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.