How to determine deer population?

[robbcayman]

I am about to purchase 400 acres (S.E. Oklahoma)in an area where I know there are deer, but how do I determine how many? The land is pretty wooded and the surrounding properties all said it was okay to hunt their land as well(thousands of acres).I know this may sound dumb, but is there a way to add deer to my herd? Also, I thought it would be fun to hunt wild hogs, is there a way to add them to the population?

Please don't bash me too hard I am new here. I have been hunting for over 10 years though. Thanks for any responses.

[bryant1]

You could use track surveys if you had a road or combo of roads that run the perimeterof the property. As for adding hogs to the property, please don't ruin your land like that! Come to florida and see the way groups of hogs tear up our woods. I can't stand them,and neither can the timber company thatleases the land to us.

[timbercruiser]

Lease a helicopter for a night and fly it with an infrared camera and you can get the best idea of deer population. I agree with bryant, don't ruin your land introducing hogs to the property. They ruin it and all the contiguous landowners as well.

[robbcayman]

How do hogs tear up the land i.e. in what sense? I don't have access to a helicopter w/ night vision (cool idea though). Maybe I will just try and look for signs i.e. rubs, tracks, beds etc..

[Wingbone]

If your State natural resource agency has a Game manager that covers your area, you might try contacting him. Those guys are paid to know what the local deer population looks like. Also, theseforumites are giving you good hog advice. Hunt them on someone elses' property.

[timbercruiser]

Dang hogs will eat ALL of the food in an area that the wildlife need to flourish. A lot of the plants they will root up and eat, plus they root up wallows ruining the fields and habitat. The only way anybody should release hogs on their land is if they double fence the perimeter. I doubt your neighbors would be in favor of it otherwise. A good friend of mine and his father had a nice 350 acre farm, peanuts and corn mainly. Wild hogs came into the area and forced them out of business. They planted pine trees in the fields and the hogs rooted them up. One year they shot and trapped close to 300 hogs and still had a major problem with them.

[robbcayman]

I didn't realize that hogs were that destructive, maybe I should stay away from them. Contacting the game ranger is a great idea never thought of that.

[bryant1]

A large population of wild hogs will compete with deer for food sources, root up and disturb any wet soil(including roads and food plots), multiply like crazy, and"itch" themselves with small pine trees(i know it sounds funny). This tears the bark off of the trees and allows disease to kill the trees. The timber company that own like 80 percent of the county I live in is split into 3 large clubs andat all club meeting they stress to us to kill as many as we can.

[wis_bow_huntr]

You can always do it the way the WisconsinDNR counts deer, they see 4 sets of tracks and multiply that by 16