Killing does

I jumped on the bandwagon at one time but I just cannot make myself kill many of the baby makers nowadays. I know of places that the once thriving population has been nearly depleted due to “management”. So who is responsible for this? Some have suggested ALFA was behind this and it seems feasible.
To expect your ratio to be 1:1 also is just not normal. It’s strange on the place I hunt. Beginning of season you primarily see does then comes the December lull. After that it’s more buck sightings than does. Anyone else see this pattern?
Just some food for thought during the offseason.

My buddy Ikillbux will say Alfa has nothing to do with it. And like me or not I agree with him, or at least my knowledge of them anyway. Now is Alfa crooked in other ways as a whole? Yea probably are! 🤣🤣

like Cam, I once jumped on the doe train and slap kilt some nannies. Called up buddies and they buddies and we kilt the piss out of em for about 3 years. Spikes and “cull bucks too”. Lmao

About that 4th year we didn’t see many deer and 5 years later we was in the same shape, same “big buck size” but not many deer. We kicked my own ass for that, I’ll shoot some does running dogs in Chambers county cause that’s what the land owner wants. But I won’t shoot many a year with a rifle, sorta save for em for other folks that wanna kill em. But I’ve kilt my share of the apple headed, snorting, sobs.

Dept Conservation started pushing killing does in 1980 er so. They started the DMAP program to enable certain properties to kill the snot out of "overpopulated" doe herds. Common saying then was " you cannot kill too many deer by sport hunting"....well that wasn't true as we see now.

A common sense approach will work nearly every time

I saw what happened to the numbers at Choccolocco when they allowed does to be taken on most every gun hunt for a few seasons around 05-10. I took a couple during those times but it was a noticeable difference in the deer harvest numbers once they allowed the doe slaughter. After the first two years of increased doe harvest, Sightings went from being able to see something most anytime I went to dang near nothing. Killing the baby makers ain’t the best idea in the world for a lot of areas in AL.

We had began to build a substantial herd up our way probly 16 to 18 years ago...then we switched to 2 does a day all season long..and for an area of the state with overall poor fawn recruitment..we basically hit the reset button...and...presto...zone C....no deer...no turkey....plenty of bass...if you like that sortah thing.

If the doe looks over a year and a half, I don’t fire. I like the young chicken fryers.

The DCNR has convinced generations of hunters that you can’t kill too many.

We, along with the guys south of us
killed 30 this year. We have an over abundance
of does. This was on a total of 1700 acres.
We will see what it looks like next year.
Btw, what is dmap going to tell me that I
don't already know, after fooling with
our herd for 43 years?

I am strictly asking a question here, and am kind of playing Devil's advocate.......but do you think by shooting every doe you can, that they get kind of wise like the bucks and go nocturnal?

I have been on a small club for the last 10 years and we only take a handful of does every year. Old guys that I hunt with have not shot 1 doe in the 10 years I have been here, but they have no problem taken 1.5 year old basket rack 6. I'm no biologist, and I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn last night, but I bet there is a balance somewhere between letting them walk and killing everyone you see.

Grew up in north Clarke Co.....we had deer enough...you could go sit what we termed the "oat patch" in the late 70's and early 80's and unless a weather event had things a little off then you would see exactly the same number of deer every sit...does and little ones and whatever. Let's say that number was 11. Day after day 11. Then you look away and look back and there's a bigger, darker deer...number 12. Reach for the rifle, confirm legal horns, get him centered up and squeeze one off.
Next day maybe 3-7 deer come out. Day after that 11! No doe shooting on these spots allowed the deer to be at ease. We always had deer to watch until the 10 day doe season. You could get 2 of the 11 and then things were sketchy the rest of the year.

Hell yes to the 4th power yes they will go nocturnal! Especially in areas where there is more to eat than just that hubcap sized food plot with a feeder in the middle of it. Killing old does is HARD! Just think how much death they have seen in 5-6 years at your average club.

