In Season Trail Use

[persianrug]

Found plenty of well worn trails this season, but they did not looked recently used (fresh duff, no fresh prints, no fresh poop). Didn't see any deer take these trails while sitting despite some heavy pre-season use. 5+ miles into timber without sign of other humans. Iverson, Terkla, and Haugen write about still hunting along trails and stands overlooking trails, but the fresh prints were scattered.

Has anyone else experienced this lack of trail use during the season? Feels like I'm doing something wrong if 3 blacktail authors are saying the opposite of my experience.

 

[mtnbound]

I was in an area this year that has always had animals and tremendous trail activity, but this year, the majority of the sign was old from winter/spring. Something changed in this area, and I assumed it was caused by predator pressure, because it wasn't a hard winter. You may be doing the perfect technique, but that doesn't matter if they are not there.