There's other factors that come into play , especially timing. This year happened to be very wet around prime time for the midge's breeding season then the drought hit at the right time to drive deer to water.But mud exists around every source of water I've ever been around. Full of water and there is still mud around the edge, 2 weeks since the last rain and the pond level drops only a a few inches there's mud. Rocky creeks, theirs always areas where sediment piled up, mud. How about after a big rainfall event and there's puddles and low lying areas with stagnant water, as it dries up mud. How about low swampy areas that are always wet, mud abounds. That patch f trees in a field where the farmer has never planted because it's always wet, mud. We've got mud everywhere around here in the south, how do we still have deer and not massive EHD outbreaks? We have a 10,000 acre WMA that if it's not water, it's mud. There's no such thing as dry ground in that swamp. I'm just thinking there has to be more to it than mud.
Not EHD but did anybody else get this CWD email that hunts any of these counties?View attachment 212373
Just curious- were you in an area where the DNR said there were a bunch (2-3deer co or some other means of knowing)?I remember the 23-24 season being the toughest I've probably ever had. Many sets without seeing a single deer.
They had it as a mild hit there. Actually I meant to say the 2022 season was the tuff one! Hunted several days without a deer spotted. In 2023 I had a decent season with a lot of sightings but all two year old deer. Two year old bucks everywhere passed up so many. That same area in 2024 had very few bucks on hit. Lord knows what happened to them. Now here we are in 2025 and EHD in the same area and I haven't had one buck on camera there since the first week of August.Just curious- were you in an area where the DNR said there were a bunch (2-3deer co or some other means of knowing)?
Yep that’s exactly what I have been seeing too. Actually read that if a cow is early in its pregnancy and gets the virus the calf can be born a life time carrier of ehd. There might be a very small portion of the midge larva that are born with it as well but there hasn’t been significant data to support that. Over all there just haven’t been enough studies done on ehd and the midges that pass it to make a game plan to fight it yet.Just reading a study that that suggests that with our warmer weather the deer that survived EHD and still infected, the new adult midges that popup can continue the cycle of transmission by biting infected deer and keep spreading it. It appears the virus doesn't directly pass from adult midges to the offspring midges
Yep that’s exactly what I have been seeing too. Actually read that if a cow is early in its pregnancy and gets the virus the calf can be born a life time carrier of ehd. There might be a very small portion of the midge larva that are born with it as well but there hasn’t been significant data to support that. Over all there just haven’t been enough studies done on ehd and the midges that pass it to make a game plan to fight it yet.
Hopefully someone takes a hard look at it