Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Serious Deer Talk Forum does and greenfields

My son and I used to shoot a lot of does in our big plot, several times we'd shoot one and I drag it up to the shootin' house then 15 min later shoot another one. There's 50 shell casings in there over 7 years, that's 40-45 does,3 bucks and a couple yotes. Bout 2 years ago I made the call to not shoot a doe after 1st week of gun season on the big plots. 2 of those bucks were shot this year, both mature deer. I think pressure, blooding the place, leaving scent, talking will effect them. Also deer that are used to more open land probably more likely to tolerate more around a plot/field. A plot surrounded by hundreds to thousands of acres of thick timber,is different. Even though I killed a dandy out of a plot this year, I know my best chance to kill one in the future is not on our plots.

A great thread and i have pondered the same question many times. As a club we currently allow shooting of does on fields, and although we have no formal data to say that doe sightings go down, i think some simple logic might help. (It did for me)

Is it really that hard to kill a doe?
Isn't it pretty simple to make a statement like the less disturbance to an area the better it is for deer sightings?

Based on the two questions above i think its safe to say:
Not shooting does on a greenfield might just allow you the opportunity to see that big buck that you are really there for...

I primarily hunt in Georgia where we have a "normal" rutting pattern. We hold off on shooting does in the green fields until late season. We believe like others above that it keeps the does feeling comfortable coming to them and therefore increases buck sightings on those fields.

just wondering why no 4 wheelers i use one need it, what it effect.

If you ride a 4-wheeler, the deer know you are hunting.

If you ride a golf cart, they just think you are out playing golf!

LOL

We have a large destination plot on our current lease. Last year we shot a 6 point youth weekend and a doe the following weekend from the plot. In both instances there were several other deer in the plot when the shooting occured. It was the last weekend of December before anyone saw a deer in the plot during shooting hours. Now this plot is in an old pasture and you can access the shooting house without disturbing any deer. The shooting house itself is over a 100 yards from the field edge. We didnt walk the fields looking for tracks or anything so the only thing I can think of is the shooting pressured the deer to be nocturnal.

On a separate farm I got to hunt in TN they typically only hunt the greenfields. They only allows does to be shot during bow season/youth weekend and the last week of gun season. There were several shot that last week and 4-5 more would stroll in within 15 minutes of the shot.

I think a lot of it is a combination of total density in the area and pressure. Low densities and you better not shoot does on the fields. Higher densities you can get away with more.

WE have 24 food plots, we allow does to be shot on 14 plots,
The other 10 plots are Bucks only , 3pt on one side or better.
It definetly makes a differance on seeing deer
on the ones that we dont shoot does on.
If you have several plots, do your own experiment and see for yourself. Set aside half of them as Bucks only.

That's basically what we do, only we don't have as many plots as you. And starting about 2 weeks before rut no doe shootin' anywhere,then if we haven't killed enough, about last 2 weeks of season we'll shoot a few more. We try to have our does by 2nd -3rd week of gun season, and are picky about where they are shot. Works very well for us.

is this one of many similar experiences you've had or was this a unique situation? Reason I ask is most of us have had the occasional experience where we shot a deer and the other deer didn't run off, or shoot a doe during the rut and a buck comes in a minute or two later. I think it's common sense that if you shoot your gun on a plot/ track a deer in a plot/ get winded in a plot, etc. deer will start to pattern you and in turn you will see less deer using the plot.

great post...our deer don't really "need" to go to foodplots until very late in the year when acorns are gone/ germinated or rotten. Even then they could live happily for years without a foodplot...(my neighbor saw a spike eat moss off a rock this year while walking down a gully). Our deer prefer plots sometimes over browse, but it's want not a necessity. If I got hit in the gut every time I went to the desert bar I'd quit going...on the other hand in unmanaged pine plantations they have no choice but to come to the plots...kind of like Jackson Co. after a deep freeze in April/May.

In my opinion it will allow you to see more deer in greenfield if you don't shoot does in them it is just one way to lesson the amount of pressure on them, also I think you should stay out of the fields no walking around in them looking for tracks and scrapes and no cameras in the fields. Put your houses as far away as possible from the field. If you have deer in the field when you are hunting you should wait till it is dark and try to slip out without spooking them. Anything you do to lesson the amount of disturbance of the deer in and around the fields will help you kill mature bucks on them during the rut. I also think a lot of people overestimate the amount of does they see therefore thinking there buck/doe ratio is worse than it actually is because they put every deer they see without horns in the doe category when actually probably somewhere between 25-50 percent of them are fawns.

Matt Brock does differ I guess. You can't argue with the results we get, but we shoot does on plots, and still manage to kill a few very nice bucks each year. My Dad kills ALL of his big bucks on plots now, some of which get hammered by pressure.

We have a couple neighbors that killed 14 deer out of 2 plots this year, and the last one they shot was a huge 10 point in the middle of the afternoon.

Hammer them hard in bow season and early rifle season, then back off in the rut. Mature bucks are incredibly smart, but make a few mistakes when they start chasing tail.

I did not mean any disrespect Matt. I just don't totally agree with shooting does on plots after November. What people have to do is find what works for them. It does not work for me. Every tract of land is different.

What one person considers 'hammering'.....a Club might consider mild pressure.

Just a thought!

Dang matt yall ate up with deer or they just stupid.... either way wish our deer were like that. We don't even have food plots on our land.

Matt, do y'all have a lot of native browse or are the foodplots the primary food source? I'm guessing y'all have a lot of native browse but just curious.

I agree with hogwild

We have moderate to good habitat quality overall. Some great browse on certain tracts, and not to great on others. They do have quite a bit of food to choose from though.

I believe you can achieve your doe harvest goals on food plots and still harvest mature bucks if done properly. We don't kill every doe we see in every field, but we do take advantage of early opportunities on does. We will kill them just about anywhere early. As the rut approaches we back off a bit. The HUMAN presence on the field, and how you approach/leave has far greater consequences than a gun blast and blood. Deer have no clue what a gun blast is, but they know exactly what YOU are.

Matt, not being a smart-aleck....

But, it is hard to shoot, track and recover a doe shot on a foodplot without a good bit of human intrusion; isn't it?

Depends. Some fields yes, and some no. Location, location, location.

You can kill a deer every single time you go to a field and not hurt it if you only hunt it three times a year. Hunt it right those three times and you haven't hurt a thing. Hunt it three times a week and kill deer on the first three trips, well, you've done some damage. Probably too much intrusion there.