About 3 – 6 per year.
Here in central VA most areas are buck hunted to death by people who will shoot past 6 does to take a spike on a day when a doe is legal. I know this kicks off arguments but my opinion is that's just stupid. There are so many deer in VA that in a lot of areas, VDGIF has introduced Coyotes to cut them down! I have a problem with that too but that's another subject.

I hunt 10 acres of my own land bordered by some great deer land and my little slice of haven is right in the middle. I try (Some would say futilely) to manage it my way. I watch the deer on the trail cams year round to judge the overall condition of the heard roaming through. It's a little different every year.

This year what I saw was a lot of Does. We had 20 plus different ones, several spikes, 4 pointers and a couple 6’s. We’re talking about a patch of land that is about 200 acres total with housing in about half of it. As summer wore on the condition of the animal’s worsened. Many were boney and still others had hair falling out! The land could not support them.

On my land we won’t take anything less than a 6 pt for bucks. Although just about every year someone shoots a button thinking it is a doe. (This year it was me…again) We have extremely liberal limits that include 3 bucks per person and as many does as you want. You get 4 on your tag and can buy as many bonus antlerless tags as you can afford.

This year, my first deer was a nice 8 during bow season that we had not seen on the trail cams. I set my bar to that minimum for rest of the season other than one really big 6 we had been watching casing does. He is about 200# and about 19” wide. Long story short, 3 of us hunt this property. We have each taken 2 deer and have a couple days left in the season. The count is 8pt, 6pt, doe, button, doe, doe.

Also, we prefer young does for obvious meat reasons , 100# or less. We normally pass on all does in the early seasons to keep big bucks interested and keep things as calm as possible until December and then the gloves come off to fill up the freezer. We share a lot with others who don’t hunt too! We try to use as much of the animals as possible and only usually leave the bibs for the foxes.

So does all that trying to manage work? I don’t know for sure but we have shot or seen big trophy bucks every year since we started doing it. I know that others are cashing in on some of this in surrounding woods but that’s ok. I also know that they are not helping by killing some of the spikes and 4 pointers that we let walk. Some would say if we don’t kill them someone else will. Maybe but all I know for sure is if I let him go, he lived that time. If I kill him he really has no chance. Most of those other guys will only kill one or two and their freezer is full and they are home watching football for the rest of the season.