So let me present this question to you………If the results of this strategy produces “average racks” then what is the upside to the hunter for going this route??....Should they hang their hats on the fact that their does are ten pounds heavier?? Because I can show that stock piling does on a property in today's day and age produces WAY above average racks over time for a property when the hunters on that property get to shoot the biggest deer in the area during the rut.

Wouldn’t you have a better chance of killing the biggest buck in the area if the rut was more intense due to a better ratio? Wouldn’t you want all the mature bucks in the area out running and fighting and competing for the does that are in heat? The chances of killing those bucks are much better when there is competition. More bucks and fewer does means more competition. I thought Matt explained that pretty well in his earlier.

No……the fewer does on your property during the rut, the more likely the bucks are to be on someone else’s…..The fallacy here is taking a “King Ranch” style management philosophy and applying it to an Alabama landscape that has a number of different external influences at play in comparison. Telling folks like jwalker or 3ffarms that if they shoot a bunch of their does that they’ll have better bucks in the future is just not true at all. The vast majority of hunters wasn’t to see deer and shoot bucks. They don’t care about if the does weigh 100 lbs or 120 lbs………..

I think you're comparing 2 different concepts here CNC. In my opinion, MBrock's management practice works extremely well when you have a large enough acreage under management, whether that is with multiple neighbors working together or a single landowner. If it didn't, then the Wyncreek Plantation's of the world wouldn't use it or similar practices...

For a single landowner that only controls 50 or 100 acres, trying to manage the deer herd by killing doe is a losing game. In that sort of situation, I would agree your best bet would be to maximize the habitat and food on your property and let it become a "sanctuary" of sorts where deer want to be. Then in the rut catch the big boy cruising through looking for doe. This is more likely to be the situation most people are subject to I would think vs having control of 1000's of acres. But, its also going to be the most difficult situation to consistently kill big deer I would think.

I have not told anyone to shoot a “bunch” of does. When anyone ever mentions doe killing on here there’s a handful of y’all that hit the top limb immediately and throw accusations of wholesale slaughter.

Wyncreek represents something that’s an anomaly for most of the state…..Even still though if I were managing that property I would look to do at least a merger of the two ideologies where some does were simply shot for the enjoyment of the hunt and not for trying to meet some management quota number that’s usually pulled out of the ether……I’ve been on their property tracking deer numerous times and virtually all of their neighbors properties and clubs and all of their neighbors, neighbors land and I own property bordering those neighbors…..I’ve seen what everyone else around them is doing and how the deer density exists across the bigger landscape within that subset area.

When January gets here and all the neighbors have clipped off half the doe groups out of their bedding areas…… I want my land to be where all the bucks from their properties go to looking for tail when there isnt any to be found elsewhere…..When the hunting club to the north full of good old boys from Sand Mt have reduced their doe population down……and the hunting club to the west has let the kids shoot theirs…….and the little 10 acre spot where another club camps and has a “meat stand” has thinned theirs down…..and so on………..….I would want Wyncreek to be where all their bucks went to when they left out looking for does…….Those other clubs surrounding them along with the farmer to the south with a depredation permit using them for target practice along with the two major highways can handle “managing” any number reduction that may “need” to take place

When a lot of bucks from the larger landscape area start converging on a single hot spot property……THAT is what increases competition……especially as you get later into that two week time frame for does going hot……As the number of hot does in the area begin to fall off and become fewer…..bucks flock to the places where hot does are still there to be found…..The most prized doe in the whole herd is the very last one in the area to go into heat on that first cycle……I would also point out that according to the data is our recent graph thread......most bucks that get killed each dont do so until January....70% or better of the buck harvest is still running around the landscape when the rut starts kicking off.


My point being that even though Wyncreek is a big property for Alabama…..it still does not exist within a box and has other external factors to consider when coming up with a strategy to implement……In today’s hunting era that has a good portion of the hunters still convinced to whack a portion of their does each year…..I want to be the place that doesn’t and holds a higher concentration than the surrounding landscape…..and if its 10,000 acre then all the better. All of that doe whacking trying to meet a management quota is a lot of excess hunting pressure that doesn’t have to take place in my opinion.

Let me present this question to you concerning this real world scenario we’re talking about…….When the doe groups using my little corner of this subset area get out in the highway and get run over….where is it that the new ones that show up come from???

CNC you should start a wildlife consulting business with all that knowledge.

........but....but......I'm not a biologist.

I would agree with this to a certain degree. I don't think I have 45 deer per square mile. I think its more like 30. Game check says 380 bucks versus 566 doe's were killed in Shelby Co last season. So basically 41% of the deer on my lease are bucks, and 59% are doe's.

Using your numbers above (30 deer/sq mi) I have 48 deer on my lease. 28 are doe's. If I kill 15, that leaves 13 to breed. What I can say that tends to back up the lower number per mile is I don't see more than 4 or 5 deer on a field. If I was seeing 8 to 10, I would feel better. I have green fields no one ever sees a deer on. They use them at night, but because of the way my lease was set up, to many fields are on the main road, and its worse because I have 1 entrance, not 2.

