Every year on our property we have a ton of deer activity. As soon as the season starts it goes from 100 to 0 within days. We haven't shot let alone seen deer so far this season.

We have tons of water, cover, food ect.. on our property.

My thinking of why we aren't seeing them is the property next to us is a couple hundred acres that is not hunted. From the aerials it looks like a nice piece of land. The owners are very very wealthy and have actually not stepped foot on the land in 25 years (according to the old man who helps manage it for them). He says it hasn't been hunted in 30+ years. Do y'all think the deer know when the season starts and they just go chill on the land they know is safe?

Also when we see deer on our place, they are always coming from that couple hundred acres.

Our land is in east Texas.

Outdoorag011 said:

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Every year on our property we have a ton of deer activity. As soon as the season starts it goes from 100 to 0 within days. We haven't shot let alone seen deer so far this season.

We have tons of water, cover, food ect.. on our property.

My thinking of why we aren't seeing them is the property next to us is a couple hundred acres that is not hunted. From the aerials it looks like a nice piece of land. The owners are very very wealthy and have actually not stepped foot on the land in 25 years (according to the old man who helps manage it for them). He says it hasn't been hunted in 30+ years. Do y'all think the deer know when the season starts and they just go chill on the land they know is safe?

Our land is in east Texas.

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No, deer don't know when season starts/ends. They are, however, extremely aware of changes in their environment.

I watched a deer that my son was after this year completely change his behavior each weekend. I'm sure it had to do with more traffic, different vehicles parked at the house, etc.

I'd bet you have deer activity on your place mid week.

We have a bunch of cell cameras placed at feeders but also game trails. Activity during the week as well as the weekend has dropped almost to 0. We see maybe 3-5 deer all week.

They went nocturnal.

Pretty sure they would still get night pictures

Yeah deer don't know when the season starts but they sense changes like more traffic around, more campfires, new and unknown scents around the woods, more generators humming, more shots in the woods, etc.

Tons of acorns on the ground around here, south Brazos County. Feeders aren't that attractive to them right now. I've even got a bumper crop of turnips going in a food plot and they're not messing with that either. We see them and know they're here but they're not showing up on feeder cameras.

Animals are absolutely sensitive to hunting pressure and will alter their behavior and patterns to get away from it.

Since having deployed several cell cams, I cannot tell you how many times I have animals patterned, usually it is just Aoudad or pigs but certain bucks too, to a T that will change a weeks worth of behavior the day you go out and sit in that stand. 1 week and sometimes more of extremely predictable behavior is gone like a fart in the wind…

It is extremely frustrating and altering how far you walk in (which is normally a long ways), scent control (managing all scent and even running Ozonics), playing the wind, and anything else seems to make zero difference.

However, when we have had only one person hunting out at our lease on one weekend, the animals seem to maintain their patterns. I am 100% convinced they're picking up on the additional vehicle activity and movement on the ranch and altering their behaviors accordingly.

I also have see this several times when the animals disappear for an entire weekend only to show back up on camera Sunday afternoon after everyone left. It is very frustrating but these are the things that keep them alive…

Saw a big-bodied 6 at the feeder this weekend. He was by himself until a group of "huffing" does circles the feeder but never came in.

Largest buck we saw was on the dirt road heading down to the place. It was at night and he was cruising solo. Shooter for sure, which is probably why he was operating at night and on the go and still alive.

Do y'all have a ton of bucks and low doe numbers? In that case, the bucks are off finding does. Our family ranch is a bachelor pad for bucks. We feed them year-round, only to have them disappear mid_October through mid-December. Kind of sucks honestly. But our doe numbers are very low for some reason even though we have never killed one.

This x1000. Especially East Texas. Same thing happens in Arkansas and southern MO in the woods.
Deer are very aware of their environment… just takes a few days of four wheelers, human scent, activity, shots, hunting pressure and dudes walking everywhere to make them make the change.

Put up a tripod in the afternoon and hunt that evening and next morning and then pick it up and move it again. Stay away from your feeders and blinds....

....that's what the deer are doing. Find their other travel routes. Low spots and heavy cover. Hunt tight. Even if you can only see 50 yards.

Consider your scent control into and out of the area. Can't be disruptive in their living room, bedroom, or kitchen....Hunt their hallway.

Are your feeders in feed pens? If you don't have cattle on the property, I have had a lot of success with half-panel pens. Take a 52" panel, and cut it in half long ways. Then you will have a 25" tall feed pen. Will keep 98% of the pigs out, but for whatever reason, mature bucks are way more comfortable feeding in them.

