A Great Quote on the Need to Harvest Does

[Bucks & Beards]

I received a newletter from my hunting club today and read a great(and funny)quote about the need to harvest an appropriate number of does. Thought some of you might like it: "With each doe eating 3,000 pounds of yearly food out of the buck's back pocket, or maybe better put, off the top of his head, the best food plot program is to mail a doe a good-bye letter delivered at 3,000 feet per second."

 

[muddyboots]

I hate hunting a property with aggressive doe harvest. JMO

 

[fairchaser]

Good One :)

 

[richmanbarbeque]

I hate hunting a property with aggressive doe harvest. JMO

Why?

 

[muddyboots]

I hate hunting a property with aggressive doe harvest. JMO

Why?

Deer sightings in daylight will be way down and usually the only chance u have at a mature buck is the rut. I have property that i get too hunt sometimes that is 400 acres and the owner hasnt shot a doe there with a firearm ever. Its the best place i get too hunt. I see bigger bucks there than anywhere.

 

[BSK]

Deer sightings in daylight will be way down and usually the only chance u have at a mature buck is the rut. I have property that i get too hunt sometimes that is 400 acres and the owner hasnt shot a doe there with a firearm ever. Its the best place i get too hunt. I see bigger bucks there than anywhere.

Without question, aggressive doe harvests can drive down daylight sightings. But on that 400-acre property you speak of, the landowner is living off someone else's (a neighbors) hard work. You can't go forever without killing does and not have a seriouosly over-populated and underperforming deer herd. Someone on surrounding lands is having to do all the dirty work while you enjoy the benefits. Is that the right thing to do?

 

[muddyboots]

Deer sightings in daylight will be way down and usually the only chance u have at a mature buck is the rut. I have property that i get too hunt sometimes that is 400 acres and the owner hasnt shot a doe there with a firearm ever. Its the best place i get too hunt. I see bigger bucks there than anywhere.

Without question, aggressive doe harvests can drive down daylight sightings. But on that 400-acre property you speak of, the landowner is living off someone else's (a neighbors) hard work. You can't go forever without killing does and not have a seriouosly over-populated and underperforming deer herd. Someone on surrounding lands is having to do all the dirty work while you enjoy the benefits. Is that the right thing to do?

The surrounding properties dont shoot em either. All together about 1500 acres that i know they dont shoot them with firearms. On a typical hunt u will see 15 to 20 does with 2 to 5 bucks with a realistic chance at a shooter everytime u are there. JMO

 

[tellico4x4]

We hammer the does pretty hard and have done so for 10+years. We also kill mature bucks off of food plots each year too.

That said, we do limit pressure on the plots by not allowing trail cameras on them during hunting season (folks not in & out checking all the time), and most of our plot stands are easily accessible without having to set foot in plots. We have the best hunting wind direction for each plot noted in our check-in station, so folks are not buggering them up. Also, plots are pretty much located in middle of large planted pine plantations, that provide thousands of acres of sanctuaries that no one ever enters except to retrieve a deer.

 

[LB FANATIC]

I would think some should be harvested every year..

 

[Football Hunter]

I received a newletter from my hunting club today and read a great(and funny)quote about the need to harvest an appropriate number of does. Thought some of you might like it: "With each doe eating 3,000 pounds of yearly food out of the buck's back pocket, or maybe better put, off the top of his head, the best food plot program is to mail a doe a good-bye letter delivered at 3,000 feet per second."

or 300 fps :)

 

[BSK]

Deer sightings in daylight will be way down and usually the only chance u have at a mature buck is the rut. I have property that i get too hunt sometimes that is 400 acres and the owner hasnt shot a doe there with a firearm ever. Its the best place i get too hunt. I see bigger bucks there than anywhere.

Without question, aggressive doe harvests can drive down daylight sightings. But on that 400-acre property you speak of, the landowner is living off someone else's (a neighbors) hard work. You can't go forever without killing does and not have a seriouosly over-populated and underperforming deer herd. Someone on surrounding lands is having to do all the dirty work while you enjoy the benefits. Is that the right thing to do?

The surrounding properties dont shoot em either. All together about 1500 acres that i know they dont shoot them with firearms.

Again, those 1500 acres are living off the hard work of others. Keeping a healthy deer herd healthy requires a lot of population control. A healthy deer herd doubles in size every two years. And due the inverse relationship between herd health/performance and herd density as it relates to food volume/quality, a healthy deer herd will not stay healthy for long without serious population control. And that population control can only be acheived through doe harvests.

If that 1500 acres is seeing high and stable herd health over time, somebody in the neighboring area is doing the hard work of controlling that herd's growth. Anything else is biologically impossible.

