Horse shucks. When all the does are shot, what is left? May not be that way anymore but it was for a decade or so until the doe slaughter backed off. Probably closer to 1 to 1 now. And yes by mid January it is hard to find a buck without a broken rack.

They sure do show up well in a thermal…

Dang close to having more bucks than does where we hunt.

Unless you’re sampling something like 10,000 acres or more then you’re not seeing a true buck to doe ratio…… The rut happens on a large scale and deer don’t understand property lines……Bucks move across the landscape the distance of miles during the rut…..… You can measure the buck to doe ratio on 600 acres and come up with a number but that’s not the real number……Take your neighbors 600 acres and add that in and now you’ve probably got a little different number……Keep adding in all the other properties around you and the number keeps changing a little bit……Keep adding until you add in enough properties that you’re actually encompassing an area that extends out at least the distance a buck would travel during the rut(a few miles)……and only THEN you would start getting a truer sense of a real buck to doe ratio that’s impacting the herd……Just because you go in and blast all the resident does off of 600 acres in the middle of that 10,000 doesn’t mean that the buck to doe ratio is suddenly 2:1……..

Our property is broke up in 3 different tracts. Our main place, a tract a few miles down the road and another 6 miles away. Both tracts are 100 plus acres in size. From the number of deer sightings on the 3 places together, we definitely see way more bucks than does. I know this doesn’t mean we have more bucks than does but we definitely see more bucks. Especially younger age class bucks. We still see plenty of does but young bucks are a dime a duzen. I’d be willing to bet that it’s like that on most of the properties all around us. Also according to the lack of shots heard within ear shot of our property, the population isn’t being hurt in our area. Most days I could count the number of shots heard on one hand. Heck my last afternoon hunt of the season, I saw 8 deer. 5 bucks and 3 does. This is just the deer that crossed the section of road I could see which was only about 150yds long. Our deer numbers are fine in my opinion.

Below is a simpler version……The buck to doe ratio of the scenario is 1:3 and not 1:1…..You cant sit on 100 acres during the rut and count bucks and compare that to the number of does using your food plot……You’re counting bucks from potentially miles around you and comparing it to the amount of does in a small area……You’d have to sample large areas to start getting an accurate estimate

Cnc. You don’t think the does move too? Using your model I would think that overall we have a higher ratio of does than surrounding properties, since we are not the ones shooting them.

I am very aware of the fact that it is different everywhere you go and this small sample does not represent the state as a whole. But for this property and surrounding properties it is.
As I have stated before I hunt several tracts in different areas. This is only true for this one property, which happens to be the one I own, not lease. Meaning I care more about what goes on here.

We cannot agree on what needs to be shot. And as stated every property is different. So here is an idea for those of you that are convinced that we need more regulations. Make it either sex tags. 6 a year seems like a good number to me. could be 6 does and 0 bucks or 6 bucks and 0 does or anywhere in between. Gives the flexibility to do what you need for your property, and still have limits on how many.

At some point and time you either know what to do and do it, or you do whatever you want to do. If you know you don’t have many bucks and you shoot every one you see, then what we have is a self control issue. If you don’t have many deer at all and you shoot every doe you see, again it’s a self control issue. You’ve over ridden common sense in order to gain some immediate satisfaction having put another notch on the gun stock, so to speak. I don’t see the point in never gaining self control as long as there isn’t a rule to keep you from doing so. The resources are yours to enjoy. If you so choose to make poor decisions simply because there is no state regulation telling you otherwise, then you suffer the consequences. No agency can pass rules that are magically going to give every hunter a utopia of hunting. Hunting quality can’t be viewed as a season. It has to be viewed by decades. Where you want to be, in terms of hunting enjoyment, depends on the choices you makes over the next 5-10 seasons. Want more deer? Takes time. Want more bucks? Takes time. Want bigger bucks? Takes time. The choices you make on the trigger during that time ultimately decides your future. And before you argue, “well my neighbor….” You’re either part of the problem, or part of the solution.

dawgdr you have a point about time... after 5 years of consciously trying to stop high grading 2 yr old deer and not shooting 3 year old deer, we are seeing 4-5 yr old bucks on our lease properties. Fewer "mistakes" made as everyone has gotten on the same page. Most of our neighbors are not shooting young bucks either.

