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The same thing happens here, our place is a valley and the side hills that were once fields are overgrown, with only the bottom field still in use, they always head for the bottom areas after dark or early morning like you mentioned. Seems they do travel, not here all the time, but when they are, you know it. They do get close to house, and howl, interupting ones sleep! Hard to interpret how many but, could be a dozen and they do pressure the deer big time as I've seen 1st hand. You can tell when they are around by how the deer act. Even having the time to set up and start eliminating them, using bait or some other means to draw em in, it's going to be difficult to eliminate them all, possibly control them a bit but they're back in strong numbers and healthy. I did catch one taking a morning nap and proceeded to sneak right up to him, got so close I could have given him the boot, while standing over him, eventually he turned around and when he saw me, his legs could not have gotten underneath him fast enough. He was 200-250 yards away, in the sun, he found a great nap area, he must have been tired from the nights hunt. I crept in quiet areas hiding behind bushes, I made sure to line up behind his ears, to make my approach, and was creeping in short grass, he never heard or got wind of my scent, wish I had the camera, I stood next to him for a good 5 minutes or more, he just happened to glance around, then saw me, was never alerted to my presence, gave me a stare and sprung up and ran quickly away. I just had to see one up close. Walked right up on a healthy red fox hunting a pheasant once, had no clue I was there, I had heard the pheasant make some odd noise ( he was a local I used to feed from my porch, had a breeding pair, really enjoyed having them around, never knew where they came from either ) I saw the pheasant tip toeing away out flanking the fox, he was slow to pick up his scent, he never even gave me a look he was so busy, was 30 feet away in a brush area at the end of a trail. That pheasant easily outsmarted him and got away. The fox sure was healthy, must be all the rabbits and mice here. When the pheasant would come by, if he saw the neighbors dog 200 yards away, he would go into stealth mode immediately, interesting little fellow, our place was loaded with them, I think the predators did them in, had not seen one here for close to 20 years, we used to hunt them often. Newest addition here is bobcat, I don't I'll ever get a chance to stalk him, he's real serious about not being seen, he carefully snuck past me last deer season, while I was up in a stand watching, never saw one before, food must be plentiful here there's lot of action out there now.
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