Firat year we were on DMAP in Washington County 1992 of 30 does we killed..Over half aged more than 5 yo...that's a lot of whistleblowers gone! the 2 buck we shot aged at 8.5 and 7.5 and weighed a staggering 135 lb each.

You have to kill Does! You have to "Feed the Family"! Keep killing them in large numbers and the population will decline!

In a lot of areas the coyotes and dogs kill a heck of a lot more deer than hunters. Late in the season if you aren't seeing a lot of 6 month old fawns you might have a problem other than hunters shooting does.

At least 10 deer (that I know of) were killed by traffic within 1/2 mile of my house since October. So you gotta take those into account as well.

Dept biologists said coyotes had zero impact on deer numbers...they didn't KILL deer. They were as wrong about that as they were killing does.

The dept biologists (many of them) have said the same thing I've always said. Coyotes do kill SOME deer, but certainly nowhere near the amount we're lead to believe.and killing does can be very beneficial to the overall health and age structure when the local deer numbers are taken into account. Obviously it doesn't apply everywhere to every piece of property.

Coyotes kill a huge number of new fawns every year, worse on some places than others.

As I’ve said before, when we got our place in Monroe co. we would kill 12-15 does a year for the first few years. We noticed a decline in deer sightings and also deer sign in the woods. The plots would not get clipped much at all. We decided to cut back on doe killing. Only 2-3 killed for the last 5 yrs by the kids. The doe numbers bounced back strong on our place because of it and also our neighbors don’t hunt anymore so that helped them also. It’s a double edged sword because now we have lots of older does that seem to just walk around blowing and also I think they run bucks out of areas where we are feeding until the rut. According to cameras the bucks will show up at feeders till the does show up and never get another picture of the bucks. We are going to try to kill a few more of the older does next season. It’s hard to get my guys to shoot does so it’s gonna be up to the kids. Also now that I’m no longer farming I will have time to start bow hunting again. Hopefully we can get a few killed early.

Damn these rainy days are long. I keep looking outside thinking about all my chores that's piling up.

Kill what you need for the freezer and forget everything else. For me that’s 2 or 3 a year.

Truth. Last fall I had a doe with triplets on the home place. I didn't say anything about it on here cause I would be branded as a liar.

3 ain't something most of us haven't seen.

Many times

Coyotes are likely taking out any weak, wounded, sick deer in the population. I've seen enough now through tracking that I'm certain they target the wounded deer hunters shoot that are marginally hit. It took me a while to put two and two together and but now that I know what I'm looking for......I see a lot of evidence of coyotes getting to the wounded deer before us and taking it on out. They aren't doing it by just jumping on it and attacking it when they find it. They get it up and push it just like we do when I'm tracking if we jump a wounded one. They just follow along behind trailing it until the injury or ailment wears them down to the point of exhaustion. I see it commonly on leg hits for instance. The buck can run fine to start with....but then after awhile that one good front leg starts wearing out of him and suddenly he can't climb that ridge or cross that steep creek bank. I've watched my dogs track one partially up a ridge and back down....up it again...and back down....before finally just staying in the bottom. Once the deer reaches the point of exhaustion then that's when the coyotes....most likely in packs....take it on out. Probably without to much of a fight at that point.

I've even seen though where they attacked some straight out of the bed. The evidence was big wads of white hair leading in a bread crumb like trail away from where the deer had initially bedded. I also commonly find deer that should have never went as far as what they did on their own and they'll be eaten up by coyotes once we do find them. I've seen them have green gut matter blown out at the hit site the size of a paper plate and when we get to where they bedded at 300-400 yards, no deer to be found....where did we find it??...Over a mile away with nothing left but a skeleton and rack. One of the last deer I tracked this year was shot in the hind quarter and up into the back of the guts with a 7 mag. It ran to a prime spot for one to bed up...wet and thick along a small creek. He left from there though and continued down the little creek for 1100 yards....moving through prime bedding cover the entire way. He didn't go that far on his own will....the coyotes got him up and pushed him....he was eaten up too. I can give you one account after another of situations where I'm just about positive its happening. Wounded deer don't want to go any farther than they have to. I'm sure there's some exceptions but you're just not likely to see one travel these long distance without being pushed.

