Sylvan

As the hunting season progresses it could rise to 12:1 but at the beggining of the season the total doe to buck ratio will be less than 2 to 1 and the ratio of sexually mature doe to sexually mature bucks will be less than 3 to 1. Most of the rut occurs before gun season when the doe:buck ratio is near its lowest point in the yearly cycle and the rut is the time of year where the ratios are of significant importance. Most definately the ratio is not 12:1 during the time of year when it matters.

Fieldmouse

I only ask because you liken it to only simple speeding or jaywalking. Both are misdemeanors. The discharging of a firearm with in your residential area maybe a little more serious. I personally don't care. If I was your neighbor, we would have a much bigger range set up between both yards.

tocs

Hi Sylvan,
You were responding to my comments not Bowdacious.You have a right to your opinion of course.I prefaced my comment by saying my area of the state of New York.I am a bowhunter as well as a rifle hunter as well as a muzzleloader hunter,the point of that being that I am in the woods from October 15th through the close of the late muzzleloader season every year.I witness all stages of our deer herds breeding periods.I have no way of attempting to guess how many of our herds does are in estrus at a particular time relative to our buck population,in a well balanced herd that would perhaps be a ratio that could attempt to be calculated.
While what you are saying might be accurate in your area it is not in mine.

Sylvan

Hello tocs,
Sorry for miss identifying you. Anyway, I live in New York as well and I was aware that you were referring to NY. The numbers I quoted are accurate even for your area. If you accept that the average adult doe gives birth to 1 buck and 1 doe in the spring time, and non hunting mortality is roughly equal between doe and buck then it is mathmatically not possible to have doe:buck ratios of 12:1 at the beginning of hunting season. My last post in the thread Would you support a doe only season... gives a better explination of what I am talking about. Take a look. The numbers are not my opinion they are generated from computer models.

http://forum.hunting.net/asppg/tm.asp?m=991962&mpage=6

Just for fun lets say in your immediate hunting area there were 20 doe (10 adults and 10 youngins). All the buck even the button buck were shot off last season. That makes the doe:buck ratio 20:0 or infinite to 1. Assuming 1 buck and 1 doe offspring per adult doe recruits 10 more doe and 10 buck into your area. Thats a doe:buck ratio of 30:10 or 3:1. Now seeing we're just playing around lets say that you only shoot antlered deer but lets also say the adult females get impregnated by some roving bucks in your area for a good time. By next hunting season you will have a population of 50 doe (30 adults & 20 youngins) and 20 buck(10 antlered and 10 buttons) Thats a doe:buck ratio of 2.5:1 at the beginning of hunting season. If all the antlered deer are killed in hunting season and no doe the doe:buck ratio rises to 50:10 or 5:1 by the end of the seson. By spring however it is back to under 3 to 1. This gets to be a pain and thats where the computer comes in but I think you are starting to get the idea. Even if you shoot all the antlered buck and let all the doe go you don't get over 3:1 doe to buck ratio. The computer models take a lot of other factors into account as well but no matter how you run them at the beggining of hunting season a 12:1 doe:buck ratio just isn't possible. In fact 3 to 1 would be unrealistically high.

atlasman

It's a fine as far as I know............the sad part is it includes such items as BB guns and paintball guns.......some old ladies have nothing better to do then complain. Oh well, the cops take intent into consideration when enforcing that law (except in the case of handguns, rifles or shotguns).......they don't go around looking to hassle someone for no reason. There are archery bag targets hanging from many trees in my area, and my range is far from hidden. I have markers out to 50 yards and a couple 3D targets up.......and a ladder stand in one of the trees in my yard. I am very careful and safety is always my #1 concern. My neighbors couldn't care less.......we all get along great.



