TraumaSlave
Well-Known Member
When hunting your local deer, do you hold off on does waiting for rut?
This is interesting. I have not heard this before. I would Love to see some studies on this. We typically shoot ours the last weekend of the season in one of our huge ag fields. Side note: that is the only time we ever hunt that field other than the velvet hunt.Due to a drastic reduction in local deer population going back to the big EHD outbreak of 2007, we've been killing few does. However, our local population is definitely on the rebound. As we start taking them again, we will make no special provisions about waiting on killing them. Kill them early, kill them late, doesn't matter. Hunter's choice. But I will recommend to hunters they not shoot them out of food plots. Nothing shuts down daylight use of food plots faster than killing does out of them.
Very common, especially in "club" situations. Hunters hunt from shooting houses over food plots and as soon they start popping does in the plots, hunter-collected deer observation rates in those plots crash. Of real interest is the clubs who have implemented a "buck only" plot system. In this, some plots are designated as "buck only" kill plots. These plots will see continued high daylight usage by deer while doe kill plots will not. How and why deer can understand does are being killed from a plot is a mystery. But this process is well documented in the club management world.This is interesting. I have not heard this before. I would Love to see some studies on this. We typically shoot ours the last weekend of the season in one of our huge ag fields. Side note: that is the only time we ever hunt that field other than the velvet hunt.
Some killing of does prior to the rut can aid in intensifying the visible rut, if the local adult sex ratio is highly skewed towards females. However, excessive killing of does prior to the rut can drive does nocturnal, driving following buck activity nocturnal as well.I've heard it from both sides. One camp says you should take does early season so bucks have to compete harder, which means more buck activity. The other camp says save the does until after rut because they attract rutting bucks. Both seem logical to me, albeit contradictory. So who knows?
Interesting, on my small parcel, 7.2 acres, I drop does right on my food plot and the next time I hunt (1 -2 weeks), they continue going through there, sometimes right at the exact same spot. I have nothing to compare it with since I have always taken a deer where I see them, but it makes me wonder if it has possibly made other deer avoid my area.Very common, especially in "club" situations. Hunters hunt from shooting houses over food plots and as soon they start popping does in the plots, hunter-collected deer observation rates in those plots crash. Of real interest is the clubs who have implemented a "buck only" plot system. In this, some plots are designated as "buck only" kill plots. These plots will see continued high daylight usage by deer while doe kill plots will not. How and why deer can understand does are being killed from a plot is a mystery. But this process is well documented in the club management world.
Umm, yes! In my area, November is it!Note: my solution to that dilemma is 3 vacation days for each week one, week two and week three...plus add in the Thanksgiving holiday....hunt hard ,hunt often....man I love November.
Umm, yes! In my area, November is it!
Below is a graph of average number of older bucks photographed in daylight over the last 8 years on my place, separated by the acorn crop that year (good versus poor). As I've said many times about my place, we actually have fewer deer during a poor acorn year, but those fewer deer are more active during daylight because they have to move farther and more often to find food. Notice those big peaks of daylight activity in November for a poor acorn year. And for my area, it's going to be a very poor acorn year this year. The vast majority of my hunting time will be spent hunting November.