If you remember some of my trail cam pictures from 6 or 8 years ago, I had pictures of 8 or 10 or 12 deer in one pic. I've noticed the head count is steady going down.

I may have mentioned this above, but on the camera watching Wardney's salt lick, I haven't had a single deer on camera for 6 weeks or better.

A while back I posted a link to "when do whitetail fawns breed". As well as I remember, the break point was 80# for a female fawn, and 90# for a male fawn. Very few of our fawns hit that mark.

December 31, 2022, a friend of mine shot a deer, it was just one deer alone, right at dark. He thought it was an adult doe, at the shot. He sent me a picture, I told him to put it on the scales. It was a female fawn and weighed 49 pounds, field dressed. So she wasn't even close to the breeding weight.

A few years ago I commented about 10 fawns running together, I just found out what's going on with that deal. Or had it confirmed anyway.

I'll explain that later, I'm out of time.

Why are the deer so small?

My best guess. The doe that had that fawn, was killed on a crop damage permit. Back in the summer, maybe while the fawn was still nursing? Without it's milk, that would be enough to stunt it's growth.

I'm sure that our soil and growing season has an impact too.

I'll tell you about the 10 fawns running together, a few years ago. I bumped into them 3 or 4 or 5 times that season? All fawns, and not an adult deer in sight.

The property where I was hunting is all woodland, 2 properties down, it's crop land. Corn fields. That property changed hands a few years ago, the man that farms it now, from what I've been told has been killing a bunch of deer on damage permits.

I know the man that farms it, don't really know him that well, we'd recognize each other. But I talked to one of his best friends the other day, and asked if they'd killed any nice bucks this season. He said: No, but we killed a bunch of doe back in the summer.

The man that farmed that same property years ago, he didn't put as much pressure on the deer. Once the corn was harvested, all of those deer would head for the woods.

The DNR still hasn't posted the annual bear kill. Or I can't find it anyway. Talking to a friend the other day, he said they must be ashamed of the numbers. Usually, the harvest is posted within 2 or 3 days of the end of season. May need to call and ask?

Here is a link to West Virginia's 2022 Bear harvest.

https://wvdnr.gov/wvdnr-releases-2022-black-bear-harvest-numbers/

Hopefully this link works.

Here is a link to WV's 2021 bear kill. This link and the one above are both statewide numbers.

https://wvdnr.gov/west-virginia-hunters-harvest-2756-black-bears-in-2021/

I'll give you a rundown on the numbers. WV's 2021 bear harvest was down 22% from the previous year. WV's 2022 bear harvest was down 37% from the previous year.

I knew out local bear kill would be down, talking to different friends, checking cameras and all, we just don't have the bear numbers like we did just a few years ago.

In my comments above, I've mentioned about everything that the DNR, mentioned in their reports.

I live in Hardy County, WV. Grant County is to the west, Pendleton County is south. I hunted in different areas, over near the East Virginia state line a few days, but I stayed in Hardy County. Our licenses are good statewide, but I just stayed here at local.

One final number that I'll run past you. During the 2019 bear season, there were 108 bear killed in Hardy County, WV. During the 2022 bear season, there were 16 bear killed in Hardy County! Sixteen!

So if you look at that #, since 2019, our local bear harvest is down more than 80%.

Also, the DNR reduced our bear season by 25 days. To shorten the season by 25 days from one year to the next is a very abrupt change!

Our bear population will rebound, and I really think we have more bear than the harvest shows. We had some cold weather in early November, and I'd guess that a lot of them did hole up.

We'll find out this coming season.