I wonder if this is the same thing the red wolf did as well. It would only make sense that a predator like this would choose the less risky method of taking a deer out. I'm not sure how big they are but it would hard for me to believe that they attacked and took down full grown deer with any regularity. I would think they likely targeted the weak and injured as well. If so that means that the coyote is replacing them and the population could be controlled by them. Just a thought anyways

I have watched a perfectly healthy 2 1/2 year old buck run by with it's tongue hanging out wondering why because it wasn't near the rut, only to see a large black coyote following it 10 minutes behind without breathing hard. Then another just like it 2 minutes after that. They do run down healthy deer. It might be rare, but I saw it.

When we jump a wounded deer my dogs don’t take out after it like a walker hound. I’ve trained them to stay close to the handler so it kinda limits us to what we can deal with on the ones that aren’t dead….I’m good with that though. What we do is once we get it up and it takes off….I let the dogs get in behind and continue to track it at however fast they want to take it. Otis is about like a beagle running a deer on a deer drive. I do this so that we can assess how injured or weak the deer might be. If we go 600-800 yards or something and we haven’t once seen the deer or heard it jump out in front of us….then we make the call that he is still pretty lively and going. However, if we get up on him several times and hear him struggling up ahead then we know that if we continue to push him there’s a good chance of him baying up.

I believe the coyote is doing the same thing….and that’s likely what you saw. I think when they come across a deer that they perceive to be a target for whatever reason they push it a little to test out the potential of taking it down just like we do when blood tracking. I’ve read a study or experiment that talks about the impacts of coyotes on deer behavior and I believe this is where its occurring. The more times a deer is pursued in order to check it for weakness…..the less they move and the more wary they become. It has the same impact as hunting pressure.

I’m guessing that this has been a learned behavior by coyotes and something that they only started doing during some time frame along this progression of them moving east. It may very well just be within recent times of the last decade or so that this behavior has really ramped up. From what I see they appear to be heavily targeting the wounded. A pretty high percentage of the live wounded deer that we get on the next day have signs of yotes getting them up and pursuing them in some form or fashion. There’s times when a wounded deer goes off script so bad from what they typically do that it leaves you scratching your head and wondering if coyotes were the culprit. We tracked a gut shot one day that the hunter and myself agreed to call off because of how far we’d gone. It didn’t make sense and I think it was likely the yotes on that one too but I can’t say for sure.

I think a lot more deer are being taken out this way than what is realized. Keep in mind things may have changed a lot in recent times if this was indeed a learned behavior. I imagine the “rigors of the rut” cause a lot of bucks to become targets…..maybe a doe has complications during birth…..maybe a deer gets sick and weak…..maybe they get hit by a car or break a leg….These deer are all candidates to be targeted and taken out. A coyote doesn’t have anything else to do but to trot around behind that deer until its injury or ailment bring it down. Coyotes don’t have property lines or boundaries to stop them either. I wouldn’t be surprised if some pursuits lasted for a day or two….the yote probably just lays down to rest from time to time and then trots on….he doesn’t have to run them just keep pushing.

A deer’s natural defense to it is to go to a body of water which could very well be just a detrimental to it. We jumped a 3 legged high fence deer this year that had one leg completely disabled. Otis got after him pretty hot and took him about ¾ mile. I saw they were headed for the big lake so I toned him off so I could catch and make sure he didn’t get in trouble. The hunter and guide were coming around in the truck and saw him cutting across a field. They said he was starting to struggle at that point. When I got there the deer had gone off into the lake but was nowhere to be seen. I could hear something that sounded like a deer bellowing 7 or 8 times the direction he had gone in then it went quiet. I just talked to high fence guide a couple weeks ago and he said the deer hasn’t been seen again. He may have very well drowned not realizing he couldn’t swim with 3 legs and his only good front one being worn out. I’m sure this happens with yotes too.

