Here in central VA we have had a season of no food for the deer. Absolutely no acorn crop, then no vegetation below 5' and now deep snow on the ground for 11 days now, all season they've been grazing pasture mid day in numbers of 10 and 20. One of my boys shot a spike Sat and we found rocks and fresh cedar in the chest cavity in front of the diaphram. Buddy of mine with VDGF said a deep snow would be hard on them. Its going to be a long winter the way it started setting record deep Dec. snow. All the deer we've cleaned this year have had no fat and not much meat. They have destroyed any plant out of the snow and easy to hunt. Just don't know the quality of the meat in a population in this condition. My boys have taken 8 this year including 6 does, 1 button and a spike, while I took a doe in archery season to get things started.
Theyll recover, some years back we had a severe drought and virus of some sort ran through our herd. Every where there was water had dead deer in it. They would go to water to cool off from the fever and end up drowning in it. We thought our herd was history but it didnt seem to effect it much the next year. No noticable decline in harvest.
Found this guy out this weekend. Don't know the history of the buck, but a nice deer with a decent 9 point rack, hate to see it didn't make it in the frozen snow covered woods. 6"-8" of snow is still covering 70-80% of the ground here on most fields and all the woods. My 200+ can stay on top of most of it just breaking the crust when a large clump of vegetation is beneath. Going to be interesting to see if it slows down the over population or they just drop some weight and pick it back up with the spring flush. Did see a wide 6 on the last day of the season that should have made it to watch for next year. This 9 would have been a heavy rack next season.
I have heard my brother talking to people who are against hunting. He has always said to them that no one is more creul than Mother Nature. I know they bounce back in numbers way to fast. I started this thread thinking of the quality of the meat if you kill a deer in these conditions. My falt for not staying withit from the begging. We will probably take a few more on a kill permit on a farm where only 3 deer were killed this season and are eating everything in site.The deer here were in bad shape the last 2 weeks of the season.
Tryin' to be the man, my dog think's I am. marine diesel service owner
Netman,
I don't think you'll have anything to worry about as far as eating them is concerned, they'll just have less fat on them. Now if they end up deseased that's another story. I alway's smell the meat as I'm dressing it. Also the fat should have that "white" look to it, I've seen "yellow" before and the meat was tainted. Frank
Thought I would give an update on our local deer herd and quality after 7 weeks of snow on the ground. Took a sample last week on a kill permit and the 2 ended up being very thin with no fat and alot of muscle loss due to cold temps and lack of food. Haven't cooked any yet but decided to call it quits after cleaning them and give them the off season to fatten up as meat is the only reason we take these deer. I'll let others do the damage control if its needed. Anything out of the snow the deer are eating, anywhere anytime.
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