Archery Kills rolling in already

[trphyhntr]

1 hour ago, creed said:

The western desert units are a train wreck compared to 25 years ago both quality and quantity. 

They had a depredation hunt in the Mohawk valley a few years because there was too many buck eating in the fields. They whacked like 30+ bucks on a depredation hunt. The biggest deer ever killed in the desert was killed a few years ago 

 

but yes desert mule deer major decline, drought 

[trphyhntr]

1 hour ago, Sky Island junkie said:

Yeah there will always be trophies found and killed. Those monsters lived then as well, probably many more. Truth be told how many of the monsters nowadays are killed by a posse of guys with 150k of optics and atvs etc. But anyhow, my good old days comment came fresh off of last year where I put my wife and myself in separate for non premium wt tags in so az and couldn’t get one tag. First time in over 30 years. Yeah gimme some cheese with my whine! 

There’s more hunters, tags are harder to get. There’s plenty of whitetail. That’s the real problem, too many whitetail 

[trphyhntr]

1 hour ago, Coach said:

IMO 24A for sure, 27 was absolutely crawling with deer, 23 was better too. In unit 1 you'd see 30 deer a day just driving up to Big Lake and on to Buffalo Crossing. Dirt road to BL back then. Just my personal experience. 

I don’t remember seeing hardly any deer off big lake road from like 95-2003. I go there now, I see deer all over. 

[creed]

Just now, trphyhntr said:

They had a depredation hunt in the Mohawk valley a few years because there was too many buck eating in the fields. They whacked like 30+ bucks on a depredation hunt. The biggest deer ever killed in the desert was killed a few years ago 

In dry years deer pile up in the ag fields. They create a lot of damage. Wet years they are back in the desert. 

There are still desert giants. Compared to 25-30 years ago there is nowhere near as many.

[trphyhntr]

1 hour ago, Yuma Outdoorsman said:

I can’t speak for the rest of the state, but numbers wise, the desert I hunt doesn’t have any where close to the number of deer it had even in the 90’s. As a kid, I could remember seeing giant herds of does and young bucks. I’m talking multiple herds of 20-30+ deer and now days if you see a herd of 5-7 deer that’s a big herd and rarely do you see more than one or two herds during a hunt. The difference between now and then is everything is on the internet now so things appear better but that’s not the case across the board, in my opinion. 

Yes desert mule deer is way down. Drought 

[trphyhntr]

Just now, creed said:

In dry years deer pile up in the ag fields. They create a lot of damage. Wet years they are back in the desert. 

There are still desert giants. Compared to 25-30 years ago there is nowhere near as many.

Desert mule deer way down. Unit 1/3c/3b mule deer WAY Up 

[trphyhntr]

I agreed on desert mule deer, I’ve heard the stories of 37b in the 80s. 
 

but there’s more deer in 1 and 27 than ever has been in my hunting lifetime. 

[Sky Island junkie]

15 minutes ago, trphyhntr said:

There’s more hunters, tags are harder to get. There’s plenty of whitetail. That’s the real problem, too many whitetail 

If you think there are too many wt now, you would have crapped your pants in the 70s and 80s 

[trphyhntr]

1 minute ago, Sky Island junkie said:

If you think there are too many wt now, you would have crapped your pants in the 70s and 80s 

Never would have seen them. I Would have been hunting with @creed for desert muley. 

[trphyhntr]

I heard that rim units had a lot of deer and less elk. And that populations declined when the elk population went up. Then the burns happened and the deer population has increased tremendously. 
 

 

[Sky Island junkie]

1 minute ago, trphyhntr said:

I heard that rim units had a lot of deer and less elk. And that populations declined when the elk population went up. Then the burns happened and the deer population has increased tremendously. 
 

 

I believe that to be true. 3c blew up in numbers after the rodeo fire and 1 and 27 after the wallow. 

[trphyhntr]

It’s 10 and 11 kills in the road hunt units now 

[trphyhntr]

14 hours ago, galiuro mountain man said:

I have a question for anyone that went out today.  Does it seem like there is more, less or about the same amount of people hunting?  I just wonder if the limits made more people go.  

I just had a dude from up there confirm, said he should be selling burritos on the corners of every intersection so many people up there 

[creed]

18 minutes ago, trphyhntr said:

I just had a dude from up there confirm, said he should be selling burritos on the corners of every intersection so many people up there 

This quota is going to have some unexpected results

[Yuma Outdoorsman]

1 hour ago, trphyhntr said:

They had a depredation hunt in the Mohawk valley a few years because there was too many buck eating in the fields. They whacked like 30+ bucks on a depredation hunt. The biggest deer ever killed in the desert was killed a few years ago 

 

but yes desert mule deer major decline, drought 

 That depredation hunt was due to does in the fields and they should’ve made that an antler less hunt but all the hunters did was shoot bucks. Can’t blame them. It was a glorified trophy hunt. That hunt covered miles upon miles of alfalfa from Hwy 95 to Texas Hill. Also, it had nothing to do with alfalfa fields, it was to keep them away from produce fields due to food safety concerns. Now, the majority of the fields up until about  40E have large fencing blocking animals from getting to the fields. Not all crossings but a lot of them are blocked.