I made this argument to my group and you would have thought I had just asked them to solve a complicated riddle of some sort. It's either a future pregnant doe or a currently pregnant doe, what does it matter? What we really do is try not to kill does on the plots b/c we don't want to possibly run them off of them, so that when the bucks are cruising good, there's a better chance of them visiting the plots b/c of the does being there.
It really doesn't matter if you kill does before or during the rut. Just about every alive doe in the woods will be bred at some point during the rut, so you're either killing an already pregnant doe DURING the rut, or a potentially pregnant doe BEFORE the rut.
The effect on deer numbers for next year is pretty even either way, I'd say.
We cut off doe shooting after December 31, but that's just to let the woods settle for the rut...has nothing to do with numbers for next year.