I dont shoot more than I can eat.

Y’all give that yote stuff some thought…I believe there’s some merit to it.

But back to the doe discussion….I think too many people are ‘managing does’ just because they’ve been told or believe that it’s a part of any proper deer management program and they would do it no matter the club or property. I think many time its being done with no real gauge as to if it needs to be done or not. Its more less based on campfire discussions so to speak. At the risk of certain members nutting up on me when I say this….I wonder sometimes if the biologists are just more less taking a wild arse guess…..An educated one now don’t get me wrong….but WAG still the same. Its more like…”Well your property looks like this or that so I think you should take out….maybe…..ehhhhh…..let’s say.... a little more” That’s not meant to offensive. I’m just saying that its still just a really ballpark guess. The same with reading the condition of the habitat....Long term weight trends maybe I could see being more telling.


Something I see that makes me question the whole need for doe management is that I go to some high end properties where you might have lets say 9 members on 3000-4000 acres or something like that. Alright these guys tell me that its routine to see 30-50 deer in the evenings in certain fields….sometimes they’ve seen as many as 60…..Well, these guys don’t shoot chit loads of does or anything. Their mostly buck hunting and bow hunting them a lot of times on top of that. By the way….this isn’t just one place or anything. There’s a good many examples. So what I’m getting around to with this is that they’re not “managing the does” on that place. At best they’re just skimming some off the top. So how is it that the deer herd flourishes from year to year just the same without someone thinning down all the does that they’re overrun with as some would say?? There’s so many folks that would look to that situation and say boy we need to shoot some of them….a bunch of them….but why?....These folks aren’t and I don’t see anything collapsing. Sure, the habitat is being managed well but that still doesn’t dictate the deer growing over its capacity. How is it that its held in check without seeing negative impacts? EHD? Coyotes? …..All I know is....they're loaded with deer year after year. I think if we were able to see the real truth it would be that very few people actually "need" to shoot does....and I actually think there's a real possibility that we could hypothetically just walk away from all together and nature would take care of it at this point just like it once did,

I was in a club for 10 years that killed a pile of does. The last 2 years I was in it a man was lucky to see double digit deer in a day or week. This was on 4900 acres.
They have a full time trapper now, and people are reporting seeing 10 to 20 deer a day. The last 4 years I was in the club, you could put 6 cameras on 600 acres and get the same 6 deer on every camera.

The club I am in now quit killing does in a mass quantity 3 years ago. I've only been in the club 2 years, and I think there have only been 12 does killed in the last 3 years. This is on 2800 acres.
I don't hunt much, but I see anywhere from 6 to 12 deer every morning I hunt.

The 4900 acre club I was in had some incredible genetics. It was nothing to put a camera out and get a 125 to 140 inch deer on camera. Every 4 to 5 year old buck we killed was in the 180 to 200lb range as well.

The 2800 acre club I'm in now, I don't think anybody has ever gotten a picture of a deer over 140. I've killed 2 bucks and both weighed over 200lbs, great racks, but nothing high scoring. I can put 1 camera out on 2800 acres and get 5 or 6 does, and 5 or 6 bucks on the same camera. These 2 properties are 7 miles apart divided by an Interstate.

There is no doubt coyotes are killing a mass number of deer. I've seen them chase what looked like healthy deer, and I've had many cameras out in August and September and seen 2 fawns with a doe>>> coyote pictures the next night >>> 2 days later same doe with 1 fawn >>> after that, same doe with no spotted fawn day after day.

So, trapping and predator control are great tools, but so is not shooting an average of 45 does every year. I can't control trapping because I live 35 minutes from where I hunt, and it's an hour and a half from where I hunt to where I work. Me, Myself, I, and other hunters can control what they do and don't shoot based on what they see and what they have on camera.

As hunters were just a small influence on what population does. Mother N throws curves at deer. EHD being one. Many other things. Herds mostly overcome the ebbs and flows. Lots of habitats changed in AL from N to S have added to the complexity of it all. There’s still a lot of deer in this state.

