Those of you that have done it. What benefits have you seen versus the consequences of really hammering the does? Reason I ask is that we are looking at turning up the heat on them and I want to hear what experiences y’all have had prior to doing so. We have a trend going to where it isn’t uncommon to see 10+ does per sit and maybe one or two bucks at best, and the same goes for our trail cams.

From what I've seen in the past by thinning out the does you will see better weights on the bucks and does also the heard will be healthier due to more available food and nutrients, more daylight buck sightings more intense rut I've seen as many as 5 mature bucks running one doe before, also I've noticed the bucks will have better horns on them from being able feed better from not having to compete with over population, the over populated places I've hunted does will be smaller in weights and the buck will also and they also have screwed up racks, just all depends on what you want

We are on a plan to harvest only 4+ yr old bucks and an aggressive doe harvest. Once we get the ratio in place, the plan is to ease off on the nannies a little bit still keep them in check. We are relatively new to this and are coming from the usual “point restriction” type club that rarely shot does.

Increased body weights, increased fawn recruitment, more intense rutting behavior and day light observations of bucks. That’s it wrapped up in one sentence.

Everything in moderation.

Don’t kill them all off one plot. Make reasonable decisions on the herd in small increments.

Before I started a mass doe harvesting, I’d want my overall group to determine our desired outcome for the management practices we choose. Honestly, this has to be crystal clear in the beginning.

Do you want to see deer every sit on the plots still? I personally like to see deer on the plots and being able to take kids or others to the plots to see the deer would be nice. Maybe let them shoot some does earlier in the season, but I wouldn’t want every mature doe going nocturnal from my plots due to pressure on the does. Especially before the rut.

Once you hit them hard back off an evaluate annually. Once the ratio is decent hit maintenance mode.

I feel like there has to be a balance somewhere. I was in a club here in Pickens county for several years before I moved here full time where they shot a lot of does. 30+ was the goal for 1150 acres. I had hunted an adjoining property years before, and recognized that some antlerless deer needed to be removed from the population. What ended up happening was that several of the guys would hunt for the entire week of muzzleloader week whacking does, so by opening day of rifle season, deer sightings were way down. Also the does started showing up later and later, leading to more buttons being killed for does. I feel like some of this was guys just wanting to shoot. I screwed up myself and killed a button one year because the president gave me a lecture on being too selective. Never killed a racked buck on the place either.

The property I have hunted for the last 10 years is about 300 acres. The most does I have ever killed off it is three in a year. I spread out my killing throughout the season to minimize the impact on deer sightings. It isn’t what the QDMA preaches or what I learned at AU for my degree, but it sure seems more fun.

Pro tip. Don’t shoot them off green fields

I would think it all depends on the habitat and availability of high quality food for the deer number one and also what your neighbors are doing. I had a place that was 800 acres in Dallas county of really just pines and cutover that was a true deer factory and the neighbor was a big landowner who had good habitat and they really didn’t kill many does so I/we killed 10-14 per year mostly with bows and never really on food plots. Now I’m in north east Alabama with lots of agricultural land and see good numbers of does at certain times but also have some neighbors that have small 5 or less acre lots that I feel kill to many does under the old excuse of feeding the family. I will say I know of several places that were great in the 80s and I’m talking about big bucks every year and they started hammering the does that it got so bad they let the land go. Every place is different in Alabama it seems. Just my thoughts

Never made any difference. We have the exact same size bucks and length and duration of rut now not hardly shooting any does as we did for a decade when we shot 20 or so every year. The only difference we noticed was we saw fewer deer when hunting whem we wacked the does

This is the truth, but nobody wants to hear it or believe it.

The entire SW 1/4 of the state did a “study” on this about 20-25 years ago. Most regret it.

I've heard that exact same statement from every hunter who smokes cigarettes and doesn't pay attention to scent control.

Good luck with whatever you try. I’ve hunted 2 places that tried this balance the bucks to doe ratio thingmajig. It didn’t go well. The rut was non existent for 2 years after reducing doe numbers. The bucks scored between 115 and 140 before and after. They didn’t magically put on 15 to 20 inches of antler because there were more acorns and briars to nibble on. The only thing I noticed is that there were a lot less deer. The bucks had no reason to be on the property during January. I think it worked out great for the neighboring properties during the rut.

