All I know is the biologist for the state came out and looked at my lease and recommended we kill 15 doe's the first year, and get them aged. She also said that you are missing 70% of your deer if you aren't in the woods versus a green field. If I look at game check numbers for Shelby Co for last deer season, more bucks were killed than doe's. Dr. Grant Woods told me the best I could hope for on twin fawns was 48/52% one way or another.
All I know for sure was when I was in college, and we had doe season, I could sit on a green field and see deer every day. If we needed meat, we would shoot a spike, or wait until doe season, or use archery. When you are in a club, and they shoot every doe that walks out on a green field, guess what happens? They stop. A doe is no different than a buck if you pressure it, it will be nocturnal too.
I personally think the buck limit needs to be higher. And the doe a day limit needs to be changed to something much lower, like 5 per season.
Here is simple math. Shelby Co has a deer density of 30 to 60 deer per square mile. I am on the lower end of that, I feel certain. I have 1050 acres, which means I have around 50 to 100 deer on the property basically. If I was 1 to 1, which I am not, but assuming I was, that means I have 25 to 50 doe's. If I have 25, and I kill 15, that leaves 10 to breed, and at best, I have 10 doe fawns as a result. If none die from Yotes, then going into the next season I have 20 doe's. There is a sustainable number you have to have to kill a certain number of doe's and maintain your population. Once you kill more than that number, your doe herd will drop, and you will see way more immature bucks than anything else.
Here is food for thought. On 1050 acre's, unless all my adjacent landowners are on a "let the bucks grow" program, what chance do we have if we let ours grow to produce a really nice one? I say not much. It's like being in a club that is 6 pt or better. If I pass a small 6 to let it grow, what guarantee do I have the next guy won't kill it? I have none.
I have some nice 6pt's right now I am watching on camera. There are probably 4 of them. Most any guy in my club would shoot one if it walked out in front of them. So, my letting it go accomplishes what? If I am lucky, no one else sees him, and he gets to live another year.
I just wonder if we wouldn't be better off going back to doe season, and upping the buck limit, and letting people shoot what they want.
I made a model for both buck and doe harvest that also includes age cohorts. But, the model is only as good as the data that was put in. Mine doesnt account for dispersal (in or out) because those figures are impossible to know. I spent a lot of time on the model but most of the data came from refuges and agrucultural land. Survival was really too high compared to the property I actually hunt. But the bigger issue is disease outbreaks. Sure, you can make a model account for them (mine does) but when you see how much variabilty there is over decades long reproduction and mortality rates modeling at the fine scale becomes difficult. That is why the states dont do it.
