We own 3 farms in Eastern NC and raise corn, soybeans, peanuts, wheat and cotton...We have about 850 total acres and kill 45-50 deer a year, about 30-35 will be does...These farms all have good bedding areas, crop land, food plots and swamps around them...Some say you need a few thousand acres to "manage" your herd, I have seen different...

Last year there were about 180,000 reported deer killed in NC, we all know some were not registered so the figures are somewhat higher...Last year there were about 20,000 deer killed on the highway so certainly hunters took more than vehicles did...

Going back 25 years or so, I wouldn't take does...One evening I saw 50+ deer feeding in one of our soybean fields, only 4-5 had visible antlers and they were small...A deer will eat about 12 pounds of forage a day, we had areas where the beans were eaten down to the ground...I finally changed my mind on what I needed to do...It took about 5-6 years of really focusing on taking does to start to see a difference...Now, I take 1-2 bucks a year in a state where I can legally take 4 bucks a year...I now see as many as 12-15 does on a good evening, but I see many more bucks and larger bucks cruising for does...

I don't consider myself a "trophy" hunter but I do try to manage the deer herd that is on our property...I don't kill small racked bucks unless they are injured in some way or are large bodied deer with smaller racks...I also realize that many hunters can't really manage their herd simply because they don't own the land, hunt public land, have limited doe tags, short seasons, restrict themselves to bows only, don't eat venison, can't hunt but a few days a year, whatever...

That's what is nice about this hobby we enjoy, each of us has the opportunity to do what makes us happy, which is the way it should be...