Main question - can anybody relate to beast hunting on heavily pressured areas that are anywhere from about 200-600 acres? I know Dan talks about hunting some areas that are thousands of acres in size, but there's just none of that around here. There's very very few places that are "hard access".
What I've been finding out is that in the areas where there's a lot of deer - every part of these properties are getting pressure. I was having some good luck and getting on some decent bucks in the earlier part of the season, however I've barely seen a deer for the last 2 weeks.
From your experience, what's going on at this point in the season? The 2 most likely scenarios that I can think of is that these bucks (and deer in general) are either becoming very nocturnal OR they are just getting pushed onto the neighboring properties that don't get nearly as much pressure. I feel like the deer I want to hunt just aren't there right now. I don't run many trail cams this time of year because they like to get stolen
Couple other factors - i'm predominantly hunting farm country with these couple hundred acres of open grass/slough type country surrounded by ag. For all the spots that I've tried to hunt, there's a large system of cover within a few miles which they could move off to. There is a lot of pheasant hunting pressure and I'd imagine that these sloughs get pushed multiple times a week.
I know it's not the best time of year to get frustrated so I need some fresh ideas to keep me going! Thanks in advance