The recovery is on for Central North Carolina's Deer Herd..... Threeletters EHD.

My apologies for the ridiculously long break in posts.  So much to discuss. Lets start with one near and dear…. The 2014 travesty that was the North Carolina Deer season.  Epizootio Hemorrhagic Disease (EHD).  This is a viral disease, spread by gnats, which causes internal bleeding and is extremely devastating in areas where the deer density is high.  My hunting time was also limited last year so I sat in areas that were known to be high deer traffic areas.  In years past these were gimmees for does.  My goal was meat harvest.  I used 5 vacation days to hunt sun up- down and weekends.  Not only did I not harvest a deer I saw whopping 4 deer, period.  That includes a buck swimming across a lake, a lone doe running along side the road and road kill! Generally, I would see that many per day in front of my neighborhood.  The first sign of bad things to come was the fam across from my office.  Typically we would see herds of 10+ at various times grazing in the corn stalks.  Sometimes as many as 40 deer could be counted.  Last year ZERO.  Not one.  At first I thought it were development pushing deer to new areas, perhaps me… bad wind, timing, perhaps too warm for good movement.  Then gun season began…. A slight up tick but still guys hunting over bait, running dogs  were also coiming up empty  that is when I knew… this would not be good. 

How bad was it? Lets look at number sform some of the numbers comparing the 2013 harvest to the released 2014 harvest.  For camparison we will look at the North-Central counties which have traditionally had some really strong harvests. More importantly, these areas are heavily hunted with hounds, bait and rifles.  I metion this only to say the “great mast” theory does not hold water in this region.  So lets take a look:

County	2013 Harvest	2014 Harvest	Difference in total deer harvested (2014  vs. 2013)	% harvest decline  vs. 2013
Franklin	3,554	1,608	-1,946	-55%
Granville	3,103	1,691	-1,412	-45%
Halifax	5,533	3,921	-1,612	-29%
Vance	2,592	866	-1,726	-67%
Wake	3,279	1867	-1412	-43%
Warren	3,010	1624	-1386	-46%

 That was the past.  2015 I think will be a "good" year.  Early fall into late October provided some great opportunities. Folks were reporting sightings and harvests, I saw more bucks than ever and harvested one with my bow.  One observation, most of the deer look young.  It will be interesting to see how the year finishes with 3 weeks left in the deer season.  Hopefully we'll see more like this one harvested by my frat brother from a stand near Rougmount, NC.

 

An experiment to answer a couple of bow hunting questions

What causes a deer to "jump the string"? It happens within standard hunting ranges (20 to 30 yards),  but I often wonder, why?  Is it the sound of the string snapping upon release? Perhaps the deer sees the arrow in flight or better yet hears the arrow approaching. This weekend I conducted a simulation, an experiment of sorts. From a distance of 33 yards, I shot six arrows at a 5 inch target approximately 6 inches above my iPhone.  Of the six arrows, five were in the 5 inch circle and the outlier was about three quarters of an inch high and to the left.

The recording may not capture the audio as well as being there in person, but from this distance you can clearly hear my feet on the deck and the bow on the table.  You cannot hear the string snap or the arrow's release, but you can definitely hear a whisper just before impact.

This video makes me wonder: is the deer responding to the sound of the shot? This video raises another question: perhaps they're not responding to the sound at all, but instead they are catching movement associated with the process of shooting a bow and the arrows release.  Deer are acutely attuned to any movement. This may explain why shorter shots tend to have more"string  jumping" then longer shots.

http://youtu.be/bucfxIpj090

Based upon the video what is your opinion?