Deer are plentiful for sure, coyotes are making bacon too.
Those east of 495 or around it have great deer populations. You have light hunting pressure, lots of pockets deer can live without being bothered.
Out in Central and Western Ma when coyotes came in about 20 years ago. The deer population is down. That is also due to allowing liberal doe permits and the incoming law of allowing two bucks a year. Plus expanding archery, muzzleloader and shotgun almost all at the same time. And killing all the deer in the quabbin which was a good sanctuary and carryover for the local area.
Out here most of the land is open, large blocks of mature woods which deer take many years to recover from over harvest.
It took 60 years for the quabbin to overpopulate. They knocked it down to area wide density in 3 years of hunting. Now its like hunting everywhere else around the area.
The insurance lobby loves it. Less deer car collisions. They shouldnt be managing wildlife though.
To build upon that we now have most hunters because they rarely see a deer. Shooting everything they see. The only positive is that with very low population you do get bigger bucks. But your lucky as heck to see one. Ive shot corker racked bucks over 200 pounds in very overpopulated areas of CT. Id rather have more deer.
Some of you guys see a few deer during a weeks hunt or see even one deer and kill it and say deer are plentiful. Thats a joke. Ive hunted areas in ct that your guaranteed to see 10-20 deer a day and the deer are nice and healthy. You get to watch them, pass as many as you want, pick out certain bucks and pass the little ones letting them grow.
Not kill the first one you see because thats all youll see all week.
Having too many coyotes ( I hear them in the back field at least one to two nights a week) is not helping our deer numbers. When I moved to my house years ago it was tough to see a coyote. Now, I could probably shoot one a week at night if we had a decent way of taking them. Bears and coyotes hammer fawns in the spring. We have plenty of both around and fish and game does not give us the tools to properly manage. Shooting at something in the dark with a .22 is NOT a way to take out coyotes, it's a recipe for an accident. Until we can take them in the dark with lighted or thermal topped real calibers, it's a no go for me, I feel I'm wasting my time.