A question, for you successful hunters. I've seen three different doe taken in the area in the last week. What strikes my as unusual is the length of hair and amount of fat on the deer. In my 51 seasons, I've never seen hair on deer as short as it was on them. Most hair is about a half inch with maybe an inch and a half on chest and belly. The one I cut up yesterday didn't have 5 pounds of fat. All three were 1 1/2 years old. They live surrounded by soybeans, corn, and good grazing. would have been in trouble if we have a hard winter. I'm thinking we are going to have a fairly open winter. Last year there was much more hair and fat and a long winter.
Many years ago my farmer uncle told me he could tell how hard a winter we were going to have by the amount of hair on their udders. Some years he had to shave them and winter spanked us. Other years, open. I hope this holds true. Time will tell. What have you noticed?