My property used to be a doe factory, then came the liberalized doe limits and slaughter. We still had the same number of bucks - and instead of them staying during the fall - most of them left after breeding the few does. There is a balance and I am sure it is different everywhere. For us, a 1:1 buck:doe ratio does not work. We quit killing does. Have not killed one in four years. The population has built back up. We have more bucks because more does produce more bucks. I would guess we are at maybe a 1:1.5 ratio. With the bachelor herds in the summer, we have a 2:1 buck:doe ratio until early fall dispersal. We are selective in our buck harvest, but the neighbors not so much. But more bucks mean more of them escape harvest. Almost all our big bucks are taken during the secondary rut. Almost all are killed in food plots. My ground offers the easiest food source of anywhere around. Bachelor groups like easy living. I want my ground to be the deer's kitchen year round. I want them to make my ground the center of their range.
Doe Factory....
- Thread starter David
- Start date
Doe Shooter
Active Member
I believe the premise that you can't stock pile bucks. The key is having bucks search your place for receptive does at the appropriate time. How to achieve this is the question. So many factors come into play. There is no one plan works for all, only what works for you.
Mennoniteman
Well-Known Member
I have a 34 acre property that has everything on it except the adjacent farmers field. High bluff, creek, pond, thick swamp, bedding area, oakridge, overgrown field, hollow etc, it's all there. At first this property seemed like the doe factory mentioned above, and small spikes and four points all over the place, but with years of hunting experience on this one property I now know when and where to hunt the big guys that were actually there all the time. It takes many years to learn how to hunt good deer habitat like this, and, after having put in a lot of time studying and making mental notes, I've nailed a few nice bucks, inclding a ten and a nice eleven point on the first day of archery mid September, twenty minutes before dark, just outside their bedding area on the bluff overlooking the swamp. There is only one spot, that can be hunted only on prevailing wind direction, that the bigger bucks are vulnerable, and they only come out just before dark, just after they get a drink, heading for food sources. I still haven't been able to figure out a morning strategy, but that spot is money in the bank for a mature evening buck early every year, long before the rut kicks in. I don't even mess with camera's in this area, because I won't go in there at all until I'm ready to hunt it. This pattern seems to fit with about everywhere that I've ever hunted whitetail deer. David, there are mature antlered deer around there somewhere, bedding in the exact same area year after year, and yes, the other guys are correct, they move mostly at night, but they are shootable within 100 yards of their bedding area in the last twenty minutes of daylight. Water and/or high ground seems to be key, look for thick cover and water just a little farther away from the food sources than the doe bedding areas. Draw a mental map of every early season mature buck sighting and see if a pattern or picture starts to form.
P.S. This isn't the spot that I hunt when the rut kicks in. At that time I'll hunt a staging area closer to the food source.
P.S. This isn't the spot that I hunt when the rut kicks in. At that time I'll hunt a staging area closer to the food source.
PineSapJunky
Well-Known Member
I'm still trying to figure out how you have all of this on 34 acres. I'm well over 1k acres and don't have half of what you have. I guess all ground isn't created equal. I'm lucky to have 1-2 shooters (4 years +) on my place. I wish 3 year olds were smarter. I have a bunch of them but they really take a jump at 4-5 years old. It's just nobody believes me and shoots anyways. Oh well
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Mennoniteman
Well-Known Member
You have to consider that this is in a Chester county, Pa special regulations area, a highly populated area with a very high deer population, some agriculture, and lots of thick brush and browse so the deer can hardly over graze the habitat, and it's almost impossible for non-landowners to hunt legally here. Deer have everything that they need here and don't move nearly as much as open timber areas. Also, my property has everything, but on a small scale, we're talking a few acres of this and a few acres of that, top quality land, but limited quantity. Also, I'm out to have fun, not get in the record books, I'll shoot the first mature 3-4 yr old I see. There's heavy poaching in the area, mostly for big antlers, guys in camo sneak around in the brush with a flashlight and pistols under their jackets. The picture below is one of these bucks, that's about as big as they get before a poacher gets them.