That would be SWEET........while my neighbor is probably the nicest guy on the planet he is definately no fan of hunting. He was VERY nervous when I moved in and made sure I knew I couldn't hunt the local wildlife.......I assured him I had no intentions of killing anything in our backyards and that I enjoyed watching wildlife as much or more then he does.......but make no mistake about it that I was a hunter and not about to pretend I wasn't. We agreed to respect each others views and have become good friends. I know it bothers him when I pull in with a tagged deer in my truck but he never says a word.........I give him the respect of keeping my garage door closed while butchering because I'm sure he doesn't want to look at that either. We talk about the wildlife in our yards quite often. We have seen some pretty neat stuff over the last few years..........a BIG buck with a genetic problem of some kind that he never grew antlers, just bigger and bigger buttons. Last time I filmed him he looked like he had small heads of cauliflower on his head.......we had a piebald last year and we watched the turkeys raise 5 chicks from fuzzy little balls into full grown birds this year. I feel very fortunate to be able to view these things on a daily basis.

My wife and I will be building a log home in 2010 and moving to a MUCH more rural area but I doubt I will ever have as much wildlife as I have right here right now.

So if we are still batting around this forum in 2010.......THEN I will be able to step out on my deck and whack a deer if I want to

buckeye

Sylvan

Since when were "buck to doe ratios" calculated with buttons as bucks? I believe the formula for the ratio is antlerless deer to antlered bucks. Maybe I am wrong here?

Really there is no point in telling tocs what his local herd is. If the man says he has 12 antlerless deer to one antlered buck in his area then so be it.

I have no trouble believing that is the case in his area or many other areas for that matter.

tocs

Thank you Sylvan,
I appreciate your example and am willing to accept that my estimation of our herds ratio is inaccurate even when factoring out the yearling bucks whose sex isn't identifiable in the first hunting season of their lives.It is tough to debate the biological and mathmatical reality.
Where I am challenged locally is in my actual observation,with either the viewing of deer in fields in late summer and early fall or in the hunting seasons when I am in mountains and woods on average of 20 days ayear.I witness plenty of undisturbed deer each year and never see ratio's that support the mathmatical realities of how it should be.
I am going to start keeping a log of my observations noting the number of does,bucks and yearlings I see.Trying to figure out the many variables that influence these things I find difficult,the disproportionate harvest of 11/2 year old bucks,a bear and coyote population that is significantly higher than it has ever been,an over browsed forest where there is very little undergrowth and security cover,the sub development sprawl that has so much of the deer population low in unhuntable area's.All of these things contribute to a more difficult deer hunting experience.
I have been very fortunate to have hunted whitetails in another state for many years and because these deer have cover and the hunting pressure is so much lower and you only get one tag and it is an either sex tag their ratio's are seemingly much more closely balanced.The competition for breeding is so much more fierce because of the percentage of older class bucks that are in the herd.The scraping activity and aggressive rubbing activity is pronounced and ratttling and grunting are very effective.
I have years where scouting and hunting locally where I cover many miles of ground on various mountains and hunting lands and see next to no scraping activity.My opinion as to why that is is that there is very little competition for breeding,that whatever our ratio's are they are not close enough to illicit natural breeding behavior.

Sylvan

buckeyebuckhntr, I guess you didn't see my post...

---------------------------------------------------------------------
[This has been posted before but I thought it might be appropriate for this discussion]

With regard to doe:buck ratios.....

The term doe to buck ratio is thrown around a lot but it’s a number that needs to be qualified in order to be understood. There are actually 3 distinctly different doe:buck ratios that are of significance. They are total, mature and perceived. Total is the ratio of all females to males, mature is all sexually mature females to sexually mature males and perceived which is what most hunters generally mean when they use the term. The perceived ratio is not a doe:buck ratio at all but rather the ratio of antlered to non-antlered deer. These 3 ratios are quite different and are most meaningful only in their proper context. For example if your talking about breeding, the mature ratio is of more significance than perceived and inversely if you are talking about hunter satisfaction, the perceived is more meaningful.

