#1714958 - 01/08/10 04:10 PM
Re: Pressured Does
[Re: Cy]
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Tree Tramp
8 Point
Registered: 07/22/09
Posts: 1560
Loc: Tennessee
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How did Davey Crockett and his companions extirpate the species without a spotlight? Amazing. 
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#1714959 - 01/08/10 04:10 PM
Re: Pressured Does
[Re: Cy]
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Yodel Dog
8 Point
Registered: 10/14/08
Posts: 1087
Loc: Mid Tn
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Let me ask it a different way.
A doe/fawn family group walks by my stand and I drop one of em bang/flop. I don't jump down out of the stand, etc., but let that group do whatever they're going to do when they hear the shot, wait for them to clear the area, then climb down and take care of business.
Does it make sense that those does are now more likely not to show themselves around that stand or during day light in future because of that experience?
I think whether you shot a doe or a buck, you've just educated the rest of the group.
_________________________
"...Shooting a deer is like shooting a cow..." Phil Robertson
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#1714982 - 01/08/10 04:27 PM
Re: Pressured Does
[Re: Yodel Dog]
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bowriter
Non-Typical
Registered: 08/31/02
Posts: 40303
Loc: Lebanon,TN USA
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Simple fact, understand it or not; you start hunting does and they becomes as hard to kill as bucks. Just a fact. If I shoot three or four of my yard deer, I'll never see them again.
Deer aren't smart but they are smarter than we are.
_________________________
Constipation has ruined many a good day. Not as many as stupidity, though.
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#1714989 - 01/08/10 04:33 PM
Re: Pressured Does
[Re: Yodel Dog]
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username
10 Point
Registered: 05/08/02
Posts: 4103
Loc: Williamson County
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I would like to add to my previous comments that if my hunting methods had been the same while we were killing alot of does, as they are now, I suspect that the does would be a little less wary than they were when they were consistently getting shot at.
Back then, we didn't utilize sanctuaries, like now. Basically the entire farm was open season. Hunt anywhere you want anytime you want.
Now we have 30% of the property off limits to ANY human intrusion whatsoever. They consist of 100 acres broken up into several small and large patches of very thick cover. We've been extremely successful in killing older age bucks since we started this. I suspect, we could probably be as successful with does.
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#1715179 - 01/08/10 06:42 PM
Re: Pressured Does
[Re: username]
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blanton
Spike
Registered: 09/25/09
Posts: 55
Loc: Athens, TN
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In my brief experience... I had does and bucks running wild on my new property this year. Neighbors just killed bucks. After harvesting three does and no bucks from fixed stands during archery I still saw does/buttons migrating in the same patterns and with the same regularity during daylight. All of the kills were does among a herd and I always waited for the others to leave before climbing down. I took one doe during ML and and stopped seeing any does during daylight in any of the areas where I had fixed stands (or at least 90% no sightings where I had always seen does if I was out all day), whether I had harvested there not. As a novice I quickly assumed that I had killed too many does.
I recently started scouting the 100 acres on the other side of the ridge from my land that I have permission to hunt but usually don't due to the thickness, lack of climbing trees, and difficulty of access and I saw as many as 15 does every time I went over the ridge. The distance to the doe-rich area is only 400-600 yards of so from where I harvested the doe during ML, but there was a clear line that they weren't crossing during daylight and when the did it was on the fringes of thick stuff and corners of fields. Even after spooking them several times by just scouting and not shooting, I still see them back there in the thick every time I venture over the ridge. There's plenty of thick on the hunted side of the ridge but they just aren't there during the day.
I know jack about deer. I just started hunting this year and find that the more I hunt the more my instincts turn out to be wrong and my assumptions to be based more on what I want to believe. I'm just reporting my observations on my land this year, and from my novice impressions the does reacted to the gunfire that ensued when ML season opened and became more sensitive to where they saw people and stands/blinds thereafter. No does have been harvested after ML ended, and they still maintain a nocturnal skew on areas often hunted. I've seen little change in buck pattern since ML opened. They either wander through or they don't, but the does don't seem to like the combination of gunfire and people at all.
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#1716099 - 01/09/10 09:34 AM
Re: Pressured Does
[Re: Cy]
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BSK
Jerkasourous of the non-typical kind
Non-Typical
Registered: 03/11/99
Posts: 59548
Loc: Nashville, TN
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I just can't get my thick skull around deer getting "smarter", or conditioned to doe hunting.
Have you never seen an animal learn not to do something? Deer aren't brilliant creatures by any means, but their ability to learn to avoid activities dangerous to their health is legendary. Why do bucks go nocturnal once hunting season starts? Because they've learned to do so for survival purposes. Start whacking does and they will do the very same thing.
_________________________
"Know where you stand, and stand there" --Jesuit Father Daniel Berrigan
"There is no reasoning someone out of a position he has not reasoned himself into." --Clive James
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#1716166 - 01/09/10 10:21 AM
Re: Pressured Does
[Re: BSK]
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Cy
6 Point
Registered: 09/20/09
Posts: 740
Loc: Wears Valley & Cannon County
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I just can't get my thick skull around deer getting "smarter", or conditioned to doe hunting. Have you never seen an animal learn not to do something? Deer aren't brilliant creatures by any means, but their ability to learn to avoid activities dangerous to their health is legendary. Why do bucks go nocturnal once hunting season starts? Because they've learned to do so for survival purposes. Start whacking does and they will do the very same thing.
Sure. What I'm trying to understand are statements that does get conditioned to a change in doe harvest somehow and change their behaviors. All deer react to pressure. How does pressure in Unit L affect does differently than pressure during buck only hunts?
_________________________
Semper Gumby
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#1716270 - 01/09/10 11:52 AM
Re: Pressured Does
[Re: Cy]
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BSK
Jerkasourous of the non-typical kind
Non-Typical
Registered: 03/11/99
Posts: 59548
Loc: Nashville, TN
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How does pressure in Unit L affect does differently than pressure during buck only hunts?
Impossible to get inside a deer's head and figure out how they are learning. But they absolutely do. It isn't hunting pressure as much as it is HARVEST pressure. If hunters were in the woods NOT shooting deer, bucks wouldn't go nocturnal. It is the killing of deer that drives the avoidance behavior.
Humans in the environment doing other things, such as farmers farming and loggers cutting trees, produce no such behavioral change. It is the act of killing deer that does. Now how do deer learn the difference? I have absolutely no idea. But they do.
_________________________
"Know where you stand, and stand there" --Jesuit Father Daniel Berrigan
"There is no reasoning someone out of a position he has not reasoned himself into." --Clive James
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#1716694 - 01/09/10 06:40 PM
Re: Pressured Does
[Re: BSK]
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Mike Belt
TnDeer Old Timer
16 Point
Registered: 03/26/99
Posts: 16933
Loc: Lakeland, Tn.
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I believe that does will adapt to being hunted just like the bucks do. Since bucks are possibly loners they rely on their instincts alone which keeps them lying low. In comparison, does are often with fawns or in related family groups. Alone, the matriarch does may be almost unkillable but their family counterparts may often lead them into dangerous situations whereby they may be killed.
I know that this year the does joined the bucks in hanging in unhuntably thick cover during daylight hours even without the rut factored in.
_________________________
BONE HEAD HUNTER
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