Does

I have a question, If I am at a place where we shot about 12-14 does last season, first time we really had a doe harvest like that. Some spots on the property you can see 10-14 deer and most are does my question is people who hunt here are considering shooting more does this year, will this effect seasons to come on how many deer we see? I like to go sit and see a lot I don’t care if it’s does because bucks will come out in rut. What does the doe harvest do but maybe decrease your population?

How many acres?
Where you huntin?

SE Alabama don’t want to give location
1700-1800 acres

Shooting up the baby making factories.

I haven’t killed a doe in Alabama in over 10 years. I have no intention of killing any does the rest of my days.

You certainly won't see the deer any more after you kill them.

This. Don’t get carried away. You will ruin a piece of property doing this.

We use to kill 12-15 does a year on our 1700 acres in Marion junction every year. Never saw a dramatic drop in numbers.

12-14 does off 1800 acres should not have any significant affect on your overall population assuming you’ve got good fawn recruitment and the people around you aren’t just blasting every deer they see all season long. With only 1800 acres, your deer are your neighbors deer and your neighbors deer are yours. You really need to look globally at what is going on, not only on your property but also what is happening on all the properties in the immediate area around you. Evaluate you harvest and management goals as well as your hunter expectations, with regard to deer sightings, and make your decision from there.

Fawn crop looks great this year but ones I’ve seen are young just lost spots

This is 100% obvious, but I bet at least half the people reading this disagree.

I don’t want them too shoot them and I don’t understand why they think they should them

You can have too many doe in an area. Let them shoot a few. Heard control comes to mind but it's hard to do outside of a high fence. If they're eating the deer, them I see no problem.

It is a very fine line when it comes to harvesting does without seeing a drastic decrease in sightings. I don’t recall exact numbers but something to the effect of reducing numbers 25% will reduce sightings by 50% or something like that. I am with you I like to see deer when I go hunting, therefore we don’t shoot many does neither do our neighbors.

It will make your bucks nocturnal quicker and does will be more skiddish if you start hammering on them And want see as many and in higher alert

This is the biggest issue. Ramp up the hunting pressure and deer sightings will drop.

There is no real reason to shoot them other than someone needing to admit they just want to pull the trigger a bunch and they are trying to justify it. For every deer you kill you will have less next season. The hunting pressure is not a good thing. Why would you want that? Less Does means...well, less Does on your property that will come into heat and that ultimately will draw in bucks during the rut.

Can't think of any scientifically proven reason to shoot a bunch of them either. Sorry. Does are the only thing that will create more Bucks. Less Does. Less Bucks. That's been my experience.

Kids, Meat for freezer, etc. Momma doe that comes up stomping and blowing your stand every single time you sit in it... All valid reasons to shoot a few.

Typical club bull chit, buy yourself a 40 acre cutover and hunt it like you want.

And people always wonder and ask why Alabama's deer herd is in the shape it's in and why the age structure for most of the state is completely jacked up.

Our acreage is similar- and similar # of does was about what we did last year. no noticeable difference based on camera survey from Aug to end of Oct.
Will probably shoot a few more- folks in the community want what we do not use.

I’d prefer Alabama’s system to the Midwest 10 day gun season any day. I know many will disagree, but I love our long liberal season. And if you want to be stricter, you can buy or lease land and go that route.

I am with REM270......

I’ve got one piece of property that I feel like has to many does on it. It’s getting to the point we don’t hardly ever have any bucks on camera or see any while hunting, nothing but does and when you sit and see 15-20 on a food plot and maybe one buck. There’s a great fawn crop but there’s these bigger groups of does like 6-8 running together that do not have any fawns and hog all the food is our problem. We have a lot of land around the house here that went from zero deer to over ran with deer. We went from having big bucks to small rack bucks. We started managing does around here and got our buck doe ratio better and our bucks got better. It was so bad around here when the rut came in you would hardly see any rut activity. The bucks didn’t have to chase the does the does went to the bucks. I think it’s area dependent but you can have to many does

Shooting does off property will decrease herd without high fence I think because only like 40% of fawns survive and deer will wonder onto neighbors property and get shot

The more deer you shoot, the less deer you will have. Bucks do not reproduce asexually, they too come from does. This may seem obvious to many, but there are people that have to be told this.

If you want to shoot a few does, and you have the population to support it, fine, shoot a few. Don't get too carried away with it, and do not think that you are making the hunting better by doing it. The numbers you gave seem to be quite reasonable, and will likely see no major difference in your overall population.

I agree shoot a few does if you want , but not like 12 every year.

If all you are seeing is Does.... you need to figure out who is shooting all the Bucks. Because that's exactly what is happening. Too many Does is not a natural occurrence in Nature. It doesn't happen that way. A deer herd in isolation (no outside influence) would have a close Buck/Doe ratio

This is really that simple.

True......but they would not distribute themselves evenly across the landscape.....So you may have areas where it seems like theirs just a bunch of does....while just over the hill your bucks are hanging out in a different area.....

