How has all the rain impacted your hunting season?

It’s been a bust for me since the area where I see and take most of my deer is in a creek bottom. There are now four high water marks inside my ground blind, the last of which reached just a few inches going over the chair inside it. The repeated flooding all but wiped out my food plot and seems to have done the same for acorns and other browse that keeps deer in the area. And even when I scatter corn in the food plot, it can take days for it to disappear. I suspect the crows are getting most of it.

The rain had many impacts this season for us.

The amount of pig activity is outrageous this season compared to any previous years. 2 of my feeders were complete mud holes most of the early season and made it difficult to fill much less hunt over as the deer were avoiding the area. Getting work done was limited due to it pretty much raining every weekend for about 10 weeks in a row for a while.

Luckily while hunting there were only a couple of hunts where we had a storm blow through but did not affect being able to hunt.

It's still making it very tough to get around our lease. We're also seeing another crop of acorns dropping, which is keeping the deer away from feeders. We're trying to catch them on the skirts of the oaks but we have really thick areas they can just stay in and never leave.

Made it tough. Went from drought to over abundance of salad in a matter of weeks. Deer are just now wanting corn. Had to set up temporary ground blinds in traffic areas to see deer. Hogs had a tremendous year and are everywhere. They hit the corn hard giving the deer another reason to avoid the feeders. Positive side is the hogs are fat and delicious. Negative is it's time to put up more feeder pens.

Made for a lot of extra trimming, deer are covered in fat. Deer movement has been low but we still got the buck we were looking for for this year.

The drought up till September put a hurting on antler growth.

the lease we have near Fairfield is bordered by the Trinity river on the east side. When there are heavy rains on already saturated ground, the river spreads out pretty wide and takes over quite a bit of acres we call the bottom. There are some real bruiser deer that never leave the bottom, so we set up a newly built tower blind on an old platform over Labor Day weekend and we got to hunt it the first couple of weeks of MLD3 season back in early Oct. Then the rains came filling the bottom to about 7-8 feet deep and we couldn't get within about 400 yards of our set up until the first weekend in Dec.

you can see the water line on the trees in the background of the 2nd picture. the NW leg must have slipped off the footer into the mud, then snapped off bringing down the stand.

before


after



It will have to get considerably dryer before I can get a tractor down there to do anything about it.

The ground is so soaked where I hunt you can't dive on the roads without sinking down to the undercarriage. So I have been unable to get out to hunt but one weekend this year. The second time I tried I had to pay $300 to have a tractor pull my friends 4X4 out of the property. I don't plan on going out there until it dries up for at least 6 weeks. The hogs have not helped either they have rooted up some of the roads and I have huge mud holes under each feeder. I now wish I had not filled them all when I was able to get out there that one time.

Our local processor where we hunt is over 300 deer behind where they normally are this time of year. Whole area has been impacted. No need to hit feeders.

Its been tough at our place as well, deer aren't hitting feeders like normal. As mentioned above the pigs have been very active this year. Also we have to worry about getting stuck when driving around the property.

Very bad year on our place. None of the 3 of us that hunt it have even taken a doe, let alone a buck this year. I think that the amount of vegetation late in the year this year and the amount of acorns on the ground have given the deer no reason to move much at all. None of the bucks that were on camera through late October have been around at all. 2 young bucks come around occasionally, but haven't been seen but once in daylight. Only a couple does on camera. Roughest year we have had in a very long time. All the promise that was there early in the season has dwindled down to pretty much nothing. I only have one more weekend the first weekend in January to try and put something in the freezer. Crossing my fingers, but have very low expectations.

I feel the same way James and suspect many others do as well.

next year!

Same here only one tag filled of 4 and prospects are slim!!!!!!!!!!!!

My hunting area was a swamp this year. I had to buy some La Crosse mud boots to get to my blind. We know the area floods from time to time so our blind in on 24" stilts. I only saw one deer all season from that blind. Last Saturday morning I was watching 20+ ducks swimming around under my feeder when my hunting buddy called me on the walkie talkie and said there were 8 bucks at his feeder. I hunted with him Saturday afternoon and shot a nice 8pt buck. If not for that I would most likely be venisonless this year. I did get a pig from the swamp.

Glad im not the only one. I went six straight hunts without seeing a deer. I have seen fewer deer this year then ever before

Bust. Gonna try tomorrow

We’re just now seeing deer far more often with two deer taken the last two days. I attribute it to neighboring hunters having thrown in the towel and allowed their feeders to go empty.

Anthrax. Many moons ago I had a lease in Crockett County. early 90s. I wasn't seeing may deer and the ones I was seeing looked malnourished. The thing I thought was crazy was that county had received a ton of rain and everything was lush and green with tons of forage. I couldn't compute wth was going on. I went into Ozona and a local rancher struck up a conversation with me.

He asked how the deer were looking and I told him the few deer I saw were pretty bad shape. He stated the wet year had kicked off another Anthrax epidemic in the county. I never had known much about this disease until then. That was my only season in that county but I have heard of numerous other years of Anthrax in that area.

https://www.nation.co.ke/business/s...season/2301238-4365406-e7nb6i/index.html

Anthrax is caused by spore-producing bacteria called Bacillas antharcis found in the soil. The disease is highly fatal due to the extreme potent toxins produced by the bacteria. It can occur anywhere in the world except the antarctica.

Frequent outbreaks occur in some areas (endemic areas), while in others outbreaks occur only sporadically due to factors like rains, deep tilling of soil and overgrazing.


https://dshs.texas.gov/idcu/disease/anthrax/information/faqs/

Where in Texas does anthrax occur?
Although anthrax can occur anywhere in the state, the cases are most often confined to a triangular area bounded by the towns of Uvalde, Ozona and Eagle Pass. This area includes portions of Crockett, Edwards, Kinney, Maverick, Sutton, Uvalde, and Val Verde Counties. In these counties, many livestock producers routinely vaccinate livestock against the disease.


Why does anthrax occur in some years and not in others?
Anthrax outbreaks depend on two factors working together: the presence of anthrax spores in the soil, and suitable weather conditions. The bacteria grows and contaminates the surface soil and grass after periods of wet, cool weather, followed by several weeks of hot, dry conditions. Outbreaks in animals usually end when cool weather arrives and the bacteria becomes dormant. An outbreak may occur one year, but not the next. Death loss may occur in one pasture, while animals nearby remain healthy.

Has changed everything at our place. Would at minimum see deer almost every sit last year. This year for essentially the whole month of october and almost all of november we rarely had a deer on camera. Most of the big bucks are gone. Pretty incredible. Glad we're not the only ones though.

This past weekend was the first time since October that the ground was starting to dry up under the feeder.
I say starting, because it's hard mud instead of soft mud like it's been all season.
Puddles are just now drying up, but another rain they will all be filled back in and stand for weeks as the ground is still soaked.
Hogs have taken over the feeders and mostly at night.

The heavy rains began late September early October in San Saba county caused difficulty in using the roads. The pasture grasses were definitely much higher than normal for that time of the year. Don't know the reason, but most of our hunters were not seeing nearly the amount of fawns with does and that may come back to hurt us in years to come. Most all deer that were seen were 2 years or younger. No mature bucks seen until recently. Hogs are beginning to hit the feeders hard and that keeps the deer away. Not a normal good year for 2018.

Our area was flooded a week before the opener. Feeder is empty, and still too much mud and water to get to it.

This weekend maybe a loss if Commerce area gets as much rain as I have seen in Mesquite

Deer movement has definitely picked up. Seeing quite a few during daylight hours.

I was thinking about my lack of deer sightings.

Could it be increased winds. Every day I went it was windy.