Deer hunting North Bay Area

Just south of North Bay on both sides of Hwy 11 the whitetail numbers have been very good the past few years (zones 47 and 48). Not good like southern Ontario good but healthy populations by near north standards. Moose numbers are decent. Adult moose tags are next to impossible to obtain and calves in 48 are by draw only. I always have moose on my property in 48 but don't expect to ever get a tag.
 
the past several yrs zone 47 has been extremely poor for deer ( due to a couple of bad winters). We always see lots of moose but getting a tag is a challenge.

For 40 years I've hunted both east and west of highway 11, which defines the border between 47 and 48. I agree that 47 is down from previous years but there are still deer, just not like the glory years for Restoule and Loring. My brother-in-law hunts west of South River and they had a hard time in 2019 finding deer at all but game cams showed many bear. Fawn predation is now a bigger than normal problem locally for him as are wolves. They finally had success during the late archery season and yard migration. Hunters at my brother's farm near Nipissing village all filled their tags this past year during rifle season. To the east side (48) it seems like bear numbers are slightly down and deer numbers are okay - much, much, better than they were when I was growing up but still not as good as 47.
What hasn't been addressed is the topic of access. There are camps either leased on crown or else recently purchased from the crown and those folks feel 'their'
area is exclusively their's. To be fair, you might ATV into a crown area and the people who don't want you there are the people that made the trail that you rode in on and built the bridges you crossed.
 
2019 in WMU 47 i saw an average numbers of does but only one fawn. 2020 i am seeing an average number of does again but a lot more does with fawns and a few does with twins. I would also say bear numbers have started to go down a bit as well in 2020.
 
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