RE: Proper buck to doe ratio?
I hunt in central Wisconsin just north (thank god) of the cwd-herd reduction
zone. I agree with what the dnr is doing with that but, I think that their overdoing it a bit. What they should be doing is getting rid of game farms but thats a whole
different subject.
Our situation sounds the same as yours. I can see ten does in a night before finally
seing one antlered buck and most nights I see only does! I along with my hunting
partners absolutely refuse to shoot anything under 110 inches. Problem is that the neighbors don' t do it that way. What do you do? Shooting does is part of the management process and each of us try to take at least one each year. The thing
of it is this year the dnr didn' t issue any antlerless tags for our area, so we can' t even try to shoot more does to bring the ratio into check. Our area is 230 total acres and we have three guys hunting it and we are spread way out. On average
almost every night we see between 7 and 13 does and " bald" deer. To me this means the ratio is way wacked out! If we see one buck every other night we hunt
thats it. I' ve heard that 2 does to every 1 buck is what you want. I think the Wisconsin DNR needs to get rid of its board members and get a panel of people
on it who are interested in Wisconsins deer herd and not interested in flexing their own muscles every time something comes up. The deer herd in most (not all)
parts of the state is screwed up bad and the DNR is to blame. I think they need to
include the input of Wisconsin sportsman and from people who actually spend time
in the woods more than what they do now.