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Did EHD hit your area this year?

We really got hammered. Eastern Muskingum, Western Guernsey, Southern Coshocton, counties pretty much got decimated on our larger bucks. Doesn’t seem to affect the does much. A well known bowhunter with lots of ties to knowledgeable people when it comes to this sort of thing said the bigger bucks get hit hard because of the blood rich velvet on the growing horns. The midges are really drawn to them. We had a wet year, so the dry year theory didn’t hold true for this year at least. It will take years for my area to recover. Wish their was something we could do to help prevent it.

NE ohio. No.

North Central Ohio. Nort that I'm aware of.

East central Ohio, no evidence of any problem here

Thanks for the feedback. The warden said the midges run on a 5 year cycle. We did have an outbreak in that time frame. I hunt Kansas every year and it doesn’t seem to be an issue there It has me thinking about moving.

I had 20 bucks or more on camera last year. 5 shooters and 5 or 6 that would be big this year. I shot one on 11.9.22. I have yet to see any others. I have 10 small bucks on camera. It's very disheartening. Buy me a vowel in Geauga county.

Guardian, We are experiencing the same thing in Coshocton County. We are running 25-30 cameras over a thousand acres so minor relocations would not explain it. We had the buck I shot on several cameras this year so if they are there, we should be getting pictures. Let me know if you can figure out what is happening. We had a number of our bigger bucks on camera in January and February last year and now they are no shows.

Goyt. We run that many on 400 acres in Illinois and bucks go missing for weeks and months.

Elite GSP, It is common for us to only get a few pictures a year of the older bucks and then get pictures routinely of some of the older bucks. Last year we had 6 bucks that were over 140" net and an 8 point, 3 1/2 that would net about 130. I think that only 1 of the 7 showed up on camera or was sighted this year. What sort of year to year carry over are you seeing?

I’m guessing 50% plus on our large bucks. But I don’t know what is killed in Gun. We are archery only. The other 250 that caretaker and wife hunts is same. We have a realtree outdoors guy that has lease and personal farm that is no gun. We have 4 eight points that go from 145-150s. 6 other bucks that go from 150-180”.

3/4 of us took bucks over 160” last year. Missing a BIG NON TYP that would easily be over 200”, have no clue and we all share pics except for are large tract that borders us. A shitty outfitter that leases 800 acres who shoots way too many 3.5-4.5 year old promising bucks.

We see a lot of same bucks that use exact same areas.

Great job of holding big deer. We have an outfitter around us as well. He has about 5,000 acres and claims to feed and bait all year long. He has about 6 bait stations within 250 yards of our property and last time I talked to him he was baiting about 40 sites. I am wondering if once bucks get dominate, they move to the easy and reliable food source. His hunters shoot bucks that I wouldn't, but I don't think enough to explain what we are experiencing. Thanks for the response.

We stay off farm after mid august. Try to get all our cams out and shit ready by July 4th if possible. Our first hunting trips don’t start til late august. Everyone is 8-10 hrs away. So try and maximize our trips.

Unfortunately from an area I used to hunt in Harrison County was shown video Wednesday from a buddy of a nice buck kinda spinning doing tight circles like it was drunk... The videographer was able to approach close to within only a few yards and definitely the buck was out of its mind... Otherwise the buck looked in perfect health and in rutting condition except for it's actions... It was sad, hard to watch, I assume it was EHD... That's the first case ever heard of in my area...

zbone, thats weird....

Gun season will really show how bad it was where you hunt. It’s no secret my part of SE Ohio has always been a hot spot for good bucks. Opening day it is usually non stop texts of big ones hitting the ground. So far almost a day and a half and not one.

I agree, first day gun season stats may give indication... Me neither haven't received big buck pix yet...

Where can you find those stats? Are they realtime or after the season?

Lots of buck hitting the ground near me, and I passed up a bunch before rifle. Thank God we don't seem to have EHD around us.

Go to the ODNR wedsite and look for news. They have an article for opening day results. The results for the first week will probably be released today. Also, under Wildlife Management there is a Deer Harvest Summary which is released about once a week.

Pat - Here's a linky to news Cliff was talking about:

"hunters checking 17,193 deer on Monday, Nov. 28"

Down from last year:

"In 2021, hunters took 21,754 deer on the opening day of the gun season"

https://ohiodnr.gov/discover-and-learn/safety-conservation/about-ODNR/news/ohios-weeklong-deer-gun-hunting-season-is-underway

Here's link to the weekly summary:

https://ohiodnr.gov/buy-and-apply/hunting-fishing-boating/hunting-resources/deer-harvest-summary

Happen to run across link to Ohio buck with EHD circling like the video I seen of one in Harrison County... Although both were nice bucks, I don't they are the same deer or video although they acted the same:

https://youtube.com/shorts/KAVs8IwzVqk?feature=share

If you look at that bucks right eye, you can see something wrong with it. Even looks like a mark leading to to the eye on that side. Maybe gored by another while fighting. If gored deep enough could've caused brain damage causing that type of behavior. Not saying it's not EHD, but without testing both are just guesses.

Sorry ^^^ Left eye.

From what I've read they do them circles with EHD, so I don't really know, only what I've read and first time I'd actually seen it on video was last November...

I hunt Harrison and Hocking county. Harrison this year I had 3 bucks over 140 on camera before season started. Only 1 during first week of season. After that zero mature deer. We share info with the neighbors and they had the same deer on camera. 2 of the deer were found dead, no apparent cause or wounds. The third just vanished, no pics, no sightings, no one killed him that we are aware of. This is on approx 700 contiguous acres across multiple owners. Only one was a deer we knew from last year, and none of the other big deer from the previous season showed up.

Hocking county, we had 15 different bucks on camera in the 2021 season. Several in the 130s were the biggest. We got pictures of 2 deer, in the mid 140s this year, no young bucks, very few does, no fawns.

Both of these areas got hit very hard with ehd.

On the Harrison piece, we went through this same thing in 2014-15, and were just getting back to having good deer again.

The areas around Cincinnatti got hit worse than we did.

Next year is going to really tell how bad it is.

New to the board.

Hunting Guernsey and Athens. Both were hit hard. Found multiple dead in Athens.

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