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Agree or Disagree?

3 bucks didn't impact our herd #s and still wouldn't, the doe harvest could be cut off but another dry year and EHD could strike again like 2007. I don't think our #s ever recovered after that year and may never. Trying to drive hunters to a 1 buck limit and/or point restrictions or cutting gun season down while increasing bow will cause a lot of trouble imo.
 
mike243 said:
3 bucks didn't impact our herd #s and still wouldn't, the doe harvest could be cut off but another dry year and EHD could strike again like 2007. I don't think our #s ever recovered after that year and may never. Trying to drive hunters to a 1 buck limit and/or point restrictions or cutting gun season down while increasing bow will cause a lot of trouble imo.
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Not telling what we lost in 07 i would estimate high as 60-70% in places than again in 11,16, and a few in 18. We have certainly never revovered in my areas to 1/2 of what we had before 07
 
Ski said:
In the deer harvest report thread it's hard to look at the report and not notice all but one county killed more bucks than does. A big portion killed nearly twice as many bucks as does. In a natural herd the ideal sex ratio is 1:1. If TWRA sets regs according to biological factors, then shouldn't the harvest report reflect a more balanced harvest like Henry Co. where it's statistically even? The record is what it is and it clearly shows a significant discrepancy in harvest between antlered bucks and does. Hard to point fingers at "antler chasers" for wanting a 1-buck limit when the record shows apparently a gross majority of the hunters in the state are chasing antlers. Is the pot calling the kettle black?
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Yeah ideal is 1:1 but it seems like if I remember correctly if you are capable of 3:1 that's still a quality herd. Not trying to question you in any way. I know where I live we are not there at all in regards to ratio.
 
Are we sure the population is down?
I live 2.7 miles off of Hwy.25E and yesterday on my way home, that last 2.7 miles I counted no less than 20 deers.
3 bucks together. A spike,6pt and an 8pt we call Chunko the past 2 years.
I'm in the mountains and I wonder how many deer I don't see.
Whatever the TWRA wants to do is fine with me.
 
mike243 said:
3 bucks didn't impact our herd #s and still wouldn't, the doe harvest could be cut off but another dry year and EHD could strike again like 2007. I don't think our #s ever recovered after that year and may never. Trying to drive hunters to a 1 buck limit and/or point restrictions or cutting gun season down while increasing bow will cause a lot of trouble imo.
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well i think 1 is perfect and you think 3 is perfect- 2 is still a good compromise
 
Chiflyguy said:
Are we sure the population is down?
I live 2.7 miles off of Hwy.25E and yesterday on my way home, that last 2.7 miles I counted no less than 20 deers.
3 bucks together. A spike,6pt and an 8pt we call Chunko the past 2 years.
I'm in the mountains and I wonder how many deer I don't see.
Whatever the TWRA wants to do is fine with me.
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i watched a podcast where a biologist (of some flavor) stated that deer population are way down in the midwest- illinois specifically only had half the deer they had 20 years ago?
 
There are pockets everywhere due to not allowing hunting or to many houses ect but that doesn't hold true for the whole county
 
Wooden Arrow said:
we are infested with does here in Sullivan & Hawkins Co. but most of them are on private property along the rivers and IN Kingsport, Bristol, and Rogersville. so, no firearms, and/or dang near impossible to get permission to hunt. wardens will tell you, if you want to kill a big buck in Hawkins, make friends that own land in/around Rogersville. or, you can hope you get "lucky" and be drawn for a hunt at HAAP. check out the videos at "Holston Wildlife"...
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I've hunted there a couple times. Some huge bucks in there...
 
Lost Lake said:
I've always doubted that nature favors a 1:1 buck/doe ratio. I can't think of anywhere that there is a deer herd that's unaffected or manipulated by man.
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Hard to say for sure really. Going back just a couple hundred years there were herds of elk, buffalo, etc. roaming with wolves & lions. Now other than a reintroductory population of elk, deer are the largest game animal we have and coyotes are the largest predator. Whitetails were nearly wiped out with the other big game but conservation efforts allowed them to bounce back. In a "natural" world it's hard to say what they were like because they were just another animal. Everything we really know about them is post conservation where our hands have been on them the entire time.
 
