Tag Soup this year

[Gillfish3]

I am sure glad that so many folks hammered the bucks this year. There were sure some toads. My boy and I hunted hard for the last 2 weeks and all we have to show for it is tag soup. Hunted the Trask unit outside of McMinnville and only saw a few does and no antlers. We did not even see much in the way of buck activity in the areas we hunted. No rubs etc. like we have seen in past years. I wonder how much the hard winter we had here last year has effected the local herd.

George Gill
Gillfish3

[Rank Amateur]

I would think it should have been a factor, it's too bad we don't have a program that tracks the daily temps, rain fall, snow level and snow amounts by different elevations and spits out a rating for each day. That data would really make it apparent which winters are worse than others. I know the North coast bio has tracked some data in the past. He, like me thinks that our winter weather may be more of a factor than it has been given credit.

We had a very snowy winter last year up here, I spent most of my commutes in 4-wheel drive. Snow cover on the forage is a significant factor in deer survival. The duration and of coarse depth is the factors.

[pythonwill]

Tag soup for me too.
I don't know about the winter though, I haven't found many bones in the woods at all, normally when they have a bad winter kill you see evidence of that laying around. I saw more deer this year then I did last but I also got out more too.

[Rank Amateur]

Originally Posted by pythonwill

Tag soup for me too.
I don't know about the winter though, I haven't found many bones in the woods at all, normally when they have a bad winter kill you see evidence of that laying around. I saw more deer this year then I did last but I also got out more too.

I agree, I thought I was seeing a slight up tick this year while out summer scouting.

The trick with winter kills is the number of deer to begin with, the chances of seeing winter killed deer goes up proportionally with the abundance.

With the overall number of deer being so low up here though, there should not be much in the way of competition for available forage.

[spottedhawk36]

Looks like quite a few guys this year got some meat for there soup. I still have an unpunched elk and deer tag for late archery so im not eating tag soup just yet.

[Benny]

Wrong place at the wrong time was the cry. I hunted a closed road in heavy timber for my last day, working a 1/2 to 1 mile up it. On my way back to the jeep for lunch a couple guys were gutting a 3x4 right next to the gate.

[Trick]

Originally Posted by Benny

Wrong place at the wrong time was the cry. I hunted a closed road in heavy timber for my last day, working a 1/2 to 1 mile up it. On my way back to the jeep for lunch a couple guys were gutting a 3x4 right next to the gate.

I was hunting up a closed gate years ago and came back to find a gut pile right behind my truck. I worked with the guy that shot it. He just laughed.

It happens.