I've also had success with "ghost" style feeders in east texas. There is a motor called the corn bank that is just a plunger basically. Hoist your feeder high into a tree out of sight, and have it drop 7 seconds of corn on the ground every two days. I was seeing mature bucks feeding in daylight a few hundred yards from where guys were threatening to leave mid-season because they hadn't seen anything.

It's a lot of little things that can make you just different enough from other hunters and other properties. If there is anywhere on your property that you haven't setup at or watched because it doesn't look good, go try it out. You might be surprised.

I'll bet the deer are there, they just know where you are and have adjusted accordingly. You could be 50 yards the wrong way and that's game over in east texas.

Independence H-D said:

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Tons of acorns on the ground around here, south Brazos County. Feeders aren't that attractive to them right now. I've even got a bumper crop of turnips going in a food plot and they're not messing with that either. We see them and know they're here but they're not showing up on feeder cameras.

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This.

Oak tree response to a drought is to drop acorns, and right around September of this year we got absolutely innundated with acorns. Hell, they are still dropping from the bigger oaks on our place.

Deer don't have to move much at all to get ample food and water, no need to visit feeders like they did all summer because now the food source is right there. Most can bed down and only move minimally for water with how things are at the moment. And with the recent rains....water is plentiful in many areas as well.

It's completely opposite for us in Webb county. Ever since the Eagleford started going, the amount of vehicle traffic has gone from none to rush hour

Deer that would run when you came around a corner at 600+ yards now just hang out and look at you. Rarely running off and when they do, they are not flagging

I really believe my white truck which looks like every oil field truck is now camoflauge

It's mostly doe and young bucks…the mature guys seem to be waiting in the brush just wating to run off the yearlings

I put out a bunch of persimmons and some corn mix I made when seeing deer started getting less and less. Not a lot of pressure where we hunt in San Saba.

Son, 15yo, got his first two deer a couple weekends ago. I was so dang proud.

We hunt in Henderson and feel your pain!

Rutting activity should overrule any "instincts", to dodge increased human or vehicle activity. Why you would not see deer on your place during the rut is weird.

You didn't say how big of a place you are hunting, also a possible factor.

Oh they know when their environment changes. Their routines change and their travel corridors and travel hours change as well.

Elk do the same thing. They hang out in and around the expansive Natl forest areas without a care in the world. The first couple of days of 4 wheelers, trucks, SxS and human activity running through their areas and A LOT of the older wiser bulls start heading everything to the private land areas where they know it is safer.

Our ranch in the Ozarks is right across the highway from a large 7500 acre conservation area. When we bought the place our game warden said our deer population would triple right after the seasoned opened due to all the hunting pressure in the CA. Man was he right. Our place becomes the sanctuary.

It's East Texas. Thick hardwood and pine forest. They are still active but go nocturnal from the pressure.

Outdoorag011 said:

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The owners are very very wealthy and have actually not stepped foot on the land in 25 years (according to the old man who helps manage it for them). He says it hasn't been hunted in 30+ years.

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Maybe it's being hunted by his family and friends...

Gunny456 said:

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It's East Texas. Thick hardwood and pine forest. They are still active but go nocturnal from the pressure.

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I was on a pipeline ROW once with an inspector that I had just met and we started shooting the bull about hunting. 2 mins into our conversation (he hunted around Carthage) he dropped the "when they go nocturnal, I go nocturnal" phrase… east Texas is something else lol

If it's brown, it's down.

Yep…Spots don't even stop em!
Let me rephrase…. Spots give them something better to aim at.

ttha_aggie_09 said:

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Gunny456 said:

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It's East Texas. Thick hardwood and pine forest. They are still active but go nocturnal from the pressure.

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I was on a pipeline ROW once with an inspector that I had just met and we started shooting the bull about hunting. 2 mins into our conversation (he hunted around Carthage) he dropped the "when they go nocturnal, I go nocturnal" phrase… east Texas is something else lol

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I live in east Texas but hunt in Camp Wood and Fredericksburg. The people I know that hunt here are very open in discussing their hunting tactics. It's definitely a whole new world over here.

Gunny456 said:

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It's East Texas. Thick hardwood and pine forest. They are still active but go nocturnal from the pressure.

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His cameras still work at night....

From the OP: "We have a bunch of cell cameras placed at feeders but also game trails. Activity during the week as well as the weekend has dropped almost to 0. "

Trying to teach my nephew this. He goes to ranch 2-3 times a year then come season he puts 20 hours a weekend on the Kubota nearly nonstop then wonders why he doesn't see what shows up on my game cams. They just avoiding traffic.