its not fact, its his opinion. he just hasn't ever been somewhere with too many does. some places have plenty of bucks AND still too many does.

Why do you feel like y'alls place has too many?? What's pointing you in that direction?

my place doesn't. I know there are places that do.

saying something and then saying 100% UNDENIABLE FACT,... doesn't make it true.

I have only hunted one property like that. Saw herds of does, 1 spike and piles of hogs. No visible green that you could reach. Any vegetation smaller than your thumb was clipped off the tree as high as you could reach and nothing growing from ground level. Deer were mostly the size of the Walker hounds. The good ole days of management by the forked horn method.

Clearly you can kill too many does sport hunting. What we have today that we didn't have in the 80s nearly as bad, is coyotes. They take a huge toll on the herds. That's getting worse, not better. Don't matter if you let the baby maker walk, if her babies aren't surviving. I have no numbers to point to on any particular piece of property, but Auburn has done plenty of research that tells us yotes are having an impact.

Wait a second.....

we are now trying to say that does produce more does than bucks naturally? So if you have more does they will breed and produce more does?

It is getting DEEP round here. DEEP.

Having and seeing are too different things. IF you property survey your deer herd and.....


Again... if you have "too many does" 4:1 vs bucks or more..... someone killed the bucks. Y'all are talking about "I need to shoot these 30 does". That's more than a little out of whack.

Someone shot the bucks. That is the ONLY logical reason your ratio would be that messed up.

100% FACT.

What do y'all think happens... do you think does are just hatching up out of the mud?

We are talking more like 10:1 does. (And a ton of bucks too)

Bucks might travel away, while the does stay. Who knows.

No I am sure it’s near 50/50 on male female births. There are large properties that keep up with it extensively. It’s not just a guessing game

Bucks have a much higher natural mortality rate

There is ZERO guessing. If you have 10:1 does someone kilt the bucks. That is the only explanation as to what has happened.

There is no other way to get to those numbers.

If there was zero hunting you would have never have that balance in nature.

Do you think cars only hit bucks or coyotes only eat buck fawns? A buck's mortality rate is higher, as I stated earlier, but to get to the point where you "need to kill some does" over 5:1.... someone shot the bucks.

100% FACT.

1:1 is the natural ratio. This would be a pipe dream but in the absence of humans you would be close to that ratio.

You’re incorrect

I did 57 sits last year. Kept journal transferred to excel spreadsheet

Know every buck killed on property and by neighbors

The QDMA association has preached kill every doe you can see for the last 20 years.
And worship every SOOS and every other scabby inferior antler buck you see.

You are incorrect bama1971 .

Say something to prove me wrong. You ain't made the case for jack chit.

Don’t have any evidence. Just telling you.

Some places have too many does. Don’t know why

Ok, We're good then.

Not to bring science and basic deer biology into this discussion, but in almost all cases does drop doe fawns and buck fawns in almost a 50/50 ratio. Mature does pretty much rule the deer herd and they run their yearling buck fawns off onto other properties annually. It's called dispersion. Does dont run the doe fawns off onto other properties so they typically stay on the land on which they are born and assimilate into the established doe groups. To keep the ratio even, just on yearling does and bucks, you've got to be recruiting bucks from surrounding properties at the same rate that your bucks are being run off in order to just stay even. If you've got a property with too many deer on it, bucks will naturally seek out other surrounding properties with better food and cover and your annual buck recruitment will not equal your annual buck dispersion so you're headed downhill before the first trigger is pulled. Look at it this way, assume every doe born on your land stays on or around it. You're going to lose at least half or more of your yearling bucks due to them dispersing onto surrounding properties. Bucks will also leave for other properties if the competition is to high. Mature bucks do not generally like the company of other mature bucks. It's why you rarely see a herd or batchelor group of seven or eight mature, 5 year old or older bucks running together. Example: You walk into a bar and there are 20 hot chicks and 100 guys, you look across the street and there are 20 hot chicks and just 5 guys, where are you going want to get your beer and hang out? That said, bucks are only interested in does for basically 10-15% of the year. The other 10 months, they have no use for them and will not seek them out. If they can live on another property with better food and less mouths to feed a mile or two away, they wil do it. When it comes time to chase tail, they will show up where all the girls live but the rest of the year, you wont see them because they are not living on your propety.

Now let's throw in the mortality differences between bucks and does. Bucks natural mortality is probably 2-3 times as high, if not higher, than doe mortality due to the stress, travel and rigors of the rut, before we even discuss everyone wanting to kill something with horns. Does stay home. bucks travel long distances, cross roads, run themselves down to the point of near death in some cases during the rut. Higher chance of being hit by cars due to longer travel distances, higher chance of being injured or killed fighting other bucks, higher chance of getting hung up jumping fences, higher chance of developing a brain abscess from fighting, a damaged pedicle, borken or shed antler, more chance of breaking a leg, greater chance of being caught and killed by coyotes due to being weak or injured, greater chance to succombing to disease due to being in a run down condition from the rut, proven fact that bucks seem to be more likely to be affected by EHD, we can go on and on. Lot more ways for a buck to die than a doe, other than just a bullet. 100% fact. Not saying that bullets dont kill bucks and they definitley can produce a skewed sex ratio in herd but it's 100% fact that deer harvest is not the only way you can get way more does than your land can support.

I'll also say this. Like CAL I jumped on the kill every doe QDM bandwagon early on but with the unlimited doe days, higher coyote populations, etc. I quickly saw the error in the logic several years in. You simply cannot kill every doe you see while every neighbor around you is doing the same thing for 100 days straight. I honeslty cannot remember how long it has been since I shot at doe with a gun. Probably 7-10 years at least.

It’s more convincing if you’ll say “100% FACT 0% OPINION” after saying something

it doesn't make any difference who shot any or all of the bucks. In a herd with too many deer for the lands carrying capacity and prolly skewered ratios...YOU STILL HAVE TOO MANY DOES. Too many deer, then you have too many does. IF you stop killing bucks for five years...you will still have too many does, in fact way too many does. So "too many does" can and does exist in overpopulated herds. Solution is to kill selected number of the too populated does and slow or stop buck killing. The total numbers still have to be kept in check with the habitat, natural and manmade.

I have hunted in Choctaw Co near Mt Sterling and seen 100 deer in a smallish greenfield with only 3-4 small bucks present. Everybody on the place would see the same thing. Too many deer/too many does.

QDMA never has preached kill all the does. People without a strong understanding of deer management applied heavy doe harvest improperly in some areas and blamed QDMA because they screwed up. That’s one of the most often used excuses I hear, and QDMA has received a ton of bad publicity for something they never preached. They encouraged annual doe harvest as part of a comprehensive management plan, and it should be exercised in such a way as to accomplish landowner objectives. Sadly, some people took that too far and who gets the blame? Not the ones who made that decision. The QDMA. That’s 100% FACT.

A large portion of deer hunters in Alabama are not thinking deer management when they pull the trigger on a doe. It is legal so it must be ok. Time to rethink our current system.