kansaswiderack

Why is it considered good quality deer management to harvest does to achieve a 1:1 doe buck ratio? It would seem to me as long as you do allow bucks to reach their potential, that is good management. All you are doing by taking does is limiting the total number of deer. Especially in areas with relatively mild winters and abundant forage the overall herd size is not an issue other than as a possible nuisance which is a totally different issue than quality deer management.

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kansaswiderack

That was a lot more than I expected and I am gratefull for your time. I have 3 areas that I deer hunt on and they are vastly different. The first is a 150 acres in farm country. The area is heavily hunted and what I mostly see during bow season are does, fawns and yearly to 2 year old bucks. I do have trouble with tresspassers or drive by shooters. I usually find the remains of a deer or 2 after each season. It is also an area with heavy cover where the deer tend to yard up during severe weather conditions. The second area that I bow hunt is approximately 2000 acres of pasture with a nice creek and wooded hill sides. The owner allows 2 of us to bow hunt and 2 others to rifle hunt. From my observations during the early bow season there are considerably more does than bucks, with observations of bucks picking up considerably during the rut in November. We have always taken an adult doe each and been fairly selective on any bucks we take. Many years we have not shot any bucks. Surrounding areas are similar to this area except the landowner on the area we hunt likes to clear trees and brush while the surrounding ranches have been left alone and appear to me to have better habitat at this time. The third area I hunt is basically my rifle hunting area. It is 400 acres adjacent to a large track of public hunting area. The property is basically pasture with timbered draws. We see very few bucks and we generally take one or two does a year off of it. I have owned this property for 15 years and the total number of bucks taken has been approximately 5. We do have a food plot which has been milo but this year we changed to winter wheat. There are alot of oak trees which on a good year provide acorns. The pasture is not good and has quite a bit of brush and weeds. We have a lot of sericea lespedeza which we have tried to no avail to control. Locally they feel we should do everything we can to control or eliminate it. I am under the impression that sericea is generally a good wildlife habitat, any comments. Let me know what you think about these three circumstances. I look forward to your imput.

osiris

alloutdoors, nice job explaining! I doubt it could have been said better by anyone, even Al Brothers himself. Where are you from in NY?

kansaswiderack

Alloutdoors: Just one more question on what you consider QDM. Are you attempting to harvest mature deer only in both bucks and does? If so how do you age either one on the hoof other than general size?

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greg-dude

alloutdoors

I don't want you to get bigheaded or anything, but that was one of the best responses I ever seen on a website reguarding QDM. If you don't mind, I am going to copy some of your responses and use them myself from time to time. I'll give you credit.

Cman

alloutdoors,

Niiice!! Just what we need, an intelligent and well written response from an informed member of this forum to a legitimate query posted by an interested hunter. Wish all the posts went this way. Kudos to you...an interesting post. I'm happy to hear that such a study is well underway in a neighboring state.

If you hunt, pppleaaase don't tell us what type of equipment you use...