Originally Posted by Goatkiller
The bucks do have a higher mortality rate. 50% of the fawns are bucks.

If you have 1 deer per 10 acres (which is considered good) and you have 500 acres you have 50 deer. If you start out with a 3:1 buck/doe ratio that's probably close to realistic at the beginning of hunting season. 15 bucks running around. Then you shoot 2-3 bucks each for 5 hunters on 500 acres. You have killed 20% of your overall deer population.

The bucks have a higher mortality rate in general..... Whoops.... Now you have essentially wiped them out.

The result - Does are all you have left.

Shoot a bunch of does. Have less deer. Still have no bucks.

This is a simple concept some of y'all can't grasp.

I am not against managing does by shooting some of them. But the scenario above is what happens in Alabama and is exactly why people "think" they have too many does and need to shoot them. You don't have a doe problem you have people blasting small buck problem. If you shoot a bunch of the does you have less deer next season and even fewer they next and you still don't have a healthy deer herd with any age structure.

Should sound familiar because this is the deer herd in Alabama and doe shooting has done ZERO to help this. We've been doing this for 25 years show me where it has worked. It hasn't.


Shooting does is not the real problem and is definitely not the solution to having a better deer herd with better age structure. It just simply DOES NOT WORK as a blanket overall state wide management plan.



We should hopefully be able to avoid this type of scenario with our property. I am not going to disclose the location or specifics, but we are now luckily part of a continuous 13k+ acre cooperative with the same goals in mind. Our particular property, which is new to us, was mistreated for some time before we took over so we are adopting the practices of our neighbor, which has had great success over a long period of time.

Our expectations from camera surveys is that we will most likely not take any more than 10 bucks this year as a group on a very large piece of land >6,000acres. And that is if every "shooter" and "cull" is taken which rarely ever happens. As stated to qualify as a shooter, the buck must be 4yr+ and all culls have to be pre-approved. Our goal for doe harvest is 50 for the year and will re-evaluate before next year to see where we need to make adjustments.

We understand that this is a long term process and a big commitment. I personally have told myself and other members to go ahead and accept not killing a buck from this property this season and probably not even the next. I keep calling it a 3-4 year probation period. It is a sacrifice we are willing to make in order to have something special.