I started hunting a new farm last year, I wasn’t able to scout it much before season started. I went to walk around a bit a couple weeks ago and noticed the must not winter there all, only a few sets of tracks here and there. When do they start showing back up if they don’t winter there? 
It depends on the setup of the farm, but what I’d say is that when food becomes available they’ll be back.
My guess is that if you were to look around the area, if you would find the nearest source of easy food, you’ll also find most of the deer. For example, on a property we hunt, the rancher has one of those giant sileage baggies right next to a group of silos. Since there’s sileage loading going on all the time in this area, there’s spillage.
And every night most of the deer within a 2 mile area are cleaning up that spillage! There’s no less than a dozen deer at a time milling around there from sundown to sunrise. They come and go from different directions, but when I look at the trails they use, it’s obvious that there are about 4-5 different bedding areas and that most of the deer are probably coming from no farther than a quarter mile.
But as soon as things start to green up, everything will change. The deer will spread out and then the hotspots will be the newly seeded clover fields and any south-facing slope in a pasture or field.
I wouldn’t read too much into where the deer are or aren’t in March.
Grouse
I’m not to worried about it mainly for seeing who made it threw the year on that farm.
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