This. We started managing 10+ years ago and I have hunted the property for 25+ years. For the first 15 years, hardly any does were taken and every buck with a spike on their head was shot. It was nothing to see 10-15 and even 20 does on every sit and you could hunt the entire season and see 2 or 3 bucks. Management started with biologist recommendation of taking 50 does the first year, which we came close to doing (it's a large piece of property). Then 35 the next year, 25 the year after that. We also put in a rule that bucks must be 4.5 years old to be taken. Was slow on buck harvest those first few years, but the long-term results have been WELL worth it. We now have a very well balanced heard, I see bucks nearly every time I hunt, and it is not unusual to see 4 or 5 bucks on a sit during the rut. During those first 15 years, I never saw a buck that was harvested that was over 175 lbs or over 125 inches. Now we kill bucks every year over 200 lbs and have killed 6 bucks over 140 inches in the last 6 years, with 2 of them over 150 inches. I used to think grunting and rattling from the stand was a waste of time, something you only saw work on some hunting video. Now I regularly call in bucks during the rut because we have a much higher number of bucks and the higher number causes much more intense competition for the does.

The formula is pretty simple: reduce the doe numbers and let the bucks walk until they are mature. Once you reach a more natural buck/doe ratio, cut the doe harvest down to a reasonable number to maintain the balance. Endure the low buck harvest for the first few years and then enjoy the fruits of your patience!

Precisely!! Some of the best hunting you’ll ever experience is on properties like this.

The unfortunate part lies with the fact that IMPROPER excessive doe harvest has been applied where it shouldn’t have been for far longer than it should have been, by unqualified folks to make those decisions. Then the results can and have been disastrous. I think that’s where a lot of the naysayers come from. Proper doe management, within reason, along with letting immature bucks walk does lead to far better hunting. I’ve seen it on way too many places. And I’ve seen the happy hunters who get to see it.

You can't manage nature with your trigger finger. If you have too many does someone is shooting the bucks. Some of y'all can't seem to grasp that concept Biologist included which is where this got started in the fist place.

Shooting does means less deer overall. If you have fewer deer you might have bigger body deer for the ones that are left. That's not rocket science nor does it take anything other than common sense to understand.

What some of y'all can't understand is what happens in the real world. Here in the real world ,you have too many does because someone is shooting the bucks. Having too many does is not a natural occurrence. It's NOT. You can't argue that. It does not happen in nature this way.

1) You shoot a bunch of does and whoever is currently shooting the bucks just keeps shooting the bucks.
2) And then you have less deer and less bucks because you just blasted your breeding stock. That breeding stock was what is allowing the 15 guys in your club or your neighbor to yearly blast 17..... 2-2.5 year old bucks every year.

What you wind up with is less deer and no mature bucks. We've been doing this for over 20 years in this State. But we still have too many does. How could this be? It doesn't work. Fact.

If you never shot a deer there would be the correct amount of bucks and does and your land would have the correct amount of deer on it which it could sustain. Mother Nature will take care of all this for you, you don't have to do a thing.

Truth. Been there, done that. Saw it work on two different properties: one in Bibb county, the other in Franklin.

Yes, take the does away from the green fields.

I always hear that from people who haven't actually done it. They hear about some cigarette smokers experience and they talk like it's their own.

This is my opinion and my opinion only. I think killing the right does rather then any doe helps with keeping bucks in an area outside the rut. I’ve noticed on our place, especially now that baiting is legal that bucks are usually the first deer to find the corn pile. They will eat use that corn pile until some old bitch doe runs them off. I’ve noticed this on plots also. I see this a lot with the cameras. We laid off killing does for the last 5-6 years and it is biting us in the arse. We all agreed to start taking out some of these older aggressive does. You know the ones that just walk around blowing all day long. So far we have killed 3 does on our place. 1 old doe and 2 young does. The same guy shot the 2 young ones. I asked what happened to the plan we had. He said they looked big enough to him.
I’m still on a mission to kill a couple of them long necked long nose blowing bitches but my time is running out. I may be all wrong about the old ones we’re gonna try it.