Harvesting Long Horn Spikes/Does for Management
Hey Guys,
I'm new here, and would like your opinion on something I've been thinking about lately. Hope you're ready to read
We lease 500 acres to a small group of hunters. I also hunt the property. We've been implementing a management program where we only kill mountable or what they consider "cull" bucks the past 3-4 years. The deer population has grown quite a bit from a few years back. When we first started, we'd be lucky to see a deer on any given hunt. Now it's common to see 3-7 deer per hunt.
Like I said, we have only been killing "cull" and mountable bucks the past few years. Probably average 5-9 deer per year taken from the property that I'm aware of.
Last year was the best year as far as consistent deer sightings go. And this year, even though it's still early, seems like it's going to be even better, because we're already seeing numerous deer everytime we hit the stand, and the temp has been hovering at 70 degrees. They normally don't start really moving well until mid December.
Our hunters have the property surrounded with cameras, and one estimated (by camera) we have around 50 does, and around 12 bucks. I have no way to verify, as I just put my cameras out last week at 2 different stands, and have not and probably will not sift through their pictures. Though I can verify 15 deer at those 2 stands that I put out cameras. 12 does, a long horn spike, a yearling 6 pt, and a nubby buck.
The guys still do not want to kill any does, but I'm at the point where I believe we should take at least a few out to keep the buck to doe ratio pretty close. It's pretty cool to watch bucks chasing does, last year was the first time I'd ever seen it live - literally watch him run her into the bushes, do the bangity bang, and part ways.
Anyway, I was reading this article last night:
http://www.huntingnet.com/forum/whit...-him-grow.html
Spike History on Property: Last year I hunted just 1 stand all year. On this stand, I could verify 8 different yearling spikes roaming the area, all of which must have been born late, because they were really small deer.
According to user PIKE in the link above, bucks travel/have home range of 20-30 miles? I thought it was more along the lines of 8-10 miles, but either way, these spike bucks will eventually leave if they haven't already.
The issue: Our hunters believe that if they put out enough feed, the bucks will stay on the property, so they still don't want to kill anything except mountable deer or what they consider culls.
My way of thinking, if these spikes are going to leave and go to another property anyway, why not just take them out? Especially since even though a study by Texas A&M documents that while a spike will eventually grow respectable horns, they are more likely to have an inferior rack even in their prime.
So there are 2 reasons IMO to take them out:
1) If they breed our does, we'll continue to produce spikes and inferior racks even at 3-5 yrs, assuming they stick around.
2) Even if they breed, they're more than likely going to leave the property anyway.
To my way of thinking, if these 8 spikes stayed around our property despite studies stating otherwise, we should have at minimum 8 small rack 2 1/2- 3 1/2 yr old bucks roaming.
Any thoughts on this?
DOE Harvest:
If their estimations are correct, we have 50 does & around 12 bucks. Only one of which is a shooter. I'm also trusting that they are telling the truth, which could be questionable (I was raised to shoot anything that moves, so they have reason to want to hold back info that I do not have myself).
Based on those figures, if correct, the doe to buck ratio would be right at 4.3 does to 1 buck. (note: yearling does are included in the 50 count, because I'm not sure how many we have).
Growing up, the property we hunted had TONS of does, I mean we'd see 15-20 at every hunt (morning & evening). I got to where I wouldn't shoot does, but would not discriminate on horns. If it had bone sticking out its head, it was gonna at least get lead slung at it. I can't remember that well (it's been 20+ years), but I recall shooter buck sightings not being that often (shooter buck as defined by our strategy today - mountable only), and I never saw a buck giving chase to a doe like I did this past year.
So the main reason I'd like to take a few does is to try to get the ratio to around 3:1 or 2:1.
I believe we're at a fork in the road as far as getting over run by does. A few more years of not taking does, I fear it will turn into our old woods, seeing tons of does and rarely seeing shooter bucks because of the abundant opportunity to mate in hiding. I mean, with 50 does & 12 or so bucks, the bucks wouldn't have to work too hard or have to give open chase to mate.
Any thoughts or opinions?
Thanks!