Originally Posted by Nightwatchman
This is incredible information. Thanks Matt. Good Discussions as well.

The only thing I cannot get past is the way to ascertain how many does you have on your property. Sometimes I get picks of like 7 or 8 in one picture, sometimes I get pics of 1 or 2. Are these the same does in every pick? Are they different deer? I do not know.

From an observational standpoint....How do I know if I am seeing the same deer over and over again or if it is different doe groups. Sometimes I sit in the stand and see 10, sometimes I see zero....Just seems like so much guess work

I no longer even worry about trying to get overall population estimates. Why? It doesn’t matter. I look at current habitat condition, future habitat potential, and evaluate browse pressure I see on different plant species. If there’s heavy browse pressure I know there’s too many deer for current conditions. So what can be done? That depends on what the landowner is hoping to accomplish. If they’re content seeing plenty of deer, not concerned about herd health and antler development, we may keep the status quo. But if they’re looking to improve herd health and increase antler growth potential, we may start trying to get sex ratio estimates and begin taking more does. There’s a formula used to estimate doe numbers based on the percentage of unique bucks in a population. There’s a lot of assumptions in the formula, and I’m not totally sold on it being accurate, but it’s about the best way we have to estimate populations, other than a real time drone survey. They are incredibly accurate, but only offer a look into the current population on that property at that given time. Camera surveys provide the use of deer across a period of time.