Hide the women and children, brace yourselves and open your minds, because The Undisputed King of Archery is about to take you down a road that you haven't been down since . . . well . . . June.
Awesome Picture
I just wanted to revisit this discussion on the heels of the hunting season - just to get another take on the topic.
Stage 1: Identifying a target.
Disclaimer: I totally just made up the numbershere, but they soundclose enoughto being reasonable - so I ran with it. You can edit/change everything to fit your own situation.
Identify and Outlineyour age structure. (we'll keep it simple for the purposes of this demonstration).
[ul][*]You start off witha 1.5 year old buck.[*]For every 3 1.5 year olds, there's a 2.5 year old buck.[*]For every 3 2.5's, there's a 3.5.[*]For every 3 3.5's, there's a 4.5.[*]For every 3 4.5's, there's a 5.5.[*]And so on...[/ul]
So, by that math:
[ul][*]For every 2.5, there's 3 1.5's.[*]For every 3.5, there's 3 2.5's and9 1.5's.[*]For every 4.5, there's 3 3.5's, 9 2.5's, and 27 1.5's.[*]
For every 5.5, there's 3 4.5's, 9 3.5's, 27 2.5's and 81 1.5's. (TRANSLATION:ONE 5.5 year old buck per 121 bucks) [*]
If you have a 2:1 buck-to-doe ratio, that's ONE 5.5 year old buck in every 363 deer. [/ul]
The Population Pyramid unlocks the secrets of the Schwartz.
The Moral Of The Story:If your deer density is 20 deer per square mile, that means that there's one 5.5 year old buck per every 18 square miles of territory.
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STAGE 2: Getting the deer in range.
Let's just say, for the sake of argument that my township isabout 35square miles (that's about average). By my math above - there should be approximately
two 5.5 year old bucks in my township. 35 square miles is 22,400 acres of land mass. Do you have any idea how hard it is to see, locate, and dial-in on that particular deer? It's a magnanimous commitment of time and effort, topped off by some VERY long odds.
Mathematically, if your range is 30 yards...
KILL ZONE= 3.14 x 90 ft (squared)
KILL ZONE= 25,434 square feet
So, if you're hunting a 22,400 acre area....
1 Acre = 43,560 square feet
So, if an average Township is 22,400 acres....
43,560 x 22,400 ACRES = 975,744,000 SQUARE FEET
That means that, at any given time, your odds of having either ofthetwo 5.5 year oldbucks in the township WITHIN 30 yards is:
25,434 / 975,744,000 = .000026(x2)
Your odds of having either ofthetwo 5.5 year oldbucks in the township WITHIN 30 yards is: .005% (that sucks)
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Stage 3: Go for the Gusto.
Now, let's pretend that you'rehunting the biggest buck in the COUNTY. If an average county is 1000 square miles, and there are 27,878,000 square feet in a square mile...
Your chances of having the biggest buck in the county within range at any given momentare:
25,434 / 27,878,000,000 = .0000000912.
That's .00000912%. Pretty good odds, eh?
Step 4. Assessing Your Odds.
In 3 years,my logs show that I've seen97bucks from the stand (with about a 2:1 Doe-to-Buck ratio. Of those bucks,77 1.5's, 17 2.5's, and 3 3.5's (by my best guess).
So, MYage brackets - accordingto my logs are:
[ul][*]4.5 yearling bucks per 2.5[*]5.7 2.5's per 3.5[*](extrapolating) 5.7 3.5's per 4.5[*](extrapolating again) 5.7 4.5's per 5.5.[/ul]
So, in MY area (based upon3 years ofrecords)-
[ul][*]For every 2.5, there's 4.5 yearlings.[*]For every 3.5, there's 5.7 2.5's and 25.65 yearling bucks.[*]For every 4.5, there's 5.7 3.5's, 32 2.5's, and 115 yearlings.[*]
For every 5.5, there's 5.7 4.5's, 32 3.5's, 182 2.5's, and 517 yearlings.[/ul]
So, while you WANT your population pyramid to look like this:
Good
Mine looks like this:
crappy
Which sucks.
So, what the hell does all this mean?
If my numerical interpretations are right: That means that I'll have one 5.5 year old buck for every 737 Antlered Deer. If I have a 2:1 B-D ratio, that's 1 5.5 year-old buck in every 2211 whitetail deer.
1 5.5 year old buck per 2211 deer.
If you presume 20 DPSM, that's 1 5.5 buck in every 110 square miles. If your average township/boro is 35 square miles - that means there's ONE 5.5 per every 3 townships. Ballpark.
So what's realistic for YOU?
If I see a deer, here are my percentages:
[ul][*].05% that it will be a 5.5 year old buck[*].26% that it will be a 4.5 year old buck[*]1.4% that it will be a 3.5 year old buck[*]8.2% that it will be a 2.5 year old buck[*]23.4% that it will be a yearling buck[*]67% that it will be a doe. [/ul]
On average, I see about 100 deer per year from the stand in archery season.So what? Well, this istelling me that I willlikely see 1.71 3.5 year old+ deer per year. No guarantee that they're in-range. Just a visual. That's one chance, maybe two, on a deer that's most-likely going to be 3.5 years old.
These averages are spot-on, as they relate to my real-world results.
Hunt by numbers - revisited...
