zophy

I bowhunt on our private property and I let some small bucks go so they can grow, but I never shot any does. There's alot of does on our property and I wanted to know why you have to harvest a few does a year to have a healthy herd. I've heard on TV and read in magazines that land owners do this, but I've never got a logical reason why? If this helps, we have 8000 acres of hunting land with hogs and deer.

Rory/MO

It helps with the buck:doe if you shoot does.

Steven McBee

lettin does go means that the population increses each year. This leads to going over carrying capacity and your deer will not hvae the nutritionalvalues they need which means smaller bodies and smaller antlers[:'(]
killing does also leads to seeing more bucks because the less amount of does you have means bucks have to travel farther to find one, maybe moving right by your favorite stand

mzzldr

Hope this helps...I am no expert, just tidbits of what I've picked up from folks who know. I'm sure there is more complete info ina goodQDM book

Less does = more food for all deer, when only bucks gettaken out of the pop. every yeardoes can take over the food resource for your bucks assuming the population is near the limits the land can support. Regardless you can get bigger deer when there is more food for all, and you make room for more bucks on your property. Things might be good where you hunt, but they can be made better.

LikeRory/MO said, it is about the ratio.....when does greatly outnumber bucks the rut is often less intense because the bucks hardly need to compete for does. Researchers claim you want to try and approach 1:1 but that is hard to measure and achieve.

How many does you should kill is tricky, some places don't need to. Need to try and gauge what your property has. Can use trail cameras as a rough census tool, but it takes a lot of work and at least several cameras depending on the acreagefrom what I understand. Basically, it is hard to work on a sex ratio when you don't know what it already is.

frose

We have a 5000 acer hunting club and we have 55 members.We have been trying to get all the members to let small buckes go.But some people just will not do it. Even when they can see it is making a diffrence.We are stating to get bigger deer.My camp has been leating tham for the last 6 years.

kevin1

Unless you're huntingyour ownhigh fenced preserve there is no such thing as "deer management" since you can't control all the variables. Just hunt.