And also consider this is timber co land alot of us hunt. That is not managed for deer production, its managed for timber production. The biologist straight up told me the biggest obstacle to having a nice deer herd is the timber co itself. If we could go in and selectively harvest the pines to open up the understory, do controlled burns to get rid of sweet gums and other hard woods, and then bush hog swaths thru the pines in a 3 year rotation, and then have about 10% of the acreage planted in crops, that were set up for being able to hunt effectively, rather than just any opening we could find, yes we could kill the mess out of doe's and it wouldn't matter, because we would probably have 90 deer per square mile.
I have nearly 2 square miles,and I bet I don't have 90 deer on it. I think its more like 60. The range for shelby co is 30 to 60 deer per square mile. If I am at 60, then I have 120 resident deer. Killing doe's isn't a big deal then. But if I am only at 30, then I have 60 resident deer, only 30 or so are doe's. If we kill 15 of them, that's half my doe population. Half of my new fawns are going to be bucks. So there is no way to rebuild the population if you kill off half your doe population each season. It will be skewed towards bucks, which is what I am saying the population is now. And no way we kill 15 6pt or better rack bucks... Just not going to happen. But that is the number we need to decrease.
You don't see cattle farmers with 5 cows and 5 bulls. Why would a deer herd be any different?
