Dirt2

Good points, North Texan. Spotlight counts might have some validity IF you've got a food source that draws the bulk of the deer nightly, and IF you've got roads that allow you to get beside those food sources. Neither IF applies to my neck o' the woods.

Certainly, deer do not use an area randomly, and to be purely scientific, one should randomly sample his/her entire property. Sadly, that ain't possible on "my" piece of land, which is about 100,000 acres of Forest Service land. A truly random search pattern would result in finding about 0.3 antlers per year! So I'm actually keying in on certain important terrain features where deer activity is higher. (At that, I've found 8 fresh sheds this spring, so I've got a couple more years of searching to go.)

I think my little method would be really ideal for a 40 to 160 acre tract of bedding cover.

North Texan

If you have a food source that draws them specifically to that area in bulk, you really can't use it because it distorts the true numbers of deer on the property.

The spotlight survey does have its flaws, but it works pretty good around here. Although, the helicopter survey worked a little better and was probably a little more accurate.

Liv4Rut

interesting concept you have there Dirt2, I've been looking at it and I wouldn't buy it. I ran a little test of numbers on my own. I took your original 9 sheds, 2 matched pairs so you have
2/7 = 9/x solve X and get 31.5 sheds on your lease and a estimated 15.75 bucks. Now lets say you found an additional matched pair, instead of nine you found 10 sheds, so now the math goes to 3/7 = 10/x, you solve for X and get only 23.333 sheds on lease and 11.66 bucks on your lease. So now with just an additional matched shed you have 8.167 less sheds on your lease and 4 bucks less. Since I dont like the declining number, i find 8 sheds total with only 1 matched set, so I still have 7 first antlers and 1 second antler, i do the math 1/7 = 8/x and come up with 56 sheds on my lease and 28 bucks on it. As you can clearly see by simply finding an extra matched set decreases your bucks, or simply by not finding an extra match increases your odds. Also your equation would not work if you simply did not find the match to a shed because you cannot divide by Zero. my math if you found all 7 sheds plus match leaves to a total of 14 sheds on your lease, and 7 bucks roaming it. so depending on your shed hunting abilities if you find 1 match, you have 56 sheds, if you find 7 matches you have 14 sheds, that is a 42 shed difference. you decide if it works or not, neat theory though. Maybe I dont understand your theory though, correct me if im wrong.

20ptr

So how many did your neighbor find while trespassing, genius?

jepcho

I dont know man... I see a lot of nice bucks every year when I'm hunting but have never found a shed. I have looked and looked and still havent found one. You say you need to find 20 to 30 sheds to have the equation work and tell me I have bucks living on my property. I can go bow hunting the first week in October and tell you there is a quite a few nice bucks there.

jepcho

I just read Liv4Rut's post and he's got a huge point!! Just by finding one more shed it will through the numbers off by that much and in the opposite direction you would expect. I gotta agree with him!

Saskabush

Why not rent a plane for an hour and fly transects over the area before they drop their antlers. It's a lot more accurate. I'd have to agree about the sample size being to small. I seem to remember mark and recapture studies need very large sample sizes (more than 20 or 30)to be accurate. I just don't think that few antlers is enough to make reliable predictions. Besides, there's to many outside variables. Good idea for a thread though. Good to exercise the old thinker once in a while.

What's next? how about a model designed to predict where a buck is most likely to drop his antlers based on: seasonal variables (weather, rut intensity, time spent feeding/bedding), habitat selection (type of feed, distance to feed/bedding) and habitat type (fences/downfalls to jump, thickness of cover). Any volunteers to do the math on that one? I didn't think so.

Dirt2

You are absolutely right, Liv4Rut, the sample size in my example is way too small. I would point out that I mentioned previously that you really need 30 or more sheds in the bag in order get a fairly reliable estimate. Take 30 sheds, with 5 matched sets among them. You get: 5/25 = 30/x; x = 150. Find one more match: 6/25 = 31/x; x = 129. So, you drop from 75 bucks to 65, still a drop but not by such a big percentage.

In the country right around my home, this would not work, because like some of you say about your areas, finding even one shed is a noteworthy accomplishment. But in the new area I'm scouting now, I'll have some pretty good numbers in a couple more years. So tune in in April 2007!