Well that's a very level headed aproach.

I went to my mamas yesterday and saw 37 standing in a field....that would be highly unusual for marshall county....it freaked me out...i went an got mama an her binos an rode back up there to see them....with the help of some high quality $3 simmons from bout 1983.... I realised...ther were exactly 37 clumps of sage grass that had been skylined by the rye grass that wasnt there the last time i was up there...what an idot i am...like to had a stroke cause i thought... Finally...theyve began to make babys again....then my soul was crushed and all was back to normal....i hate marshall county.

Why is it that Greene and Sumter counties in the 1970s had areas where you could see 100+ deer in a hunt, they killed massive bucks, and very few does were killed? The answer some will give is "they were farming a LOT more acres". But there aren't many soybeans or corn around in farming areas from December through May. I don't think more farming is the reason. I think that properties can support a lot more deer than people think.

That's pretty funny. People that have never hunted in areas without deer cannot imagine there are places in Alabama where you can hunt for a whole season and only see squirrels. And there are plenty of places like that, though.

I don't think it was a conspiracy by anyone with an alternative agenda. I think it was simply mismanagement and a failure to respond to changing conditions. Were there places in the 90s with browse lines that needed population control (primarily in Southwest AL)? Yes. But most of the remaining state was still in the process of building a deer herd when they started pushing unlimited doe killing in the 90s. Then about a decade ago we started to see a massive rise in the number of coyotes (literally 5x more or higher) and proof started to emerge that they were changing their diets to primarily hunt deer. And yet the state has done nothing to change doe killing laws after the introduction of a year round 24/7 predator population. If anything they have further incentivized more doe killing by limiting the number of bucks that can be killed with no corresponding limit on doe kills.

My theory on why nothing has changed: Your big money hunters and people with influence still primarily spend their fall weekends in the high population areas in Southwest AL. They have no first hand experience of what its like to hunt a property with great habitat and see 1 deer all season. They (including Sykes) don't empathize with the hunters in low population areas and dismiss their complaints as if they need to spend more time building habitat. Or, even worse, you get the common response of "well stop killing does, no one is forcing you." With the small acreage tracts that dominate outside of SW AL, you don't individually have the power to control the doe killing over an area of several square miles. One guy on 10 acres can wipe out the doe population in a square mile tract. The whole point of a state conservation department is to use the power of the state government to control the deer herd in a way one individual is powerless to do alone.

Bingo. If you have 12,000 acres in Dallas or Bullock county, you do need to kill more does. And that's where the rule-makers hunt, and always will.

Negative....I can take you to bunch of places in Bullock Co just like that and there's nothing that points toward them "needing" to shoot does. One of the things that opened my eye a little more to it was going inside of high fences and seeing the impact on the habitat in those places. I started looking at the habitat outside of the fence a little differently. Now I wouldn't let my property go to the extent some those have but I don't know that we really have the capability of doing the same thing without being able to restrict the deer's movements like they can.

Yep. In counties mostly made of secluded 1,000+ acre tracts the best approach is to have relaxed doe laws and let the property owner or club decide how to best manage the herd. In counties where the average wooded tract is 100 acres you need the state to manage the herd (the only reason DCNR exists) and actually enforce basic, common sense laws to guide individual owners to share a common management plan. The fewer and less complex the laws are, the better. Restricting doe killing to a few weekends a year (or eliminating it altogether) in counties where you know the herd is struggling is not a complex law and anyone who has ever been around a cattle farm can understand the logic of it.

Show me a county with low deer numbers but decent habitat (anywhere with rotational logging operations has good enough habitat) and you could have a great deer herd that is enjoyable to hunt in 4 years with just a few deer hunting rules: Only hunt in season, no night hunting, no road hunting, no trespassing (including hunting dogs), no doe killing. You wouldn't even need an app on your cell phone.

