NDR - Western Deer Hunt & EHD

Paul Strombeck

Active member
I just got back from deer hunting along the NE – SD border and found the EHD outbreak is still going strong in certain areas. Since we pay a trespass fee to hunt private land I was disappointed the outfitter made no mention of the situation. I hunted this property in 2011 and skipped 2012 but thinking the EHD outbreak had subsided I went this year.

Most the mature bucks met this fate - note fence
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Over 10 days my partner and I glassed from high points and used trail cams to survey the resident deer population. It is our conclusion that in this area virtually all the mature buck are dead. It turns out a local rancher got EHD in his herd which acted as a reservoir for the virus which in turn infected the local deer population. One rancher stated they used to always look for the dead animal when they smelled the odor of decomposition as it was typically a calf or a cow and they wanted to record the ear tag number and take the animal off the herd list. They don’t bother anymore – every search just turns up another dead deer.

These situations can be pretty localized. A group from WI hunting about 20 miles south of us took some exceptional deer during the same week time we were there.

Since the disease produces a high fever deer often move to water. We were finding them along fences in the river bottoms – they were too weak to jump the fence and simply died there.

I got lucky and took the buck below. My partner just gave up and shot a little 2.5 year old eight pointer
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If you are considering a western deer hunt be sure to ask about the EHD situation in your area. Given that two other groups will likely hunt this location after us I suspect they will be disappointed.
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