I'm a bit perplexed over the results of this season's hunt so far.

This is what I know.

Earlier in the year I noticed that I wasn't seeing the fawns that I expected to see, and have seen in the past two years.

Should be no reason for that, as the water has been plentiful and the grass is high.

There have been many bucks and does on camera over the year, so deer numbers should not be an issue.

So far we have tagged 6 mature does, of which 5 were dry. This would indicate to me that those 5 did not drop a fawn this spring.

5 dry does out of 6 seems really odd to me. Why is that do you think?

That seems really high -- but given conditions I think you should still be fine. What size area are you hunting? LF or HF?

If you are HF and not having breeding, there could we other conditions in play.

I wonder if some Does aborted during the big freeze in February. I'm seeing more dry Does this year too.

That is odd. I would assume the big freeze had some affect. I’m the opposite in Callahan County. Heavy fawn survival rate and all 5 does taken were “wet”.

It is certainly possible that the Does did not have a fawn, but more likely they 'lost' a fawn and simply stopped lactating. Same could be true for Does that had a fawn early (Late May, Early June) they may have simply 'weaned' the fawn and dried up. Typically fawns are weaned between 3-4 months (some sooner, others later).

A fawn born at the first of June would be about 5 months old at the start of the General Season (Rifle Season) and likely weaned long ago....and the Doe dried up as well. Just saying....that might be a consideration.

^^^^Best explanation I've heard. And I have to agree. We had a good crop of fawns this year. Probably about average.

We are seeing similar things where we are in Edwards county. We are seeing very few does this season with fawns. I'm not sure what is going on but the fawn crop on our place is extremely low this year. We had anticipated it being good due to getting rain this year.

I’m covered up with fawns but did have several folks from other areas tell me about bad predation on their fawns from black vultures.

As far as the specs, 42 acres, low fence, SW Llano county.

In my experience and opinion, if a doe drops a fawn, that doe will still be "wet" come the deer rifle season. Most of the does I have harvested in the past 35 years have been "wet". In fact, the only "dry" does that I recall were clearly yearlings or fawns that you wouldn't expect to have dropped a fawn that spring.

I've noticed the same thing in Jack County. I posted about a month ago about seeing very few fawns with does this year. A buddy of mine has theorized that a lot of the does may have miscarried during the freeze. That sounds as plausible as anything else.