hey dan, i agree, great talk, but still hasn' t got your problem solved. seems like you should have had something with bone on it' s head come by last year. what do your neighbors see, any bucks around on their land? it sounds like you should be hunting a dream area, low pressure, good feed, etc. have you wondered around, after the season is done, in the woods, to try to locate them, or are your seasons late enough, like ours, that the start to yard up before the seasons are even done? wv, i was only quoting what i have available from state biologists, including your own. as far as traveling south to see what you have, well, i used to live in lynchburg, work in south boston, which took me from martinsville, to richmond, to fredericksburg, to roanake, hot springs on the wv border, traveled back and forth, north and south to visit back in vermont, and basically hit a lot of the state through work and hunting( danville area). so, i think i have a pretty good idea of what the virginia herd is like. oh, also did night spotting there, when it was legal( is it still?). never saw the ratio that you claim to see, but then again, i did miss one or two towns along the way, lol. also, just went to the virginia home page, and i couldn' t see what the limits were, but the last i knew, 5?years ago, i think combined the limits were something like only seven, total, unless you got crop damage permits. somewhere, somebody is miscounting deer(misidentifing) the sex of the deer IF you have the situation you described, but, like you, i am not a biologist either, just a concrete worker, so what do i know?