasants. The glory days of ND hunting are over unless something big happens on the CRP front. I remember what it was like before CRP and that's where we are heading again.


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## Vernon.Miller (Apr 25, 2007)

Went out in NE North Dakota and it was sad. Over the last 5 years we had our selection of deer. At any given point in time we could have shot does greater than 25 a day being seen. This year only saw 2 does. Father in-law shot a 4x5 and saw 1 more buck. That was it. Have been hearing and see a crap load of coyotes. Several farmers reported seeing a mountain lion.

Going to be changing my hunting for the rest of the year to predator hunting.


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## Fox hunter1 (Jan 15, 2011)

i hunt in eastern north dakota section 2c and the numbers are way down. im used to seeing four of five deer running accross a field but this year nothing. alot of grassland is getting turned over or burnt out to get redy to till it in the spring, i think the deer hunting hit its peak now its going to go down fast.


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## hwdeuce (Apr 6, 2010)

I was up in northern nd this weekend and heard that 
Guys from new Zealand are coming over to catch 40 deer to put
Collars on them to find out what's goin on sometime this spring


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## HUNTNFISHND (Mar 16, 2004)

hwdeuce said:


> I was up in northern nd this weekend and heard that
> Guys from new Zealand are coming over to catch 40 deer to put
> Collars on them to find out what's goin on sometime this spring


Seriously? :eyeroll:

Why don't they just give me the money and I will tell them exactly what's going on. Three brutal winters in a row!

This winter has been extremely kind to our wildlife so far. Hopefully they start to rebound a bit, although I don't see the populations ever being as high as they were recently.


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## hwdeuce (Apr 6, 2010)

Yes they are I'm sure its just a new project there trying 
To do. they still wanna try it


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## Nick Roehl (Mar 7, 2002)

Well at least this winter has been super mild. This should help the deer herd to bounce back.


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