The vast majority of hunters in low population counties would support not shooting does as long as they felt like their neighbor had to follow the same rule. Instead the low population counties are where the most valuable does have a higher chance of being shot. When the average hunter hasn't seen a deer all season and a young doe walks into the plot at dusk, it is getting shot, especially if the hunter thinks their neighbor 300 yards away will shoot it anyways.

I agree 100%

Instead of killing does, why not plant more feed?

Well then that proves my point even more. Point is they're not hunting even remotely normal or average places, which is totally fine. But they're basing state policy on their large, contiguous, frequently burned, high input tracts of deer land. That's not where most folks hunt.

A guy at work had a lease in Clarke County up the road from me this year. He talked to his neighbors week after season, they told him they killed 17 spikes. Didn't shoot any does....

Yeah, I agree with you there….just not on the “need” to shoot them part. That term gets used all the time and I don't think we're actually stating the truth in the way its said. They "could" shoot some if they wanted to but not "need" to shoot.

I actually think it would be better to go back to more conservative doe days across the board like we used to have over chopping everybody up into a bunch of units like many want to do…trying to micromanage every county or whatever the case may be. Even within Bullock Co itself….there’s still a large difference in populations as you move from property to property and one part of the county to the other. I’m not talking about making super restrictive but stay on the side of playing conservative and anyone who wants to do other can go through a DMAP….Heck I imagine many of the folks on these overrun properties don’t care anyways. They’re not there paying those type prices to whack and stack does.

Thats nuts

No its probably a joke. The neighbor went back and said, "lemme tell ya'll what I told this goober down the road".

I don't figure too many are gonna agree with this but I think that actually far better than if it were the other way around and they shot 17 does and no spikes....Most of those young spikes wouldn't have made it to see 2-3 years old anyways.....high mortality.....The does on the other hand stand a good chance of getting older and the more does you have the more buck producers there are to replace those 17 spikes.

I think the argument can be summed up like this:

1. DCNR: The deer herd is overpopulated and therefore doesn't have enough quality food - Hunter response: This is only true in about 10% or less of the state. Deer are highly adaptable creatures with diverse diets.

2. DCNR: Bucks will grow significantly larger antlers if they have access to the food a dead doe would have eaten - Hunter response: This is likely a complete fallacy, but even if true only applies to 10% of the state

3. DCNR: If we allow doe killing (and limit buck killing), more people will kill does to fill the freezer instead of immature bucks, resulting in an older age class of bucks - Hunter response: There may actually be some truth to this, but my odds of killing a 130+ buck are still greater if I see 5 deer per hunt than if I see 5 deer in a season. Lots of bucks being born each year gives me better odds of seeing a 4 yr old than very few bucks born and hoping someone else doesn't shoot it until it gets to age four.

4. DCNR: A herd with equal numbers of bucks to does results in a more concentrated, more active rut - Hunter response: This also may be true, but who cares if the rut is active and concentrated if I still hardly see any deer during it because they don't exist?

5. DCNR: Humans are the only significant predator of deer and therefore their population inevitably becomes out of control if we don't kill equal numbers of bucks and does as a natural predator would have. - Hunter response: This theory is dead wrong. We were told coyote numbers were low and that they rarely prey on deer. Now we know the exact opposite but DCNR isn't spreading the word about the coyote problem nearly as fast as they advocated for the doe killing.

6. DCNR: We never forced anyone to kill does. We think each individual landowner should determine what their herd needs. - Hunter response: I hunt on 100 acres. I don't have any control of the deer herd in the 2 square miles around me. It is DCNR's job to manage the herd. That is why you exist. If I can manage the herd on my own land, why do I need DCNR?

My take: DCNR needs to have some humility, admit where they were wrong, and begin reversing the doe killing laws across most of the state. Most people will buy in to that logic. But the current stance of "Oh we weren't wrong, we just need to focus on habitat improvement in areas of low population" is BS that any average Joe knows is BS.