We put some lanes in on skidder rows this fall, and I have a couple fields I need to expand. The ones I was able to lime aren't just killing it this year, its going to take a year or two for them to get the PH up where it needs to be. I think the thinning will help us, but it will still be a couple more years before we see that too. They clearcut parts of the lease next to me, so he will be a deer factory in a couple years. That should help us as well.

I think CNC is correct about one thing in particular. In every club I have been in, there has been this mentality that when rifle season starts, bust every doe that walks on a green field. I was in one in Bibb Co. The rut there starts in December, and every doe that would walk out on a field has been killed before the rut starts. Think you will see a buck? Not likely. I was in that club 2 years, and we killed 1 doe after Janaury 1. You just didn't see anything.

Move to a LARGE club in Shelby County. Same scenario, except the rut kicks in later into December and January. They decide after 4 or 5 years to stop allowing doe kills off a greenfield after December 31. Guess what you hear in camp? "The minute it steps off the greenfield, I am shooting it".

I "suggested" last year that we leave doe's alone on a green field and people saw a lot of deer. This year we said you can't shoot one off a green field, unless its a kids first deer.

I feel certain that back in the 80's, when we had doe season, I saw way more deer.

The answer is that they come from other surrounding properties……From my observations, I think twice a year does go through a population redistribution caused by social conflict for resources where they shuffle themselves around the landscape. This happens in late winter when food resources become more limited and during late summer when prime fawning cover is potentially limited. During this time if resources start to become limited, the doe groups led by the old matriarch does typically kick the younger ones down the road.

This redistribution or reshuffling creates something similar to a physics expansion equation…….The rate of doe “expansion” for a given area is determined by the rate of social conflict between doe groups on any given property. Expansion will not occur in all area and will only really emanate from area where conflict occurs. So for example……a property like Wyncreek going in and trying to shoot out a “doe quota” is really just impacting the rate of doe expansion onto neighboring hunting clubs in the area more than anything.

What you would rather have happen in this situation in my opinion…..instead of going in a blasting out a bunch of does on Wyncreek……let them redistribute themselves to the neighbors and let them do the blasting…….redistribute the excess hunting pressure to them…..they’ll love you for it too

The social conflict that is occurring amongst the doe groups on the property where expansion emanates from is a good thing for your hunting as well because it creates more movement amongst the females in late winter as they feel like they have to defend the castle. With no shooting pressure on them and the need to defend resources will have them on their feet more and in turn have the bucks on their feet too

CNC. There is a ton of movement ecology research out there to be read. I'd start with the source/sink stuff first. Many of these questions have some data that already exists.

Anthropomorphize much?

Debate this until you are blue in the dam face if you want but the answer is very very simple....


I won't be back in the woods until the 17th I'm letting my place have a 2 week rest right now....

When I get back there I will see 20+ deer on my morning AND afternoon sits. It won't be boring. I'll see 2-3 racked buck most AL hunters would shoot. In fact I will walk to the field and the deer might not even bother leaving the food plot as I get in the shooting house. That's a regular occurrence but to be fair my plots are 200 yards end to end.

What are you going to see?

If you want to fight Mother Nature with your trigger finger go ahead... you will lose.

If you want to see 20+ deer and a few decent racked bucks anytime you want to go sit.... then go back and read my posts on this subject.

Simple as that. You decide what you want to do.

Explain this one to me…….I don’t follow……How am I attributing human characteristics to deer?? ......I feel like I'm attributing the observed characteristics of deer from 1st hand experience of watching it happen

One more thing.... when you stop shooting... that's when your buck/doe ratio will regulate itself. Mother Nature will do that for you.

WHY do people not understand this? The problem with a buck doe ratio is 100% of the time dead bucks.

100% of the time. There is absolutely no other way to get to "too many does".

So when you think things like... "I've got to kill these does so that my buck/doe ratio will be better".

WRONG.




Quit shooting all your bucks. Or plead with your neighbors to quit. They are dead. Once you shoot all those bucks and you have too many does.... and then next season you shoot some more 2 yo bucks because that's all you've got on your property... rinse repeat. You have a crappy property to hunt. Sound familiar? Most of you are living this. This simple fact pattern has eluded the morons at the DCNR since the beginning... maybe. I personally think they don't want to get it for other reasons.

That's EXACTLY how you get to or EXACTLY how you got to..... "Too Many Does".

STOP.

The Shoot Deer/Have More Deer Theory = STOOOPID.

