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Open Country deer question

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IowaDave

PMA Member
It seems like the majority of the people here are from southern or eastern Iowa where there big timber is abundant, but hopefully someone here can shed some light on a discussion some of my hunting buddies and I have been having.

I live NW IA and the vast majority of our ground is farm ground. Around here, during the winter litereally every deer leaves the 'open country' and will go into a timber. In my immediate home area, depending on the area, sometimes it's up to 8 miles to the nearest timber. In the evenings, there are litereally hundreds of deer that are grazing in the fields adjecent to those timbers, which is not the case in the spring/summer/fall. Plus when we're in the open country coyote hunting we never, ever see even a deer track, let alone a deer so it's not as if the deer are just laying low & waiting out the winter; they have left the area all together.

My question is, has anyone here had enough experience with deer in the open country to know if the same deer will come back to the same area once spring arrives?
Some of us think that the same deer go back to the same area because they're familiar with it and feel safe there since they've survived at least one season. Some think that as they start to disperse in the spring, they just make the first spot that has what they need to survive 'home' and other deer keep spreading out further because the closest spots to the timber are already occupied.
Personally, I go back & fourth and when it comes down to it, I really have no clue. I just know that there are no deer in the open country in the winter and by spring, they've magically moved back in. And quite honestly, it does amaze me that the areas that are so far from the timber have such good numbers because they've had to pass countless other areas that would provide food & shelter when getting to that area from the timber.
Since I have no tracking devices I can put on them, I've come here to see what you have to say!
 
Personally, I think the same deer return to the same areas. There is quite a bit of legitimate evidence proving this as well with studies that have been done with all kinds of deer species out west, where they often follow the same routine of living in open areas during warmer months and congregating in timbered areas during cold months, especially once the heavy snow hits.

To me it's really no different than what we have in the timbered areas I hunt, where the deer have specific spring/summer and fall/winter areas. I think most of your dispersal or change will come from younger deer that have matured over the winter moving to areas of their own, while the more mature deer will set up in the same areas as before.
 
i am in the middle of the road when it comes to habitat. not a ton of timber like some parts of the state but not as barren as the nnw. we notice a huge change in population of areas over the seasons. during the spring summer and early fall the deer are pretty thick in the smaller river bottom timbers, the are usually fairly thick in terms of vegetation and tree density but not very wide and obviously are in low lying areas. after shotgun seasons the deer are pretty much void of the river bottoms and move into larger river bottom timbers and other larger stands of timber. i have always attributed this to shot gun season itself. the small river bottoms are easy to push in relation to big stands of timber and after gettin pushed out constantly for a couple weeks they find a place to avoid the pressure in my area that is the larger stands of timber because for one they are hunted less and are much harder to drive deer. thats my take not sure if it applies to u or not. i will say the shotgunners in my area are doing a much better job of managing their animals not to mention the days of very large parties are seemingly over usually less than 10 guys in a group nowadays...we'll see how long it takes the deer to change their patterns if i am right.
 
I don't have a lot of experience in open farmland migration, but I can tell you in the huge forests I hunt in Michigans U.P the deer migrate every year, 50 miles or more and return to their home areas in the spring. The DNR has tagged deer with different colored ear tags for to determine the home areas, one of the tagged deer was shot at our camp 2 season ago 112 miles from where it was tagged earlier in the year. We know the deer migrate due to winter severity and the further south they go towards Lake Michigan the less snow that accumulates. Yet the same deer return to the same area year after year from a summer range to a winter range.
 
farm country deer

IowaDave: I can relate to your situation. I own more than one farm, one is open farm country, it is planted to habitat but it is not quite to the point where the deer will winter in that area---some day it will happen. I do own a 40 that has 28 acres of oak and other timber and the deer winter in that area.

I can tell you that the deer will return to their summer range. I see it every year, on both farms, via camera and personal sightings. There is good and bad to this. Sometimes a buck that I have never seen shows up on my 40 in December, on the other hand the bucks that were hanging out on my farm country parcel leave in November as they winter 2 miles south of my farm. The positive is that they don't eat my trees that I have planted!:way:

What can you do about it? Probably not much, unless you plan on planting several acres of trees, switchgrass etc...

I had a beautiful stand of soybeans for a food plot, hoping that the deer would winter on my farm country parcel and no it did not happen, the deer still migrated south 2 miles in December. Nothing is eating the beans except the pheasants....
 
Hardwood11 said:
I can tell you that the deer will return to their summer range. I see it every year, on both farms, via camera and personal sightings.

What can you do about it? Probably not much, unless you plan on planting several acres of trees, switchgrass etc...
Click to expand...

When you say that the deer will return to their summer range & that you've seen this, do you mean the same deer?

Actually I have no desire to have the deer winter on any of our properties....they're probably safer in the timber anyway. The main reason I'm asking the question in the first place (other than plain curiousity) is because I'm just wondering if I'm going to get to see the same smaller deer I'm passing up grow, or if it's different deer every year coming back.

It's been a very informative thread for me so far....keep 'em coming!!
 
Referring to bucks that I know are the same deer, by either seeing the deer or on camera. For example, I had a nice 8 hang out on my property for 3 years before he was shot by my neighbor. He scored 145". Distinct rack, definitely the same deer. Other bucks as well!
 
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