Doe Shooter
Active Member
You hit it on the head. Not all deer ground is equal. Books have been written on the subject. The genetic transplants into your area from Michigan ,many years ago, show up occasionally. And many professionally managed clubs in the South have raised the bar for those lucky enough to have the money to hunt there.To steal a line from Grant Woods, proper nutrition allows deer to express their full genetic potential. Do the best you can with what you have. Antlers are not the only measure of your management program.
PineSapJunky
Well-Known Member
Don't get me wrong. We pick it up and lay it down here in my neck of the woods. I'm lucky enough to be surrounded by AG fields. I also supplement feed from February 1st through the end of August. Only thing I can control is age and nutrition. I just wish my neighbors felt the same. I was talking more along the line of having that many deer on 34 acres or there about.
As for the poaching, it has gotten a lot better than just 5 years ago. Just this past spring a local who has the reputation of being "the man" when it came to turkey hunting got caught hunting on the wrong side of the fence. They found him that night stripped naked and tied to tree with a 3.5" shell.....
Well let's just say it stayed warm. If people would do more things like that (I personally call it harmless fun) then I think poaching wouldn't be a problem.
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Jeff H
Well-Known Member
You Mississippi boys don't play around! My father once was a member of a lease in Mississippi and they had the same sort of problem with the landowners nephew. And now there is one less poacher in the state.
PineSapJunky
Well-Known Member
Jeff H, I could tell you tales that would make you never to want to step onto a piece of ground in Mississippi. Rightfully so though. You spend as much money as some us do (to some it's a lot to others it's just a drop in a bucket) only to find someone else reaping the rewards and you'll get a fella right plum pissed. One of my favorite things to do is to post pictures of the person at the local gas station. You'll be amazed at how many folks will sell someone out for $20. But either way. The word has gotten around that some folks failed kindergarten on the count that we don't play. Not saying it's the best approach but it does get instant results. Positive or negative they are instant.
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I have many does and small bucks in my food plots year around with few big bucks. My farm borders a 110 ac horse hay baling operation with many bush areas.
I need to draw the deer to my property with good food plots. I feel if the does come to feed the bucks will come looking during the rut.
Some days before lock down of the rut I will see 16-18 bucks chasing does through the food plots.
I feel if I plant the food plots to feed the does bucks will come looking. And they sure do.
I need to draw the deer to my property with good food plots. I feel if the does come to feed the bucks will come looking during the rut.
Some days before lock down of the rut I will see 16-18 bucks chasing does through the food plots.
I feel if I plant the food plots to feed the does bucks will come looking. And they sure do.
Jeff H
Well-Known Member
I always enjoyed Mississippi whether it be fishing or hunting, the delta, or the piney woods. Lots of memories for me there. I'll set foot there again but I'll be with the right folks when I do. Only time I got scared was when I happened upon a gator slide around Money Ms. on the Tallahatchie.
tlh2865
Active Member
I would like to toss my two cents in on this one too. Now I cannot claim to be a doe factory by any means. I hold a buck doe ratio of probably 1:1.5 year round, with a good spread of young to mature bucks. However, I only hunt a tad less than 40 acres, and the strategy works out to be the same as what I would employ in a "doe factory". You see, I have found that for me, bow season is pointless for a buck older than 3. There is no way I can get in to bow hunt without creating too much evidence of my coming and going. But come late October, when the neighbors have been hunting hard for a solid month, and they have pushed their does and bucks into my little slice of heaven with no pressure at all, that is when I can start to hunt. Sit from around noon to past dark, and have somebody pick me up on a tractor, deer are never the wiser to me. Low pressure hunting is my key to success.
To me I see the same concept working for a place with few bucks early season. Wait until rut, and hunt, and if no dice then, back out and wait till the last two to three weeks of the season. Deer feel pressure, and if you aren't putting any on all season and the neighbors are, and you have food for the deer to eat, and cover for them to bed you should have a honey hole. That strategy has worked for me on multiple farms, some of which had almost nothing to offer, other than some clover in a pasture, good bedding cover, and an area to avoid pressure. I have the pictures to back that theory up, Regular appearances of bucks I had not gotten on camera before from 2- 5+ coming in consistently an hour and a half before dark to feed and check all the does in my plot.