Doe days equals $$$$. Therefore Chucks on board. That simple. 🤷🏿‍♂️🤣

I normally try to take 3 or 4 myself a yr. Have 3 growing boys

If it was around Mt. Zion rd in Grove Hill I'd believe it.

He said they shot multiple times every weekend he was up there.

Maybe it’s a fluke but I’ve had two leases one being 160 acres and another being 300 and both were either dog clubs or shot up from previous hunters.The first couple of years you would sit and see hardly nothing all year. I started offering the best food plots I could better habitat and feeding and over a few years you would see deer all over both pieces. I’m actually to the point I’m gonna shoot some does because I’ve gotten to the point I’m seeing bigger groups of does and not as many yearlings. On both of these properties they have went from nothing to a very good piece of land with a lot of deer, bucks and does. I don’t understand how over time you can’t grow or hold deer on a smaller piece of property.

I bought in years ago to doe killing and went on a jihad on a couple of my hunting places. All it did is make the does just as scarce as the bucks there. It took several years of backing off to recover.

That, or they were just running it down to kill it. It wasn't limping, it was healthy. But, it was worn out. I'd be surprised if they didn't kill it.

I believe it……Take this into consideration though….the deer may have looked physically ok but may have been suffering from some other kind of impairment like being sick and weak. I had a case just like this on my place a few years ago. I had a young buck that I kept getting pics of just standing in front of the camera in a way that made you think something was wrong with it. It just didn’t look normal…it looked weak. This went on for 4 or 5 days before one morning I walked out and found him dead in the back of the field. It was 40-50 yard long bread crumb trail of white hair that led me to where he had been taken down. I believe the coyotes are gonna target any deer that’s slowed down and impaired for whatever reason….there’s a number of possibilities.

I went to Mobile in 1988 to listen to Al Brothers. In 1989 I joined a club that was in the DMAP program, and we got 15 doe tags for 3000 acres. They were passed out sparing and not all used. Two does a day started about the same time we lost all of our ag land to long leaf pines. High population much less food. Weights went down on bucks and does. We were a QDM club by 1996. We killed 30 or more does a year for too long. We adv. 12 bucks a year with 14 members. Weight and antler restrictions saved most of our 2 year old bucks and some 3 year old's. We had some great years until the hurricanes in 04 and 05 took 1000 acres of our best habitat. It took 2 years for the browse to come back after the poison and the fire killed every living thing. I watched a good deer and turkey population disappear in a short time. When the browse came back ,the deer came back and we killed some of our best bucks in the clear cuts. The turkey population hasn't come back yet and won't. It ain't easy for a turkey to make a living in planted pines. When the pines shaded out the browse in about 5 years , we were still killing does but only 15 or so , but we were down to 1800 acres and 14 members. As hunters we had to reinvent ourselves a few times as the land changed. We went from young men hunting from climbers to old men hunting from shooting houses. By 06 we had 30 acres in food plots with 5 kinds of clover and elbon rye. We had 5 buck only plots that always had does and young bucks feeding in the daylight. We had 20 doe plots. When 2 does were killed on a plot ,it became buck only. Those old does learn fast and become nocturnal. I was the land manager and kept all the records, it was damn hard to convince some folks that you just can't keep on killing all the baby makers. I have always been a buck hunter and I like all that live bait out there when I am hunting. I got out of the lease in 2015, but I am thankful that I got to hunt it before it was raped by the new owners and destroyed by mother nature. My son and I still own 70 acres inside the club that we manage, so I am still around.I guess my point to all this is that IMO habitat loss contributed more to our poor hunting at times than our lack of trigger control.

If you have too many does you need to figure out who is killing all the bucks. Because someone is shooting them. And they are not shooting the does.

100% fact.

There is no such thing as too many does..... there is only a lack of bucks because someone is blasting everything they see.

Your plan is to follow suit and start blasting everything you see too?

Or maybe your plan is to take up golf because your can't do anything about your jackass spike blasting neighbor?

The does are not the problem they are the symptom.

0% Opinion.

100% UNDENIABLE FACT.

