Doe Management???

I bought a piece of land last year right around gun season. I did what I thought to be my “homework” on the property. I talked to the land owners around me and got some good info. This summer the land owner from the north of me came over to the house and was trying to convince me not to take any doe’s off of the land. He said that his group hasn’t take a doe in 3 years and he is trying to get more land owners on board with there plan. Last year while hunting one afternoon I saw between 20-30 deer all but two were doe’s unknow how many were the same deer, but the point is it wasn’t the same 5 deer that just kept walking by. I guess my question is what are you guy’s thought on taking doe’s off the land. I figured it’s going to be tougher get a buck to come in with scent or calling when they dont have to compete over doe’s.

I think this is a very tricky issue. The QDMA formula is one buck to doe if I recall correctly. We had the reverse problem last year of too many bucks to does on our property. Of course, we own a pin head of land by South Dakota terms. If we owned hundreds or thousands of acres, I would worry about this more. As is it, I focus on food, water and security for the deer. If I can offer them these 3 things, I feel my chances of shooting a trophy buck go up considerably.

If you want some pretty sound deer management info, join the QDMA. Lots of good info there. I would focus on your priorities for your land while maintaining a good relationship with the neighbors. Never know when you might need to get permission to retrieve a wounded critter.

I’m all for taking a doe early and late in the season. People watch these hunting shows and see all these big bucks coming to calls on a string, fighting and so on. They see such intense behavior due to having their heard in check. With a buck to doe ratio of 1-1 or 1-2 there is more competition for does making for a much more intense rut.

For a long time I had spots I considered my doe spots and my spots I considered buck spots. Worked ok to a point, with out does the bucks aren’t there kill to many and they leave as well, have to many and and the bucks will be there but there’s no competition for breeding and I find it harder to zero in on a buck when he had 100 girls to chase in comparison to a smaller group of does I have patterned.

Yes I thought it was 1-1 or 1-2 ratio also on QDM. Do you have any idea why/ what kind of management they are doing were you dont shoot any doe’s. I am all about trying to manage the bucks and shoot quality bucks. I however am also a meat hunter that enjoys shooting doe’s. I dont want to upset the other land owners by taking doe’s but it just doesnt make since to me why you wouldnt take any.

I too would like to understand their thought process on this. Maybe there simply wasn’t much for deer around there in the past??

A lot of the decision needs to be based on how many deer you have and how many the land can support. It does you no good to pass on does if your population is too high and they don’t have enough food and starve in the winter. 1st step would be to do a trail camera survey and find out how many deer you have. The try and figure out how much food you have. Are there ag fields in the area, are there food plots, do they have good browse? If you have a real obvious browse line you probably have too many deer and if you have winter kill from starvation you need to thin the population. The key is to find out what the population is and see what the carrying capacity of your land is and manage according to that.

On our farm we have roughly 13 acres of food plots and great browse, it’s 240 acres total. We are also surrounded by ag fields. I still think we have too many deer because we had winter die off this year.

The doe question is always a tricky one because it depends on what you’re trying to do. I’m not sure I buy into the 1:1 ratio for MN and WI as ever being a good idea because up here in the northern tier, we have 3 huge issues that the rest of the country almost never deals with or has to factor in:

1. Wolves. There are no wolf kills in IL or IN or other big producing states.

2. Winter kill. Again, realistically there is almost no winter loss south of MN.

3. Extreme hunting pressure. Compared to many other areas of the US, hunting pressure is very high in MN and WI.

The 1:1 ratio may be fine for deer-rich and warm winter areas, but if I was trying to build up a property, IMO everything is easier if you have a good population to begin with. From there you can manage numbers and cull down, but if you haven’t got the deer to begin with, you’ve got nothing to manage.

Grouse

I have had the trail cameras out now for a few weeks. I have been getting a lot of pictures. I am not saying I wanna take the population to 1-1 but right now I am somewhere between 1-7 to 1-10 based on the trail cam pics. There is a good amount of Ag land around and plenty of water. Thank you all for your input. So would you guys think its a good idea to take a few doe.

Personally, it’s your land and the only person who make that decision is you in my humble opinion. Try to be a good neighbor, but do what you want.

I would talk to the neighbor again and try to find out why exactly he doesn’t want does harvested. Is he worried about the population or is there another reason.

I would worry much less about buck to doe ratio and more about population density and health of the herd. If your deer numbers are larger than the carrying capacity the best way to fix that is by taking does.

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I have had the trail cameras out now for a few weeks. I have been getting a lot of pictures. I am not saying I wanna take the population to 1-1 but right now I am somewhere between 1-7 to 1-10 based on the trail cam pics. There is a good amount of Ag land around and plenty of water. Thank you all for your input. So would you guys think its a good idea to take a few doe.

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With that kind of ratio, I guess I’m wondering what others have mentioned: What’s your neighbor’s reasoning for NOT wanting to take does? Doesn’t he have any trail cams so he’s just guessing and believing the population must be low?

And if they aren’t shooting does, what ARE they shooting? It sounds like they’re taking out all the young bucks!

This neighbor might have some pretty bassawckward theories that he’s trying to sign everyone up to.

Grouse

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I’m all for taking a doe early and late in the season. People watch these hunting shows and see all these big bucks coming to calls on a string, fighting and so on. They see such intense behavior due to having their heard in check. With a buck to doe ratio of 1-1 or 1-2 there is more competition for does making for a much more intense rut.

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Yep,, we’ve all been there in college when there just aren’t that many “chicks” out that night. 9 times out of 10 there was a fight at the end of the night.

I first wanna say thanks for all the good advice and input from all of you. I have talk to the guy to the north and he knows there are a ton of deer around. His thought is if you shoot a doe you may be taking a future buck out by doing so. I personally think he has watched to many hunting shows with 180 inch deer on a 400 acre farm where they can control most everything that goes on. We owne 250 acres between us it’s not a private ranch where we can controll everything and its not buffalo Co. I am going to plan on shooting a few doe’s this year and see how it goes

One requirement! You take lots of pics and share your stories from the field. Best of luck this fall. These cool mornings are driving me nuts.

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One requirement! You take lots of pics and share your stories from the field. Best of luck this fall. These cool mornings are driving me nuts.

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