Another EXTREMELY important qualification in regard to understanding the doe:buck ratio term is WHEN in the yearly cycle it is being applied. A 4:1 ratio just before hunting season opens can easily become 15 or 20 to 1 by the end of the season so it can be quite misleading to use a mid or late season perceived ratio as THE doe to buck ratio. Especially during hunting season and especially in heavily hunted areas the doe:buck ratios can change a lot and they can change fast.

You will often hear hunters talk about the doe:buck ratio being 9 or 10 to 1 in there area but to put in perspective how misleading this statement can be, consider this. If in a population of whitetail deer we make the following assumptions. These assumptions will tend to make the doe:buck ratio as high as possible:

- NO females die until they are 5 ½ years old
- ALL 1 ½ year old males are killed during hunting season
- All mature females give birth to 1 buck and 1 doe fawn that survive to 1 1/2 and 5 1/2 respectively

then the following is a mathematical certainty for the beginning of hunting season:

- Total doe:buck = 1.61
- Total mature doe:buck = 2.57
- Total perceived doe:buck = 5.71

Because this scenario will tend to make these ratios as high as possible we can say that in any realistic scenario, the total doe:buck ratio can not exceed 1.61 at the beginning of the season.

Please think about all this when you use the term doe:buck ratio.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
You see, even the perceived ratio can't exceed 6 to 1 at the beginning of the season.

Assuming 1 doe and 1 buck birth on average for adult doe, the only way it is possible to get to 12:1 perceieved ratio at the beginning of hunting season is if there is a much higher mortality rate for male fawns than female. Like I said in the example for tocs "If you accept that the average adult doe gives birth to 1 buck and 1 doe in the spring time, and non hunting mortality is roughly equal between doe and buck then it is mathmatically not possible to have doe:buck ratios of 12:1 at the beginning of hunting season." This isn't my opinion it is mathmatical certainty.

Sylvan

tocs,
I believe what you are saying is an accurate observation. I have posted before relating to this topic that I believe it is very difficult for an individual to accurately determine what any of the 3 doe/buck ratios are. There are so many things that can cause the "what you see is not what you get" problem. The numbers are cyclic and seasonal behavioural diffences between buck and doe also complicate the issue. Generally antlered and non antlered deer do not congregate for a good share of the year. Doe are particularly reclusive during parturition. Part of the year buck tend to congregate and other times they are more loner in their habits. It's not uncommon in the late summer to see only antlered or only non-antlered deer in a field. The point I'm trying to make is that it is really tough through the observation of a single person to get a good handle on the numbers. I believe only the DEC has the resources to do it. They have access to much more data than we do. Deer/car mortality, winter survival rates, birth rates, hunting reports etc. Even the most avid hunters spend a small fraction of time in the woods realtive to the time the deer spend there.

Anyway, I'm not trying to argue about the numbers. I was just trying to point out the mathmatical realites and that it is very difficult for us as individuals to get a good handle on it all. I think we are all guilty of throwing numbers around that we don't really have a good feel for.

BTW, welcome to the forum! Looks to me from just 4 posts you will be adding to the value of our discussions here. A warning though, some of us (myself included) can be pretty obnoxious at times. I think all in all though its a pretty good bunch that loves the sport and loves to talk about it. Have fun and don't take it too serious.

tocs

Sylvan and Buckeyebuckhntr,
Thank you for your reply's.Like all people that are passionate about their interest's I have my beliefs about how certain things are.Having said that though I am always receptive to input from others if it is considerate.I appreciate Sylvans comments and they have me thinking!While my observations don't support them,there is a great degree of logic that ring's true.I have seen and killed many more bucks in the archery season,with many of them being older bucks than I have in the rifle season.The majority of my rifle hunting is done in another state(10 days).When I return home It is not uncommon to hunt your butt off to see a buck of any age class much less a mature one.
I appreciate the Welcome and I look forward to participating in other conversations.