I'm 31 and can remember nights when I was 25 driving around on a cool July evening after a rain shower cooled things down and I would routinely see 20-30 deer in a 45 minutes drive. In the winter when there was snow on, I could spend an hour driving back roads and seeing 50-60 deer was nothing. The first cold weather hunt on our farm was in January of 2006. I saw 13 deer in a single file line that night. You can't find 13 deer on the farm or the neighboring farms put together at times. The habitat has been improved with additional cover and food, yet far less deer. We drove for two hours the other day (11-1) during the "rut" and did not see a deer. All rural back roads. We have absolutely annihilated the deer here in Washington County in the vast majority of the county. We're the largest landmass county in Ohio, with more room to roam in regards to habitat than nearly every county in the state, yet our deer herd is in the shitter.
So you don't have to be an "old timer" to miss the good old days because they weren't that long ago. This was accomplished in fairly short order...
