We have owned property over there for 30 years. We have hunted it for the last 6 or 7 years pretty consistantly (our place burned bad in 2000 so it was not good hunting for a few years after that). We have been using game cams for the last 6 years and the results have been pretty good. We do not harvest deer every year but when we do get deer we usually get two. This has been an off year. The cams have been up since May and we have almost as many pictures of bears (good year for berries) as we do deer. When we checked the cams last weekend there were some bucks that made appearances but only one or two, nothing hanging around. We are not using any bait this year as the bears seem to be thick. We have a couple old trophy rocks and a mineral block from last year but nothing I would calll food or even a treat this time of year. We are seeing about the same amount of deer around. I believe you will not know what is there until you are out pushing the brush/timber and spending some time. I know there are folks out scouting early as I have seen them on our cams. We were over there for the opener so I know there was no one there then, but I would not be surprised at all to see camo clad archers on some of the cams when we check them later in the month.
My opinion is based on our property, I do not scout any place else. If we have extra guys in camp they generally hunt the national forest besides an occasional morning or evening sit. Deer or no deer it iwll still be a good time next month.
