scottsman

Hey guys I have 135 acres of bottoms and a few ridges,I keep this strictly for bow hunting. It stays either in corn or soybeans. I never gun hunt it and I,m usually the only hunter except a buddy once in awhile. My question is this, this year I saw no bucks on the place, tons of does. I never kill does because I'm the only one in the house that eats deer meat, so I don't need the meat. More than once I had 8 to 10 does under me for long periods of time. The area around me gets a lot of rifle pressure.
Are they killing my bucks or do I need to start thinnig my doe crop for management?
I've had this area for ten years and killed bucks on it before. I keep the trespassers off during gun season...what's up?

timbercruiser

You mean even during the rut you didn't see any bucks? How about scrapes and rubs or large walking tracks? You would think if there is heavy pressure on the contiguous lands the bucks would use your land as a safety area.

scottsman

Timber.. your right I left that out. Not much buck sign at all a few rubs, but that was it! I know it don't make since to me either!

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Tazman

scottsman I am with Brian on this one, cull out some of the doe, as Brian said it will pay dividends next year. If you wind up with more deer than you can eat, I bet they have something like what we have in Va. where your at, it's called Hunters For the Hungry where you can donate venison to the needy.

The Tazman

RICHIE3

Hey Scottsman, as a fellow mizzou hunter, it is my opinion that the unseasonably warm winter this year has something to do with it. I have video of my dad and I bowhunting together on the 6th of November of this past season. We are in long sleeve camo t-shirts and we are sweating! I forget how warm it was on that day, but on the video, I make a statement about the amount of bugs and the bats that are catching them at nightfall! We had the same problem here to, as did ALOT of the guys I know who hunt. Even though it never hurts to cull a few does out of the herd to help increase your buck to does ratio, I would be willing to bet the warm, no, HOT weather we had this past season had something to do with it!

porkypine

The area I hunt here in Michigan used to have a huge number of does. It was common to see 10+ does every time I hunted but I hardly ever saw any bucks. The DNR then issued a lot of doe permits and after about 5 years the total deer population was way down but now I see bucks almost as often as I see does. I don't see as many deer total but I see a lot more bucks. In my opinion I would thin some does out.

scottsman

Looks like I'm going to start a raffel, come help scottsman kill does next year...anybody interested? Thanks guys