Where did all the deer go?

[YukonMud]

I don't really know where to start....
Last year I went hunting for deer during the modern firearm general season (my first time) and we saw many deer and heard lots of shooting over opening weekend...there were many lucky hunters.  This year I head out the same same spot, along with around 30 of my friends (other hunters) to find nothing.  I think I heard two shots from a couple miles or so away and every hunter I spoke to had not seen anything either.  Not a doe, not a foot print, not a sign; nothing.

Does anyone know what could cause this?
Thanks,

[stumprat]

Horrible hunting weather. Both my sons tagged out this morning but we had to crash through the brush & kick em outta bed

[Ghost1941]

We're in the same boat.  A friend of mine and I hunted area 19 on Fort Lewis yesterday, we saw 8 vehicles in there and they were all gone by lunch.  Talked to 6 different guys and none of them had seen anything.  Today we went to area 18 and the same thing.  Everybody we came across hadn't seen a thing.

[bow4elk]

Pray for rain or do some drives.

[demontang]

I have heared the deer numbers are down this year.

[YukonMud]

Pray for rain or do some drives.

Drives?   

[MichaelJ]

Pray for rain or do some drives.

Drives?   

Deer drives... IE post shooters on escape routes and have people push the draws and canyons DRIVING the deer to the shooters....

I also struck out this weekend but we got a bunny and a chipmunk with the truck!!! haha 

Michael

[Ghost1941]

Pray for rain or do some drives.

Drives?   

Deer drives... IE post shooters on escape routes and have people push the draws and canyons DRIVING the deer to the shooters....

I also struck out this weekend but we got a bunny and a chipmunk with the truck!!! haha 

Michael

Stepped on a mole walking up a hill   My boot got my 1st washington kill heh.

[YukonMud]

I also struck out this weekend but we got a bunny and a chipmunk with the truck!!! haha 

Stepped on a mole walking up a hill   My boot got my 1st washington kill heh.

Wish I could say I killed something, I didn't even see anything with fur 

[Ghost1941]

I feel for ya bro, tough putting all that time in to not even SEE ANYTHING.  I was telling my buddy that even if we weren't seeing bucks, a few doe here and there would be nice.

[Ray]

They certainly didn't go in my freezer...

[georgia redneck]

All I have seen are does bro in law saw a forked horn head in the grass but never saw body and did the right thing and did not shoot at bushes where the body should be. Hunted the winston elk deer area where it is any buck.[520A]

[fremont]

I'm going later this week.  Am taking a scoped gun for the sagebrush and a lever action gun for the pine stands & brush.  Expect to be in the stickerbushes by 10am each morning!

[Clumber]

This is my first year ever trying for deer.  I even saw one on Saturday morning!  Except it was a doe... and it was smeared across the highway...  A waste.  Nothing all weekend aside from a couple Ruffed Grouse taunting me b/c somehow they knew I didn't have an appropriate firearm for them... and my dogs were home.  I saw a couple cool woodpeckers also, and millions of chipmunks... Wonder how many chipmunks it takes to fill a freezer... I could probably have done that this weekend.

So I suspect that if it starts raining hard during the week, there will be a sudden race at work for who can suddenly get "sick" and need to go home.

Tracy, who feels just a bit of a cough in the back of my throat... heh heh....

[Armadillo]

saw a good many mulies yesterday while out scoutin for the end of the week.. biggest was a 2 pt,, go figure lol.. cant say where though