"no such thing as too many does"......what planet did that bit of non-knowledge come from?????

I have been on and hunted several properties in Alabama that had too many does. A browse line equates into too many deer on that property. Too many does and bucks. Most of those properties had very limited doe shooting for many years, some had restricted buck harvests, some unlimited. The herd needed to be restructured away from having way more does than bucks, like 5,6,7, does per buck. But browse lines mean you have too many deer, easiest way is to stop killing bucks and remove some of the "too many" does.

100% fact? Bucks only disappear b/c they're getting shot? Interesting, where did you get this 100% fact data from?

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.

Take it from somebody that has 1165 acres of mainly native deer under high fence, bucks die at a super high rate due to fighting and getting run down. We try to keep our doe population at around 125 and there are no more than eight bucks a year taken. In a perfect world you would think you should have at least 60 bucks having a birthday every year but that is not the case. We may have five a year that make it to five years old.

I don’t blame the QDMA. I blame the State and their inability to see what the results of the liberal doe harvest would have in a State full of sure enough killers.

^^^^^^ Fact

So out of 150-175 fawns born each year only 5 bucks a year make it to 5 years old. I presume you are trying to only kill what you consider mature bucks, that is insane. How many does do you have to kill a year to maintain the doe population at 125.

I'd be careful comparing high fence stats to those outside of the fence even if it is 1165....if the buck population is pretty much at maximum capacity then there just isn't anywhere for the subordinate bucks to move to like in a free range setting. I'd bet there way more social conflict inside of a fence like that. Outside of the fence there will be places void of bucks where the ones that get run off can move to. Isee it every year here as I go from nothing but does to bucks suddenly showing up. Much less fighting

Typically does produce roughly 1 to 1 ratio of bucks to does. Buck mortality is naturally higher. A "perfectly balance by nature" herd wouldn't be quite 1 to 1. It would be very very slightly doe heavy.

If you started the season with a 5 to 1 doe to buck ratio, and shot 90% of your bucks and 0% of your does, after natural mortality and fawn recruitment factored in the following season, you'd have probably a better doe to buck ratio (like 3 to 1) to start the season. It's near biological impossibility to have worse than a 5 to 1 doe to buck ratio to start your season. The best management will never get you to a true 1 to 1, but with good management you can have less than 2 to 1 ratio. Even with poor management you'll float around 3 or 4 to 1.

Not even close.

BS!!! Did you just make that up?? 5:1 ratio. Shoot 90% bucks and no does and the results is less does at a 3:1 ratio. Think about what you just said.

I did not say less does anywhere in that quote. That said some will die from various causes. Deer breed. https://www.qdma.com/reality-doebuck-ratios/

If you think about it, that’s an article that in some ways support that killing does willy nilly isn’t the most sound management practice. You can have and see a lot of deer if you let does walk. Obviously every proper and herd is different.

You said you would go from 5:1 to 3:1 by killing 90% of the bucks. So, if you have 100 does and 20 bucks and kill 18 of those bucks, the next season starts at 100:2 or 50:1. Of course you know by that article and it you read Dr. James Kroll the concern in the sex ratios is breeding and fawns aren't counted. And 3:1 ratio is a good, realistic goal for the serious hunters.

He ain’t far off if we’re talking boys to girls and not antlered bucks to does. Gotta keep in mind there was a year’s worth of fawns on the ground (1:1 boys to girls) and will be more on the way the following year. Those will be hatched 1:1. Reality is it’s hard to drive the ratios much past 5:1; impossible really if you’re shooting branch antlered deer. Nothing is 100% but he’s close, I think.

He's quoting Kip Adams. He just left off the part where Kip assumed 20% natural mortality of does. No does killed by hunters.

The article explains the math and numbers used to arrive at the final numbers. It’s pretty simple. Deer breed. Pretty prolifically too. Humans can help manage for better herds but even poorly managed the deer work things out pretty well by nature.

You’re forgetting the fawns that were on the ground to start the season not counted in those numbers.