No, does dont move around anything like bucks during the rut.......

Also, some properties lend themselves more to holding bucks than does because of the habitat and the tendency for bucks to bed in secondary locations…..I tracked a deer one year on some property bordering a quail plantation that was open hardwood ridges……The quail plantation was your typical sage grass prairies full of does like is typically the case. The open hardwoods ridges we were in had a bunch of blow downs everywhere due a wind storm that had come through a year or so before…..There was a buck in every dang tree top in those open hardwoods…..To the point it made it difficult to track the one we were after…..

Now if you just hunted that property you might think that you had way more bucks than does…..but when you take into account all of the does hiding in the sage prairies next door then the numbers really changed…..The only way to get any kind of true assessment on buck to doe ratio would be to sample a really large area…..

Seeing as how I usually miss hunting the rut, that is a non factor. Does move just as much as bucks except for during the very short rut we have.

It is generally accepted that bucks are harder to hunt than does and do not frequent open fields as often as does. If you are seeing more bucks grazing in fields than does. You have more bucks than does.

It is stupid to think this is a crazy concept. They will be born at close to 1 to1. If people are shooting 3-4 does to every buck. There will be more bucks than does. Not that hard to figure out.

This....this is the biggest reason most people don't want law enforcement doing anything. They write tickets for stupid crap, but won't enforce important stuff. You more likely to get a ticket from a state trooper going 55 down a country road 5 miles from your house, than drag racing down i85 in downtown Montgomery!! It's ridiculous

Which is the only time when buck to doe ratio matters......One of the worst things we do as hunters is get this management ideology in our heads where everything stops at the property lines and that’s NOT the way it’s actually happening in the woods…..Deer populations or “herds” exist in bigger neighborhoods where property lines don’t exist……You have to get out to at least a scale of something like 10K acres to start talking about herd dynamics and such and even then that might be too little of an area to try and define……Your buck to doe ratio for the property you hunt is whatever the buck to doe ratio may be for the 10K acre neighborhood around you……

I think we decided this whole map was around 25,000 acres.......The time frame during the rut is what we're really watching for in the video....Imagine what it would look like if we could show every buck that was actually out there instead of just 15

If the 1-3 weeks of the rut is the only time it matters. we are good for the rest of the 50 weeks of the year. Meaning non of this matters and everyone should kill whatever.

The Feds never could come up with a way to Assess the Wood-Duck Population as they are always scattered in Timber Holes they couldn't see from an Aircraft. So.......they set the Bag at 2 as a shot in the Dark for Decades. Finally, due to the fact that several of the southeastern States' duck hunting areas for the most part only have Wood-ducks to hunt they raised the limit to 3.....and it seem they are still fairing well. DEER in the Southeast same Deal.....because of the immense amount of Timber and thickets.....Game and Fish can't really assess the Population nor ratio of Bucks to Does. The Hunter is the ONLY ONE who can decide whether more Does or bucks need to be taken based on what is seen while hunting. The End.

ya'll need to delete this whole thread or we will have tags next year....

What's going on at one person's land doesn't mean crap compared to another's. I've got one piece of land that has 3 fields that seeing 20 does on each field every afternoon is the norm. I've got another piece 3 miles away that you might see 3 to 5 each afternoon and might not see crap. Best advice is to worry about your own place because it's the only one you can half way control. Also the 'herd' must be in good shape because I'm mounting about 80 more deer than last season. Every other taxidermist I know has the same thing going. Been trending up the last 5 yrs.

I think where we go wrong with the idea of figuring out how many deer we have is getting obsessed with putting an exact number on it rather than focusing on the spectrum of is it too few, too many, or about right relative to carrying capacity and herd dynamics……That can be pretty easily observed in the field…..Things like looking at deer weights, habitat conditions, age structure, late breeding, etc……

The “numbers” that we monitor clue us in as to how our harvest is trending over time as just another tool to use in conjunction with this other “data” that we’re gathering. You don’t have know exactly how many deer there are and if 3 is the correct math……You just need to know if 3 is too many, too few, or just about right under the current conditions…… What outcome is it leading to in terms of herd dynamics?? Under our current condition you could say it is too many but without there being any enforcement then we're not truly managing under 3......That's why I say screw any talk of 2 until you actually enforce 3