 

[Living2Hunt]

Deer sightings in daylight will be way down and usually the only chance u have at a mature buck is the rut. I have property that i get too hunt sometimes that is 400 acres and the owner hasnt shot a doe there with a firearm ever. Its the best place i get too hunt. I see bigger bucks there than anywhere.

Without question, aggressive doe harvests can drive down daylight sightings. But on that 400-acre property you speak of, the landowner is living off someone else's (a neighbors) hard work. You can't go forever without killing does and not have a seriouosly over-populated and underperforming deer herd. Someone on surrounding lands is having to do all the dirty work while you enjoy the benefits. Is that the right thing to do?

The surrounding properties dont shoot em either. All together about 1500 acres that i know they dont shoot them with firearms.

Again, those 1500 acres are living off the hard work of others. Keeping a healthy deer herd healthy requires a lot of population control. A healthy deer herd doubles in size every two years. And due the inverse relationship between herd health/performance and herd density as it relates to food volume/quality, a healthy deer herd will not stay healthy for long without serious population control. And that population control can only be acheived through doe harvests.

If that 1500 acres is seeing high and stable herd health over time, somebody in the neighboring area is doing the hard work of controlling that herd's growth. Anything else is biologically impossible.

Agreed! We take serveral does of our property each year. And there are always trophy bucks shot in the area. I hunt farm land and there are always food for them to eat. Besides last year when last spring rain wouldnt allow the farmer to plant crops and it didnt take long for all the deer to eat the soft mast. I couldnt imagine if we didnt kill as many deer as we did. I will say this, we kill does early with a bow and late with a gun. Never during the rut.

 

[muddyboots]

Deer sightings in daylight will be way down and usually the only chance u have at a mature buck is the rut. I have property that i get too hunt sometimes that is 400 acres and the owner hasnt shot a doe there with a firearm ever. Its the best place i get too hunt. I see bigger bucks there than anywhere.

Without question, aggressive doe harvests can drive down daylight sightings. But on that 400-acre property you speak of, the landowner is living off someone else's (a neighbors) hard work. You can't go forever without killing does and not have a seriouosly over-populated and underperforming deer herd. Someone on surrounding lands is having to do all the dirty work while you enjoy the benefits. Is that the right thing to do?

The surrounding properties dont shoot em either. All together about 1500 acres that i know they dont shoot them with firearms.

Again, those 1500 acres are living off the hard work of others. Keeping a healthy deer herd healthy requires a lot of population control. A healthy deer herd doubles in size every two years. And due the inverse relationship between herd health/performance and herd density as it relates to food volume/quality, a healthy deer herd will not stay healthy for long without serious population control. And that population control can only be acheived through doe harvests.

If that 1500 acres is seeing high and stable herd health over time, somebody in the neighboring area is doing the hard work of controlling that herd's growth. Anything else is biologically impossible.

Possible just noone is aware of it. When i get too hunt there it just reminds me of how hard hunting is on my leases are where they shoot does with firearms. LOL

 

[BSK]

Possible just noone is aware of it. When i get too hunt there it just reminds me of how hard hunting is on my leases are where they shoot does with firearms. LOL

You are probably just seeing differences in hunting areas, not differences due to shooting does, as somebody is shooting a lot of local does, and probably with firearms (very difficult to kill enough does with a bow).

 

[jb3]

Does are take off of our lease as well. As for deer sightings, you may not see that many (does and bucks), but we have taken 130-140's every year. The best time of year for a doe harvest is during the rut. It's hard to shot a buck that is full out in timber, but when he stops to smell her, he is a sitting duck.

 

[Hollar Hunter]

Possible just noone is aware of it. When i get too hunt there it just reminds me of how hard hunting is on my leases are where they shoot does with firearms. LOL

You are probably just seeing differences in hunting areas, not differences due to shooting does, as somebody is shooting a lot of local does, and probably with firearms (very difficult to kill enough does with a bow).

How many does a year do you take of your 500 acres? I know every properties needs are going to be different but whats the general rule of thumb say per 500 acres? We have 2500 acres and after running cameras for a year now it seems like we have more bucks than does which I know is very odd or the bucks are just being dominant over the salt, plots, and corn when it was out.

 

[Bucks & Beards]

I received a newletter from my hunting club today and read a great(and funny)quote about the need to harvest an appropriate number of does. Thought some of you might like it: "With each doe eating 3,000 pounds of yearly food out of the buck's back pocket, or maybe better put, off the top of his head, the best food plot program is to mail a doe a good-bye letter delivered at 3,000 feet per second."

or 300 fps :)

Yeah, that'll work too starting Saturday!

 

[Bucks & Beards]

Possible just noone is aware of it. When i get too hunt there it just reminds me of how hard hunting is on my leases are where they shoot does with firearms. LOL

You are probably just seeing differences in hunting areas, not differences due to shooting does, as somebody is shooting a lot of local does, and probably with firearms (very difficult to kill enough does with a bow).

