The one section of this article I have a little disagreement with is the section on sex ratio. The article states: "
So, stockpiling does will not draw bucks from afar, and even if it did, you'd be less likely to see them, because they don't have to move or compete to breed. As a hunter, you benefit from a balanced buck:doe ratio through greater competition and more searching by bucks."
Now I agree with this to a certain extent. Deer populations skewed heavily towards females often display a trickle rut, with breeding occurring a little bit over a long timeframe, which is undesirable from both a hunting and biological perspective. However, I have changed my opinion about where the best sex ratio numbers lie. Back when I was still heavily involved in the research world, I had the opportunity to analyze data from some very large unhunted properties. This gave us the opportunity to look at large deer populations that had not experienced population changes due to hunter selective pressures. In essence, these were "natural" deer herds. We found that a natural adult sex ratio is 1.2 adult does per adult buck (more does are present because bucks lead tougher lives and do not live as long as does). From that point forward, we attempted to push managed populations back towards that 1.2 does per buck or even lower, towards a true 1:1 ratio. We even had one project, that just for research purposes, we pushed to 2 bucks per doe. We found these more balanced or even buck heavy populations did have a much shorter and more visibly intense rut.
However, I do believe there is a difference between what we experienced in our research projects, managing huge properties (many thousands of acres) back in the late 90s and early 2000s (when no one was shooting does) and managing more typically sized hunting properties (200-500 acres) today (when most hunters are shooting does). After much experimentation and the ability to actually track true sex ratios via camera censuses, I've reached the conclusion that on most typically sized properties, visible rutting activity peaks with a sex ratio of around 1.5 to 2.0 does per buck. Pushing the sex ratio down to 1 or 1.2 does per buck on smaller properties often produces a decline in visible rutting behavior (for hunters) because the rut becomes so brief.
