Whitetail Deer Population-Ohio

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frosty

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I have been living and hunting in Ohio all of my life. Something I have noticed this year that I've never really seen before, Is an astronomical amount of deer movement this spring-it looks like the chase of the rut. For example, this mourning I drove to a local plaza to grocery shop, and I probably seen around 18 deer-the catch is alot of them were in places I'd never see deer-railroad beds, on or near highways, even in the middle of a local trailer court. The amount of road kill is up lately to...I saw those 18 deer in a 16 mile round trip. I dont think that they are overpopulated, but the density per acre is way to high. It seems that alot of smaller farms have been consumed by high dollar construction outfits(not anything wrong with this), and condo's built in they're place. Could this be the problem? It seems this way in Columbiana, Mahoning and Jefferson co.'s the same. I would like to hear some other opinions on this subject:scrutiny:
 
I haven't watched that area, but the weather boffins have been talking about dry weather in the midwest.

We have a lot of deer kill along highways in dry times. What little rain there is, when it falls on pavement or other hard surface, runs off to the vegetation in the immediate vicinity. More growies alongside the pavement than out in the pastures. More deer attracted to the sides of the roads. Oops.

We're on the dry side down here in SW Texas. So far this year I've logged 0.6" total rainfall.

Art
 
I think there are quite a few. On my way home from work inside the limits of an Ohio city I saw probably over 10 deer grazing in front of a home in the evening. They're also dead along the road including in front of my farm. At night, don't worry about a State Trooper pulling you over for speeding, worry about hitting a deer. The one in front of my farm was hauled off by someone who is probably now enjoying road kill.

Most of my fruit trees were killed with buck rubs last year. I have started to solve the problem; 3 deer down so far this year via nuisance deer permits and some more to go. Hopefully my my new and remaining trees will survive this year.
 
Not sure if your winter was like ours (upstate NY), but we had an INCREDIBLY mild winter, which almost always translates into more deer. And, over the past few years the deer herd (and the # taken during hunting season) here has increased dramatically. It used to be difficult to get a "doe permit", now you can get 3 or 4 if you're in the right area. And as you mentioned, they've moved into more populated areas. About once a week I drive due south about 30 miles, and I will see 40-50 deer in the fields, and at least 1 (but often 2 or 3) killed along this stretch of highway(even though much is fenced).
 
I've noticed the same thing (Frosty is just a stone's throw from me, just up river), but I'm not sure it's a seasonal phenomenon. The population here has been growing for years now, and I think ODNR needs to re-think extending the hunting season and bag limit.

Anybody that comes here and can't get a deer must've slept through the season :D .
 
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Send some of your rats with antlers down this way. We ain't got enough to go around.

Typical here in AZ is 100k+ hunters put in for 35k tags.
 
I've noticed a lot more deer in the Mansfield/Ashland area, too. Deer dead within the city limits, and running in populated areas is common. I think the combination of mild winter and increased construction is pushing them around. With more woods and bedding areas being torn down to put up stores, housing and other buildings, the deer don't have too many places to go. More rural areas are becoming suburban,and even urban, areas.
 
In Cleveland, Ohio, there is a huge 6 lane overpass for I-480 about 1/4 to 1/2 mile long (some of you guys who live there may verify this) going over the Cloverleaf valley. My BIL says that when he goes to work early in the morning he sees deer on it, and sometimes the deer freak out and try to run away from the cars/trucks. Some even jump over the rail/fence hundreds of feet to their death to get away.
 
One in Barberton

I was driving back home this past Sunday and saw a doe on I-76 in the middle of the Barberton interchange. The thing was, this was at about 1230 in the afternoon. It looked terrified, and since the only bullet I had was the one I was driving (it might have taken out the deer, but at $11000 a piece for used Camery's, a bit pricy), so I just got out of the way. On the highway in the middle of Mothers Day lunch traffic is not a good sign for the deer. I wonder if anyone has thought about letting people now use a rifle instead of a shotgun for deer hunting now?
 
Browns Fan said:
In Cleveland, Ohio, there is a huge 6 lane overpass for I-480 about 1/4 to 1/2 mile long (some of you guys who live there may verify this) going over the Cloverleaf valley.
Click to expand...

Valley View Bridge? Yeah, if a critter jumped off there it'd be a long way down. I'll be driving over that way to my FFL in Independence, have to keep an eye out for deer I guess. I've seen a couple-few over here in the eastern suburbs, but not enough to remark on. More of those dang Canada Geese than anything.
 
Now if you need any help up there curbing the population I would be glad to come help you thin a few down. I have always heard about good deer hunting in Ohio.
 
Whitetails in Ohio

Come on up! I just about got mowed over by about 15 or so this mourning on the way to work:cuss:
 
The single best out of season deer tag (in ohio) is a bigol' POS truck with a heavy brushbar. We have way too many deer in lorain/ashland county.
 
The Ohio deer population is a disaster waiting to happen. I would like to see the ODNR issue four deer permits with the stipulation that you can't have or fill your antlered permit until you have filled your three antler-less permits. If something isn't done to cull the population we are going to have some type of disease epidemic of world-class proportions.
 
Not in my part of Ohio

I have been a serious bow and shotgun hunter in Ohio for almost 30 years ago_Over the last 10 years,it has gotten to the point that I feel lucky to see 2 or 3 deer a day when I am hunting.Ten years ago I would average a dozen every outing.While the quality seems to be consistent,the amount of deer here in Washigton and Athens county is nowhere what it used to be.This morning we drove over 80 miles round trip through prime deer country,and I saw a total of 3 live deer and two road kills.
 
I agree BigJake, I've seen a ton of deer in the northern part of Lorain county.
 
Here around Guernsey and Muskingum counties, we are crawling with deer. I assumed it had something to do with our gun season; we had some pretty bad weather and IIRC its was the first season in a while that was not a record.

My father gets damage permits for his bean farm (which the game warden seems to hand him by the handful) and kills dozens of does out of season with a rifle. They just keep coming though.
 
Whitetails in Ohio

It definitely must be certain areas of the state-I saw 7 this morn.:evil:
 
I tried to find population statistics on the DNR site and gave up. If I recall correctly the population estimate in 2005 was approximately 675,000 deer and 216,000 were harvested. See: http://ohiodnr.com/wildlife/PDF/pub304_05.pdf
The harvest statistic leads me to believe that I am wrong on my recall of the population estimate but maybe 1/3 of the population was harvested.

I drive the 116 corridor to Newark from Columbus every day and it is unusual when I don't see deer. I have hunting permission on land around Flint Ridge and the deer population is nuisance level in that area of Licking county.

I don't hunt deer or turkey because I frankly don't see how it would be much of a challenge at least in the areas I have access to.
 
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