major carnage and death

the area i hunt in idaho produced several great bucks for the past number of years, 100% success rate guaranteed, private ranch our hunting party has had exclusive permission to hunt(also really good for gobblers), i show up there last saturday afternoon, set up camp, and went out for an afternoon hike with my rifle...i hiked no more than 3 miles that afternoon and stumbled upon 13 dead deer, 6 of them bucks...most were still in velvet, found a HUGE 10 pointer on the same little skid road i dragged mine out on last year....the whole area got hit really hard with some disease which essentially causes the deer to die from pneumonia..does anyone know more about this?? how big of an area did this effect? what was the mortality rate?? like i said i found 13 dead deer and only saw 3 live and kicking does where normally you don't go more than an hour before you see more deer from the last ones you came across...we did manage to rattle in four bucks though first thing saturday morning in a different area...passed up on them looking for a monster...didn't see another buck(live) for the next two days!!! oh well, i've got five days set aside to hunt again over there around thanksgiving...

Be sure to contact the ID F&G with this information. They practice good science and value this input.

THey will also keep you informed or the boilogical reasons behind this incident.

take care

Could be that bluetongue disease. Are these deer whitetails? I heard bluetongue disease killed quite a few whitetail deer in southeast Wa. this year. Maybe Idaho had the same problem. It has something to do with some kind of fly, I think, and they are worse during dry and warm weather, which we had this past summer.

I hunt around Orofino,and I know that they had a MAJOR bluetongue die off. IDF&G is even advertising to not even call them about dead deer. Just deal with it they say. Too bad, but I'm glad that I called my landowner before I bought my license!!!