I hunt in the same area every year where my father owns some land and we know the local landowners. We hunt as a group an in the last 6 years we have all shifted to holding out for big bucks. We haven't shot that many, actually I am the only one that seems to shoot them.

However I have noticed the buck population diminishing for mature bucks. Where I hunt in Alberta there is an abundance of does. Am I making a mistake by not harvesting more does to encourange the buck population to flourish?

I would say yes, but some people might disagree. On one of the places we hunted we always made sure to shoot at least one doe before we shot a buck and as a result we always seemed to see a substantial amount of bucks. I ain't a biologist so I don't know if there is a correlation or not. But if you have more does than bucks, try and shoot does to even out the ratio of bucks to does, just IMHO.

My personal view is for every buck you shoot a doe should be taken. That way you'd keep the ration 50:50

People seem to not understand carrying capacity...

If your land can carry 100 deer, and 75 are does, then you have 25bucks, ie you could have 50 bucks and 50 does....that's twice as many bucks!

save the does ..they give birth ....1 buck can serve many does and doesn't hang around long he is always running after a fresh doe in heat ..were i hunt we r only allowed 1 deer per year [.we were only allowed to shoot bucks before].we had a big deer population and so they had a draw for doe tags 6 thousand doe tags were given for 5 years in a row ...RESULT almost no more deer left this fall ..only 45% of the hunters tagged out ... SO MUCH FOR SHOOTING DOES ..there must be a better way

A healthy herd will always consist of responsible Doe hunts. Also, the tighter the sex ratio, the more rut activity you'll be likely to see and it will assure more competition or breeding rights, thus only the most dominant mature animals will get the chance to fight their ways to breed the remaining Does. We have a pretty good control on the Doe population on and near our property and we will continue to shoot 4 or 5 Does for evey buck taken in the area. It would seem that in many areas, they need a harvest a lot heavier than that.

I say if you see way more does than small or big bucks I would fill the freezer.

Most places, you could shoot 5 does for every buck shot. Last year on my property there were 1 buck, 1 button buck shot by mistake, and 8 does. You would probably need to shoot 3 does for every buck just to keep the balance even.

i would say more does!

I have grown to believe that the number of does you take should be based on the number of fawns you see come deer season. If you are seeing a lot of fawns or 6 mths. deer then shoot some does. If you aren't seeing any fawns then how are they going to be replaced without the does. Coyote and predator festation is not good in some areas of the country.

The OP is from Alberta, and I dont think there are buck:doe ratio or carrying capacity issues there. Mother nature seems to be able to keep the herd size well within the carrying capacity, often with winterkills.

All deer are territorial, especially bucks during the rut. As a rule they will be pushed off the property when they reach breeding age both by older bucks and mom. I would talk to the state/province biologist and get a professional opinion.