For the record I dont think theres very many people left who NEED to shoot a bunch of does.....I think there are places where folks can shoot some for meat and this and that but not because it NEEDS to be done for proper management

Great point. You hear all the time, " all I see is does, that must mean I need to shoot them". It just does not work that way. Less does = less deer... less deer = less bucks. If all you have is does, somebody is shooting too many bucks.

I see bucks just more doe and the bucks will come out more in daylight anyway during January

I was pretty surprised to see how many folks don’t see the importance of shooting does. Let me say I hate messing up an area by shooting a doe more than anyone. Having said that we try to mostly shoot them on the perimeter of the property and not in our honey holes. I realize every property is different and we can choose what is best for our situation. By no means am I a wildlife biologist but I have tried to learn all I can from the deer biologists about deer behavior and their biology to become a better hunter and steward. I thought I might share some great facts from various studies that support the need to shoot does and get the sex ratio closer to say 2:1. This info comes from several different deer biologist across the entire country-

-keeping doe numbers in check increases the intensity of the rut. As mentioned if 1 buck has 20 does to breed in the rut period then he doesn’t have to travel very far nor does he have much Buck competition since there are plenty of does to choose from
- deer tend to seek out the most nutritious and palatable forage first, then resort to leftover secondary browse that lacks nutrition just to fill their stomach. With too many mouths on the landscape it doesn’t take long to deplete the available high protein forage. I want our bucks and does getting the most nutritious food possible for antler growth and healthy fawns. Sure it’s great to see 20 does on a plot but that doesnt mean they are as healthy as they could be and sex balance is way off
- a close buck to doe ratio promotes fawns to be born in a smaller window. A buck can only breed a certain number of does in a time span. If he is outnumbered by 20 does in the area he can only get a small percentage bred. Those does that aren’t bred during first estrus cycle have to cycle back again i think close to a month later. This is why you hear some people saying there is a ‘secondary rut’. And there are does that never get a chance to breed. they just consume food all year. With a closer ratio you will get all the does bred in a shorter window. Example 1 Buck in an area with 3 does. He should be able to successfully breed all 3 and all these does would drop a fawn very close together. One buck with 20 does might bred one doe per 3-5 days and some may cycle later and later which means those 20 does will all drop at all different times. This is where predation comes into play. Let’s say late spring early summer a coyote is looking for fawns. If there are a bunch of fawns all born at the same time then that predator is going to predate maybe one fawn a week. He’s full so he won’t need to hunt a larger meal like a fawn for another week. But every sequential week all the fawns from the same general birthdate are older and harder to kill. Meanwhile all the other fawns continue to grow. With does dropping fawns all spread out, that coyote can have a newborn fawn each week, month etc.

I bet less than 5% of the state is overpopulated with deer. I bet it's closer to 1% of land mass, truth be told.

Shoot as many does as you want, but the carrying capacity of the land usually far exceeds the deer population.

This ^^^^^^^^

It’s more about sex ratio than overpopulation

I get that, but if you have 6 deer per square mile, deer hunting is just plain miserable. Even if you've got 3 bucks and 3 does. I can name lots of places like that. And the folks there still think more does need to be killed. It's simply not true. But if you want to shoot one, by all means, do. Pulling the trigger is fun.

Sounds to me like more of a buck problem than anything else. You ain’t gonna shoot yourself out of a problem that you (or someone else) shot yourself into. But you can certainly make the does scarcer.

I understand what you mean and agree in that situation. It’s a good reminder that I need to be thankful that our deer numbers are good

Buck to doe ratio can be fixed two ways, one of those ways (kill more does) reduces the total number of deer you have, and in the long run will reduce bucks and does on an almost equal scale. The other ( kill fewer bucks) increases the total number of deer you have, and in long run will increase bucks and does on an almost equal scale. If you have to many deer see a browse line in late winter, never see does with twins, no fat on deer when you skin them, weights of deer killed are below what the average should be for your area. Use the first method, it is also the easiest to get people to go along with cause you get to kill stuff. If none of this exist use the second method, upside is you won’t need many bullets but you will see more deer. I am not a never kill a doe guy I will and do kill 1-2 a year. If you only shoot bucks 4.5 years old or older and kill no more does than you do bucks you won’t have to worry about, and you will will be just fine in the long run. It is virtually impossible for the ratio to be more than 3 does to 1 buck when deer season starts. This ain’t rocket science.

Not if you got 2000 acres and there are forty separately owned 40 acre parcels adjoining you on all sides, managing it how they want and killing everything they see. Neighbors will either help you or hurt you. There are very few places in AL where you can piece together a large enough acreage that neighbors will not impact or in some way dictate the overall success of your management plan, if that's what you're trying to do. Just a fact.

That theory is fine and dandy if the property has a well balanced herd. If not then you might have to shoot more. I’ve got one lease that is pretty close to 3 does to 1 buck.

Everything thing I’ve been told, Mike is right. It’s hard to skew the doe to buck ratio more than 3 to 1, even if you try. And if you are shooting only mature bucks, it’s probably much closer to even. Of course that takes into account all the button bucks walking around. If you’re talking, only bucks with antlers to does I suspect the ratio is a little more skewed.