Let me go ahead and throw this out there in case its causing confusion with how some deer have behaved in studies or other areas……..There are some populations that are much more constrained by natural and man made boundaries from allowing social conflict “expansion” to occur. Guntersville State Park is a prime example…….These principles are going to apply a little differently to an area such as this that is highly constrained by “boundaries” in comparison to a property that might exist in Macon or Bullock Counties. In the GSP situation populations are gonna be much more susceptible to negative impacts on the herd due to “too many”……The other scenario of Macon, Bullock has much more potential for does spreading themselves out to where there are other available resources…….as well as having other major deer moderators called Hwy 29,80, and 82 that the GSP scenario doesn’t have. Just to note that GSP is a bit of an outlier situation as well when looking at what is “the norm” for most areas. These two scenarios above are on opposite ends of the spectrum for Alabama.

OK?
I'm just saying you seem very interested in these topics. You have all the info at your fingertips, but don't get blinded by specific locations, species, and/or habitats. Animal populations across species can have similar dispersal techniques.

I'll just say, the more you learn the less you'll think you know.

Anyone ever been to Cades cove? They have a zero kill policy. If you've been it's easy to see the heath problems they have there! Small racked bucks, bad buck to doe ratio, completely over populated, starving deseased deer everywhere!

I'm just not sure I'm following the criticism.......Where are the inaccuracies in the things I've said??

CNC, how big (acreage wise) is the place where you regularly hunt, and from which you are making these profound and enlightening observations regarding deer populations and mgmt strategies on? Not to be rude, but while you track on a lot of different properties, you're not physically on them enough to be able to use anything that you think you might see, or thing you know about them, in any relevant application.

Deer management is not a one size fits all application. Everything in deer management is an ever changing variable. Examples:

1) Say you've got 1000 acres and it's all big timber with some thick bedding areas and large destination foodplots with neighbors that shoot everything. You might not need to pull the trigger at all depending on your population and how much damage the neighbors are doing on their property or you might need to shoot a few does based on what you're taking off your property buck wise.

2) Now lets say that same situation changes and they clearcut 700 of the 1000 acres. You're destination plots may still pull deer, but the pull will be diminished during hunting hours due to all that open ground around them. You also will not be holding near the deer that you did when all 1000 acres was thick timber. You probably dont need to shoot anything for a few years, especially with your neighbors taking care of business.

3) Fast forward 5 yrs and you now have 700 acres of grown up cutover, full of heavy cover and massive amounts of browse along with large destination plots and 300 acres of big timber. Perfect habitat and most likely, you'll be experiencing a population boom as a result and you might need to kill 8-12 does depending on your recruitment and survival rates, and once again, what your neighbors are killing.

4) Now, lets say youve got the exact same situation above with the 5 yr thick cutover and 2 years earlier, all the property around you (5000 acres) got bought up by a bunch of big money doctors from Bham that only shoot 5+ yr old trophies and refuse to pull the trigger on a doe. With that being the case, you might have to shoot 15-20 does to keep things where they need to be because you will quickly be overrun with deer.

All of these situations might happen on the exact same 1000 acre property over a 5-7 yr period and each requires a different approach. It also doesnt even address whats happening with the habitat on the other properties around you which would cause you to have to further evaluate each situation. The final thing that nobody has mentioned above is buck dispersal. It is a proven fact that a mother doe will run her yearling buck fawns off. Average dispersal distance ranges from less than 2 miles to sometimes up to 20 miles, so if you are not turning over/shooting any of your mature momma does, all of the buck fawns, born on your property, are most likely leaving and taking up residence on the neighbors or your neighbors neighbors. In scenario 1, this is not a good situation because with your immediate neighbors killing every young buck they see, you're simply not going to be replacing many of your bucks. Scenario 2 is even worse because you dont have anything to attract what few dispersed bucks that are available. Scenario 3 is a little better in that you've got prime buck habitat so you'll pick up a few. Scenario 4 is a best case scenario because you'll have prime habitat and a bunch of bucks dispersing from the properties around you over onto yours.

You can kill the required does without drastically impacting anything. Practice low impact hunting and keep pressure down. Use 4 wheelers and atvs ONLY to retrieve deer and not for routine travel. Do not shoot your does with rifles and most especially, do not shoot does on or near you greenfields or feeding areas. Kill them with bows or crossbows in areas away from your feeding locations. Keep the noise and activity on your property to an absolute minimum. In the case of the 1000 acres, hunt no more than 4 people on it. If the weather sucks and is not conducive to good deer movement, dont go. If the wind is wrong or marginal for a stand you want to hunt, dont hunt it. As I've said before, I'd rather hunt a whole lot less days, but have fantastic quality hunts and an opportunity to see a pile of deer and bucks, every time I get in a stand.

Last part of deer management is pressure and people management. I promise you, you can put me and 3 like minded guys on the same 1000 acre piece one year and we might hunt a total of 40-50 man days or (8-12 days in total for each man, during the entire season). You can put a normal 8 or 10 man Alabama club on that same 1000 acres the following year and they would probably put in 200 plus man days of hunting. I can promise you that if you kept detailed observation data for both seasons. My group of 4, hunting the way I described above will see 3-4 times as many total does, 5 times as many total overall bucks and 10 times as many mature bucks as the 8 or 10 man club will, on the exact same property. It's just the way it works.