How many does a year do you take of your 500 acres? I know every properties needs are going to be different but whats the general rule of thumb say per 500 acres? We have 2500 acres and after running cameras for a year now it seems like we have more bucks than does which I know is very odd or the bucks are just being dominant over the salt, plots, and corn when it was out.

BSK, Aren't does usually dominant on the food sources?

 

[Boll Weevil]

A camera inventory for this year's fawn recruitment/survival has been perfectly dismal on my place. Crazy as it may sound I've gotten more photos of coyotes than fawns this summer...WAY more. The neighbor even found a partially eaten fawn half-buried while bushhogging.

Don't know if it's an effect of the drought, neighbors pulling the trigger, or yotes but we'll likely adjust our doe harvest down a bit (and absolutely go to town on the yodelers). The coyotes seem to have really made a dent.

 

[Boone 58]

I would think some should be harvested every year..

X~3 ;)

 

[BSK]

A camera inventory for this year's fawn recruitment/survival has been perfectly dismal on my place. Crazy as it may sound I've gotten more photos of coyotes than fawns this summer...WAY more. The neighbor even found a partially eaten fawn half-buried while bushhogging.

Don't know if it's an effect of the drought, neighbors pulling the trigger, or yotes but we'll likely adjust our doe harvest down a bit (and absolutely go to town on the yodelers). The coyotes seem to have really made a dent.

Excellent post Boll Weevil. Appropriate doe harvests must be developed using a wide variety of information sources. First, how is the current herd density affecting the availability of food during the lowest food resource time of year (late winter)? Second, how is fawn production and survival? Under poor fawn survival, not as many does need to be removed each year. In fact, in some locations, predation of fawns is so high that few adult does need to be removed each year (no more does than the number of bucks harvested). Several of my clients in the western Highland Rim area experienced low fawn survival in the years following the '07 EHD outbreak. I recommended they back way off of their doe harvest policies until fawn production increased. Fawn recruitment rates jumped considerably last year, and appear to be exceptionally high this year, allowing for a return to higher doe harvests this year.

However, to properly assess fawn production and survival, I would NOT use camera data from late summer. Often fawn numbers are vastly under-represented in August camera censuses. I would point cameras into food plots during October (to get adult doe versus fawn numbers) and compare that to hunter observations of of doe-fawn ratios during bow season (when fawns are easiest to identify from adult does).

Your observation of many, many coyote pictures is an important one. Watch these numbers over time. Generally, coyote populations go through "boom and bust" patterns, as high coyote densities usually crash due to disease problems.

And by the way, the "half-buried" fawn carcass is a sign of a bobcat kill, not a coyote kill. Members of the cat species bury their prey (to hide it from scavengers) for later consumption.

 

[tellico4x4]

A camera inventory for this year's fawn recruitment/survival has been perfectly dismal on my place. Crazy as it may sound I've gotten more photos of coyotes than fawns this summer...WAY more. The neighbor even found a partially eaten fawn half-buried while bushhogging.

Don't know if it's an effect of the drought, neighbors pulling the trigger, or yotes but we'll likely adjust our doe harvest down a bit (and absolutely go to town on the yodelers). The coyotes seem to have really made a dent.

Thankfully, our coyote numbers seem to be down this year. A couple of weeks ago, I got a pic of one that was eaten up with mange. I bet he didn't have a handful of hair on him. Maybe all the others have gotten it too! Also, I have set on the porch a couple of times right at dark here recently and have not heard a single coyote, where I usually hear 3-4 diff packs sound off.
More pics of fawns and baby turkeys this year than we have had in the past 5 yrs.

 

[RobbyW]

Something I was told years ago by a biologist was, having the right amount of does, helps the herd quality by only letting the more dominate bucks to breed. If you have a large number of does,every buck in the heard can breed, therefor passing on weak genes. If the number of does are down, then there is more competition and only the dominate bucks will breed. He also said this actually makes the rut more active, because bucks have to search and compete harder.

BSK, would you say this is correct?

 

[BSK]

BSK, would you say this is correct?

Partially.

DNA parentage studies find that successful breedings are spread through the buck population far more evenly than what was originally assumed (all age bucks are successful breeders), but when competition for estrus does is highest, older to mature bucks are the most successful breeders. So a more balanced adult sex ratio will mean that older bucks do far more breeding than young bucks, but some young bucks are still successful breeders, just at a far lower rate than older bucks.