Ski said:
Hard to say for sure really. Going back just a couple hundred years there were herds of elk, buffalo, etc. roaming with wolves & lions. Now other than a reintroductory population of elk, deer are the largest game animal we have and coyotes are the largest predator. Whitetails were nearly wiped out with the other big game but conservation efforts allowed them to bounce back. In a "natural" world it's hard to say what they were like because they were just another animal. Everything we really know about them is post conservation where our hands have been on them the entire time.
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Yessir. Hard to say. Most herd animals heavily favor females in number. It just seems odd that Whitetails would be the exception there, especially in diverse habitat and terrain. Sometimes I think we manage for what we want to see, and feel better if we say nature prefers it. JMO. I'm no brainiac, just a fella who was spent most of his life around herd animals of some type.
 
The 1 to 1 I think is to make the rut shorter and more intense so hunters can have a better chance of killing ol big boy lol would Elk not be very similar? and other critters?
 
Lost Lake said:
Yessir. Hard to say. Most herd animals heavily favor females in number. It just seems odd that Whitetails would be the exception there, especially in diverse habitat and terrain. Sometimes I think we manage for what we want to see, and feel better if we say nature prefers it. JMO. I'm no brainiac, just a fella who was spent most of his life around herd animals of some type.
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On the face I'd agree, but having been around both deer and elk there's no comparison. They behave completely different. A bull elk will form a harem by collecting females and adding them. The more dominant he is, the more females he'll have. Whitetails are nothing like that. They stay pretty solitary for the most part with a few does & fawns making up small family groups. And bucks have to travel & search for does to breed. We don't see harems of does all following one big buck around while all the smaller bucks lag behind in the back. But that's exactly how it happens for elk. Completely different animals.
 
Ski said:
On the face I'd agree, but having been around both deer and elk there's no comparison. They behave completely different. A bull elk will form a harem by collecting females and adding them. The more dominant he is, the more females he'll have. Whitetails are nothing like that. They stay pretty solitary for the most part with a few does & fawns making up small family groups. And bucks have to travel & search for does to breed. We don't see harems of does all following one big buck around while all the smaller bucks lag behind in the back. But that's exactly how it happens for elk. Completely different animals.
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True.

Natural mortality among Whitetail bucks has to be higher than does (again, assuming no interference from man in the form of supplemental feeding or hunting) simply from the rigors of the rut. I know that in a "balanced" herd that the majority of breeding takes place from older, more dominant bucks. Probably one of the reasons that we can't stockpile older bucks like we'd want. But, even the less dominant bucks would be subject to the stress, as they love to follow the action.

I'm sure the stresses of fawn rearing take a toll on does, especially in areas without supplemental forage provided by man, but I'd think that the stresses would still be less than bucks experience from rutting.

It makes for interesting conversation, even though I don't believe we will ever know for sure.
 
I guess I'd have to know how a 1 buck limit would affect deer density and holding capacity of the land. More deer, less browse, more disease, animal die offs, cats and dogs living together, total chaos...
 
Lost Lake said:
It makes for interesting conversation, even though I don't believe we will ever know for sure.
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100%. Fun to talk about but I'm not sure anybody knows much about any whitetail that doesn't at some level cohabit with humans, and to some degree rely on us. Heck maybe it was always that way for all I know. We call them wild because we don't have them in cages, but how wild are they really?
 
Ski said:
100%. Fun to talk about but I'm not sure anybody knows much about any whitetail that doesn't at some level cohabit with humans, and to some degree rely on us. Heck maybe it was always that way for all I know. We call them wild because we don't have them in cages, but how wild are they really?
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Absolutely right!
 
Lost Lake said:
I've always doubted that nature favors a 1:1 buck/doe ratio. I can't think of anywhere that there is a deer herd that's unaffected or manipulated by man.
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I have had the opportunity to study unhunted herds covering vast areas. In Nature, the adult sex ratio is around 1.2 does per buck. The ratio of does is slightly higher because thy naturally live longer than bucks.
 
redblood said:
i watched a podcast where a biologist (of some flavor) stated that deer population are way down in the midwest- illinois specifically only had half the deer they had 20 years ago?
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CWD, unlimited doe tags, freakin developments, high cost leases.
Wanna see a sad story?
Northern Wisconsin
Whoever thought reintroducing wolves was a good idea is an idiot.
 

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