To me, hunting is not about killing a big deer, it is about the challenge. The challenge of trying to outsmart the buck I am hunting mainly, but also the challenge of learning to hunt the property I have available. So my advice would be don't try to overhaul your property to make it an early season set up, it may never be. But play your strengths and make it a late season honey hole. Hard for an old buck to resist turnips and does on a cold winter evening, especially somewhere that he hasn't smelled a human in months.
To me I see the same concept working for a place with few bucks early season. Wait until rut, and hunt, and if no dice then, back out and wait till the last two to three weeks of the season. Deer feel pressure, and if you aren't putting any on all season and the neighbors are, and you have food for the deer to eat, and cover for them to bed you should have a honey hole. That strategy has worked for me on multiple farms, some of which had almost nothing to offer, other than some clover in a pasture, good bedding cover, and an area to avoid pressure. I have the pictures to back that theory up, Regular appearances of bucks I had not gotten on camera before from 2- 5+ coming in consistently an hour and a half before dark to feed and check all the does in my plot.
To me, hunting is not about killing a big deer, it is about the challenge. The challenge of trying to outsmart the buck I am hunting mainly, but also the challenge of learning to hunt the property I have available. So my advice would be don't try to overhaul your property to make it an early season set up, it may never be. But play your strengths and make it a late season honey hole. Hard for an old buck to resist turnips and does on a cold winter evening, especially somewhere that he hasn't smelled a human in months.
Jeff H
Well-Known Member
Very interesting. How do you check your trail cams? Are they cell cams?
tlh2865
Active Member
I don't check cameras I can't access immediately from the open field while hunting season is in, and I don't check cameras very regularly. Once every 3 weeks would be really often for me checking only the ones on the field edges. Hunting on a working farm has benefits, I can drive any of several farm vehicles that the deer see every evening when checking cows. They don't think anything of them. But I check middle of the afternoon, with shoes stored outside, and I wear gloves when touching the camera. That last bit might be a little extreme, but thats how I check em!
David
Active Member
In honor of "Chasing November" I name my bucks.
Spike #1-12
Sometimes while I'm hunting the early season imagine myself on a hunting show whispering to the camera "ok here he is....spike #7, he has 4 inch brow tines and no main beams. I've had him on camera for about 4 months. He is probably the dominant buck in the area right now"
Spike #1-12
Sometimes while I'm hunting the early season imagine myself on a hunting show whispering to the camera "ok here he is....spike #7, he has 4 inch brow tines and no main beams. I've had him on camera for about 4 months. He is probably the dominant buck in the area right now"
MarkDarvin
Well-Known Member
I get a little more creative when describing my spike herd. There's short spike, long spike, uneven spike, curved spike, that one spike with the does, spike, and Chad.
chadmyers
Active Member
There's probably a lot of factors for this. During early spring up till late September most of the bucks will be where the best food sources are. They usually stick near agriculture fields during this time. Things usually start changing with the bucks lose their velvet. With this being said, our land is a little different. It seems every year we have the majority of the mature bucks on our 1,000 acres, but the only field we have is a 100 acre field that is usually planted in cotton. The field was planted in peanuts this year for the first time so the bucks were flocking to it. Only one other property owner had pictures of mature bucks. We have a cooperative and no one other than this one guy had pictures of a mature buck out of about 10,000 acres. It's like this every year, even when our field is planted in cotton. A few of the other factors I feel plays into this is the lack of pressure we put on our land, the amount of thick cover we have compared to some of the property that surrounds us.
I do believe that you can change this to a degree depending on if you have enough land and are willing to do everything u can to entice bucks to your land during this time, but there is a such thing as doing too much.
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After reading through the ratio thread I would love to see something like that. See does and fawns all summer and early fall. Very rarely do I see bucks early in the season. Like clock work they start showing up near the end of October. Some years I see a few around during the summer but not very often. We are finally starting to get deer back after too many years of unlimited doe tags, a very severe winter and a neighbor that cleaned house before they moved.