This concentration of older males conducting more of the breeding isn't so much about ensuring the best genetics get passed on (in fact, whitetailed deer breeding behavior appears to be designed to maximize genetic diversity within the population, unlike "bull and harem" systems that other ungulates use). The focus of breeding on the older males is more about driving the intense stress of being an active breeder onto the males that can survive the process and not be as harmed by the stresses over the long-term. Rut stress--the physical demands of being an active breeder--is far more intense than most would assume. Active breeding bucks often lose 30% of their entire body weight during the 5-6 weeks of the rut. This means a buck weighing 200 lbs going into the rut can be only 140 lbs coming out of the rut just 6 weeks later. Older to mature bucks have already finished growing their full skelatal system, hence this type of stress doesn't have any long-term growth ramifications (although it can literally kill bucks during the post-rut winter months). A young buck--such as a yearling--is still growing his skelatal system, and losing that much body weight just as they are going into winter can have a profound effect on that buck's growth the following summer. Instead of directing spring and early summer food resources into further body size increases, they must use all those food resources to rebuild the weight they lost during the rut and winter months. This can literally stunt the buck for life. Missed body growth potential at a young age is lost forever.

These biological benefits of a balanced sex ratio can be seen over time on a managed property. Once the sex ratio is balanced, and the buck age structure increased, observations of young bucks participating in the rut will be greatly reduced. This lower participation in rutting behavior by young bucks will be displayed in larger bodied 2 1/2 year-old bucks (because young bucks are not having to waste summer food resources rebuilding weight lost during the rut). These body weight increases then move up through the age-classes over time. Larger 2 1/2 year-old bucks mean larger 3 1/2 year-old bucks the following year, and so on.

Other benefits of a balanced sex ratio include a short and more intense rut, so that all the does are bred during their first estrus cycle. Not only does this reduce rut stress (bucks don't have to extend breeding activity over a long period of time), fawns produced in spring all hit the ground at about the same time, greatly reducing predators ability to impact fawn survival (this is called "prey saturation"--too many fawns on the ground for coyotes, dogs, and bobcat to be able to impact their numbers before they are old enough to run and escape these predators).

 

[Boll Weevil]

And by the way, the "half-buried" fawn carcass is a sign of a bobcat kill, not a coyote kill.

Right on...now that you mention it I recall reading this somewhere awhile back.

I've relocated all but 1 camera to plots and will make the first pull in a month so hopefully there's a few more fawns on there.

 

[BSK]

jar,

As the managers of a resource we care a great deal about, we hunters have a responsibility to manage the deer herds wisely instead of simply exploiting them. Over-exploiting (over-killing) young bucks is not responsible management. However, TN hunters--on a statewide level--have been doing a very good job of late NOT over-exploiting young bucks. The number of yearling bucks killed each year continues to decline. Now that doesn't mean there aren't areas in the state where young bucks are still being over-exploited. There certainly are counties scattered all over the state where the yearling buck kill is still too high. But there are an equal number of counties scattered all over the state--east to west--where hunters are doing a fantastic job limiting the kill of young bucks (counties where 20+% of all harvested bucks are 3 1/2+). The trick is figuring out why hunters in some counties are doing so well and hunters in other counties--often directly adjacent--are not, and figuring out a way to help those poorly performing counties.

What I'm getting at is it is OK to kill some young bucks. Nature does so. Young bucks have the highest rate of natural mortality. But it is not OK to slaughter young bucks.

A second part of responsible management is controlling herd growth. Healthy deer herds grow explosively. They can double in size every two years. Doubling the size of a healthy deer herd will quickly turn it into an unhealthy deer herd that is damaging the habitat. A hunter suggesting to other hunters they NOT shoot does because it will make their buck hunting better is irresponsible management advice. That is the epitome of exploitation.

 

[TOW]

Cant speak for Tennessee but I try and shoot enough does to balance the herd somewhat. It should not be not be an automatic war on does.

 

[8 POINTS OR BETTER]

Cant speak for Tennessee but I try and shoot enough does to balance the herd somewhat. It should not be not be an automatic war on does.

We do the same, we try to kill the same amount of does as we do bucks. But we kill most of the does late season so that we don't put a lot of pressure on the deer untill the rut is over.

 

[BSK]

Cant speak for Tennessee but I try and shoot enough does to balance the herd somewhat. It should not be not be an automatic war on does.

Doe harvests should be based on the needs of the area in question. I agree, no automatic need for a war on does. Some areas need high doe harvests and some don't. The answer will always be site specific.

 

[BSK]

Cant speak for Tennessee but I try and shoot enough does to balance the herd somewhat. It should not be not be an automatic war on does.

We do the same, we try to kill the same amount of does as we do bucks. But we kill most of the does late season so that we don't put a lot of pressure on the deer untill the rut is over.

As long as you can meet your doe harvest goals by waiting until after the rut, I agree that is the best policy. However, often clubs/landowners/hunters fail to meet their doe harvest needs if they wait until late in the season.