I was talking w/ my buddy buckeyebuckhntr earlier this evening, and posed this question. I'm not exaggerating, either, this is the truth.

I know my buck/doe ratio is out of whack, but it's not this darn bad. I HAVE to be doing something right, scent control and such, but why do you suppose I see...........again, this is literal....

30 does to 1 buck??? Is it the spots I choose to sit? Is it bad wind, scent control? Or are they simply not there??

Any thoughts?

If you are seeing that many does than you need to start intensely harvesting does. Personally if I was hunting an area with that many does I would basically forget about shooting a buck(unless it was a monster) and start harvesting as many does as I could. Just make sure not to shoot the nubbins

Whack em and stack em thats what I'm doin you can keep buying doe tags for the city limit hunt,until there gone and there is 41 left and I have a terrible buck to doe ratio also.

I agree that does need to be shot, but this is a problem more than that. It doesn't matter what property I'm on, or in what county. This is just a widespread thing I have, a pattern, if you will. I am pretty convinced there's a piece of the puzzle I'm leaving out, I'm just not sure what it is.....

In heavily popularted doe areas, alot of guys like to hunt field edges, and open oak flats. I always go in the thicket or the edge. I usually see twice the bucks as my hunting friends.

Same here.I will usually see more bucks than doe and we have just now started to get the buck to doe ratio straightened out.

Hunt the buck signs,not the doe trails.

Get in thethicketswhere they hide.

What do you concentrate on when hanging stands?

Do you look for doe concentrations (the whole "hunt the does and the bucks will follow" theory) or do you target sites that you believe will lead mainlyto buck encounters?

Don, I think most places around here, that is the way the herd is made up. Unless someone has been doing some serious doe thinning.

It used to be that way where I hunt in IL too. Then 5 or so years ago a bunch of us in the neighborhood decide to shoot every doe that offered a shot. And only shoot mature bucks.We now are starting to see the results. There are a good number of shooter bucks running around there. And some real hogs get killed in the area every year now. And it seems the rut activity has picked up recently also. More bucks are seen chasing does and moving in daylight.

But it takes an effort from a group of guys. It would be hard for just one to make much of an impact. But it might be a good start.

Your problem may not be as bad as you think. Maybe you just aren't seeing the bucks at this time of year.

3 years ago I thought we were starting to have the same problem up here, and it didn't make sense. For about 2 weeks in early/mid October I hunted nearly all day every day. Many of those days I would see 15 does to every buck. I thought, how can this be when I KNOW the buck to doe ratio is nearly 1:2.....It was all in the time of year. Once the end of October rolled around I was seeing 10-15 deer a day and about 40% of them were bucks.

Just my situation and observations.

Though I know my herd is ou of whack.....and I'm working on that.....I also know that what Dan (Canada Dan) describes is what occurs here, too. I didn't see bucks last year until just when Dan describes....then I saw about the same ratio he does.