Ben, I’ve been running at least 14 cameras 365 days a year for over a decade, and what you said is exactly what I have seen every year. The only difference is that the tide turns here just a few days before October. Some of the best places to shoot a buck in hunting season won’t even have a single one on cameras between February and mid September - not a single one.
I guess that first we'd have to define "doe factory". I have observed what I call a real "doe factory" and my version is not something that anyone wants to create. We hunted a large private farm adjacent to state game lands for a five plus years time period in the early 2000's, often seeing upwards of 40 plus deer in an evening, and 85-95% of the deer were antlerless. Once we went deer shining with a spot light and saw 300 deer in close proximity of this farm, and, as I recall, all but 5 or 10 were antlerless. We kept going back year after year, shooting a lot of does, but a flood of more does would always come, with a few small bucks mixed in. We always had expectations that big bucks would show up, but they never did. High poaching rates, and heavily hunted state land seemed to keep the bucks at a bare minimum all the time, with way too many does for the hunters to make a difference, even if they all took two. It was a real doe factory.
That was the definition of PA when I was growing up. It was not a "doe factory". It was a "deer factory". With a million hunters and only bucks were legal, populations exploded. IF you don't shoot does and folks shoot anything with antlers because it is all that is legal, you create an imbalance in the population. This was simply bad management.
You are correct, a "doe factory" is always the result of poor harvest objectives, but with just a little bit of consideration, the underlying knowhow to balancing a deer herd is not that difficult, and really only involves two main areas. The first and biggest factor in harvest objectives is to simply take one doe for every buck harvested (adjusting at the start to obtain balance), and the second factor is then taking the correct amount of deer to hold the population at levels that a property can sustain. While actually making the harvests happen to the numbers in the real world is the more difficult part, the target harvest goals should be pretty simple for most hunters to figure out.
Allen
The only thing I would add is that politics and outreach are the keys for a large scale. When we manage individual properties, unless fortunate enough to have thousands of acres, we are fighting the rip tide of public policy and game laws. When I was growing up in PA, the game laws were almost completely driven by hunter desires, not science. I was pleasantly shocked when I moved to VA. Their game department was very progressive and while hunter desires and politics are always factors, they seemed to weigh science very strongly. When the state is executing a good, science based, management plan, it makes private management on smaller properties (say 1,000 acres or a bit less) much easier. They also tend to provide private land owners programs and tools to help with management.You are correct, a "doe factory" is always the result of poor harvest objectives, but with just a little bit of consideration, the underlying knowhow to balancing a deer herd is not that difficult, and really only involves two main areas. The first and biggest factor in harvest objectives is to simply take one doe for every buck harvested (adjusting at the start to obtain balance), and the second factor is then taking the correct amount of deer to hold the population at levels that a property can sustain. While actually making the harvests happen to the numbers in the real world is the more difficult part, the target harvest goals should be pretty simple for most hunters to figure out.
It's interesting to use math and statistics to take a look at deer population numbers and the buck/doe ratio of any given deer herd, and here's a simple breakdown of the math; Let's start with the premise that, for statistical purposes, the reproduction rate and the non-hunting fatality rates are averaged equally between bucks and does:
Example #1: Starting with a theoretical exactly balanced herd, and hunters always take one doe for every buck they harvest, the herd buck/doe ratio remains balanced, and there will always be the same amount of bucks as does.
Example #2: Starting with a herd with 20% more bucks than does, hunters continue to always take one doe for every buck they harvest, the herd always remains 20% more bucks than does.
Example #3: Starting with a herd with 20% more does than bucks, and hunters continue to always take one doe for every buck they harvest, the herd always remains 20% more does than bucks.
This shows a simple equation; if hunters always take one doe for every buck it freezes the buck/doe ratio. Now we still have to deal with herd size, and that equation is just as simple:
Example #4: Continuing with hunters always taking one doe for every buck they harvest, if hunters (and natural fatalities) harvest the same number of does per year as there are does in the herd, the deer population remains balanced.
Example #5: Continuing with hunters always taking one doe for every buck they harvest, if hunters (and natural fatalities) harvest more does per year than there are does in the herd, the deer population will collapse.
Example #6: Continuing with hunters always taking one doe for every buck they harvest, if hunters (and natural fatalities) harvest less does per year than there are does in the herd, the deer population explodes.
I made an Excel speadsheet with 10 bucks, 10 does, and 10 hunters, and this hypothetical herd will balance forever. Add or subtract 1 doe or 1 hunter and the herd is off by 1000 in ten years. Add or subtract 1 buck and the herd is off by 1 buck in ten years. Interesting! This simple breakdown gives any hunter the answers they need to manage their herd. And if a property is harvesting more bucks than does they are well on the way toward that mythical "doe factory" that may or may not exist
I found him rather arrogant and unprofessional. At a public meeting he actually made the statement that if you put Pennsylvania hunters in a room packed full of deer they would miss all the deer and shoot out all the windows. I understand that he was frustrated by the amount of pushback to his programs, by an educated person should be able to rise above that. I think he had a good plan, but tried to implement it way too fast, dividing and alienating a lot of hunters. He sure succeeded in getting quite a few of my friends and acquaintances to quit hunting. Dr. Gary Alt's deer management plan was responsible for more people quitting hunting in PA than any other factor that I ever read about. Around here there were people quitting hunting by the droves, most of those that I knew personally never took it up again, instead they picked up new hobbies. That the success rate of our hunting improved drastically is due mostly to less hunters being in the woods.
While that statement is clearly hyperbole and, as you say, comes from frustration, I think there is a lot of underlying truth in it. When I grew up in PA, deer hunting was as much a rite of passage into manhood as it was a recreational activity. They eventually made opening day a school holiday because all of the boys and male teachers would be "sick" that day. There was lots of peer pressure to hunt, and shooting a buck was proof of your manhood. Many 12 year old boys would suffer freezing temperatures, shivering to death and seeing nothing but a running deer. Reckless shots at running deer were not uncommon as the million man orange army entered the woods. While I really enjoyed squirrel and small game hunting with my dad in the beautiful weather of fall, while I never voiced it, I dreaded those freezing days treading into the woods before light. As soon as the opportunity arose, athletics became a socially acceptable excuse for both me and many friends to skip most deer hunting. It wasn't until college years that I picked it back up. Finally, a lucky success when I was almost run over by a buck, got me hooked. As much from the positive social feedback as from the harvest itself.
I still have friends and family in PA that were very critical of Dr. Alt and his management plan at the time who now, in hindsight, are much less critical given today's deer resource in PA.
Fishing was my passion when I was young. I didn't have to wait till I was 12 to do it. Lots of action! My dad would drop me off at a pond on a tree farm that was overpopulated with bluegill. When he picked me up I'd have a Styrofoam cooler filled with them. He and my mom would be up till midnight filleting them with me. As I got older, I fell in love with fly fishing. I went to PSU. You can't drive 20 minutes in any direction without crossing one of the top trout streams in the east. When I moved to VA, I tried warm water fishing for bass. Even got a bass boat and a house with water access to the Potomac river. I just couldn't get into it. That is when my focus on spring gobbler kicked in.My personal experience was about the opposite of yours yoder, of course not talking about Pennsylvania because, like Will Rogers, all I know is what I read about that.
For me, hunting and fishing was the best reason ever to not get into athletics.
I loved hitting the woods before daylight to squirrel or duck hunt in sub freezing temps. In Texas, that’s 31* though !
