Doe factory???

[Triple C]

I remember a member on the old forum talking about having created a doe factory on his place. Think his screen name was Dipper. Well...after 10 years, I'm convinced we've done the same on our place. Food plots fill up with doe every afternoon with very few buck sightings as compared to previous years. Buck sighting decline started in 2018 and has gotten progressively worse. Come firearms season, we gonna put the smack down on a bunch of doe.

Any of you guys ever experience a decline in buck sightings due to having too high of a density of doe?

 

[cutman]

What do your trail cameras show? I only ask because what you are seeing might not be an accurate representation of your herd.

I have the opposite issue this year - I’m seeing mostly bucks and very few does. However, I know the does are there based on trail cam pics. I think that a newly arrived pack of coyotes has made the does go nocturnal, which is why I’m not seeing them from the stand.

 

[MarkDarvin]

I might only see a buck once or twice per year on my own property. I've got two properties up where I'm at, and I ran cameras on both before I ever started any meaningful habitat improvements. From day one on both of those properties, the bucks were nocturnal, and this was year round. The only time there were buck encounters was if you got deep in the woods where bucks were never bumped and caught some rut activity.

 

[Mennoniteman]

Right now we're mostly seeing does and small bucks in the food plots. Like Cutman says, that's not the whole story, the cameras say there's bigger antlers around. Right now the acorns are dropping in the deep woods and the rut is 3 weeks away. The bigger bucks are following a yearly pattern of sitting tight in thick cover eating acorns and conserving energy for the big show because the bachelor groups just broke up. We can expect these guys to show up periodically on camera for the next 3 weeks to keep tabs on the doe groups, then around halloween they will be moving everywhere.

 

[lakngolf]

On camera I am seeing more bucks than does, but some healthy girls do show up with their little ones. Oddly enough I am happier to see the does because I know they are the factory!

 

[THE LLC]

Got the same issue AC because I’m too lazy to shoot many does. I know bucks are more solitary than does, and like me, don’t like crowds. So my theory is that as the crowd gets bigger, the bucks get scarcer—until the rut. They just don’t like being in a crowd until there’s a reason. Kinda like the mall I guess—-no need for a man to go there until he wants to get laid.

 

[Baker]

Have hardly seen a buck since Laura hit 8/27. Will see predictable doe groups here and there around farm but either all the bucks got killed by the storm, aliens abducted all the bucks, a secret group of Chinese snuck in to use the velvet bucks for aphrodisiac or.... Not running cameras now but suspect the bucks are still around . The 'doe factory' hopefully will start to pull them out of the essentially unhuntable woods soon...I hope

 

[dogghr]

I could swear each year I had no bucks until end of Sept when the smaller ones start to show then finally the big boys will engage first couple wks of Oct.
haven’t shot but one doe in a few years. Road kill and predator prob help in that regard. I think mature bucks live in a different niche on any given property and if one sees does, then they are not looking in the proper niche. Until rut begins.
Heres my youngins just starting to show this past wk. Bigger ones should be on camera by next wk.

 

[willy]

I subscribe to the more does on my farm the more bucks I'll see and so far that has been the case over the past 13 years. I have three small farms. Two are low deer numbers, the other high deer density and the hunting has done nothing but got better for mature bucks and seeing bucks in general.

 

[Elkaddict]

Triple, I was sitting over one of our food plots last night thinking the same thing. I counted 34 deer all but 8 of which does/fawns. The thing is, Friday night, I had 15 bucks in and 12 does/fawns (there were 5 that were>41/2 yoa). I do want to thin our does, but there are real limits number wise under NY’s permitting process. My beef with the numbers are in a year when plot production is down ( like this year because of drought /weed infestation) I’m inevitably going to have a tough winter and loose 1/3 of the herd, particularly the old worn out bucks. My hunting season will rock....but there will be all kinds of carnage when 40” of snow crusts over and gives the coyotes free reign.

 

[gut_pile]

On our place in SW GA we have too many does and too many bucks. This has caused our bucks to pretty much peak at 4 1/2. We had very 4 1/2 plus bucks add antler from 2019 to 2020. Overall, we just have to kill a lot of deer.

 

[Triple C]

Thx for all the input guys! Cutman...To your point - I've hardly run cameras this year which is unusual for me. Just didn't happen. Here's the short version of what I think has happened - In 10 years, we've killed about 10 doe. We've killed 12 bucks over 10 years, none last year and only 1 in 2018. In 2017, we had so many bucks during the summer that we just knew all of our hard work on habitat improvements and trigger control on younger bucks was paying huge dividends. 2018 - fewer buck sightings. 2019 - fewer buck sightings with none killed. Each passing year the doe numbers have increased.

I'm buying in to the old adage that the matriarch doe dominates the best habitat and will run the bucks off during non-breeding season. Enough matriarch doe(s) spread over 300 acres and suddenly, here we are in 2020 with doe everywhere and what seems to be fewer bucks than at any point since owning the property. I remember 2014 as the year when we felt like we saw one buck for every doe. Seems every hunt you encountered bucks and often times, multiple bucks. We killed 3 really nice bucks in 2014.

We simply have let the herd size using our property to get out of hand in my opinion. 300 acres is not that big but it is comprised of great habitat with plenty of year-round browse, cover and mast producing hardwoods. Deer population has exploded but where in the heck are the freaking bucks???

I am committed to killing a bunch of doe(s) this year during firearms season. We are inviting several guests with kids down for a Saturday afternoon shooting fest and make sure that every food plot has a dad and son in a stand with instructions to shoot doe.

 

[Triple C]

Elk - No problem with state regs here. In GA, 12 deer limit per hunter with a 3 month long firearms season. Only 2 can be antlered and one of those has to be a minimum of 4 on one side. No one I personally know has ever killed the limit. 2020 is the year to thin the numbers on our place.

 

[Native Hunter]

In my area there are enough does shot by neighbors that we never have an overpopulation problem. I can't explain why, but this year I seem to have an abundance of bucks about a year away from being mature and fewer does than normal. We also currently have 3 bucks coming in that are mature, but we only have our sights set on one of them.

 

[Elkaddict]

Here, I can take a doe or buck with both archery and MZ. Rifle regular tag is buck only. As a landowner with more than 50 acres, I also get an assignable doe tag for any weapon. The couple of does we take off the place isn’t enough. The one year I let a buddy and his friend hunt, there were too many unrecovered deer. I won’t let unaccompanied hunters on the property again... I’m essentially implementing a earn your buck policy for my son, brother and neighbor. I’m not sure there are other options.

 

[OkieKubota]

Triple C, my wife and I own 2 properties. 1 is big woods here where we live and only openings are plots I have created with dozer and 1 about 1 care area I opened on the north side of our largest plot just for edge and to let turn into native grasses and forbs. The other is the place I always called “Home 10” and is approximately 30 acres in size.
At Home 10 we have an honest to goodness doe factory. We don’t see very many bucks at all until the last week of October through the 3rd week of November and then it’s not a lot of bucks...maybe 3 or 4. The land consists of some woods bordered by large cattle and hay pastures. Lots of hunting pressure around that area but still way too many does.
Here on our 90 of big woods we have an over abundance of bucks with 3 this year being at least 4.5 and one being older so far. We have a several does as well and I would say we have a 1:1 ratio. The bucks dominate every feeding area other than our backyard here at our house. So far I haven’t seen a buck here in the yard but regularly see 7-9 does out here. I have a lot of subsistence living type folks all around me and they Along with the coyotes keep the doe population in check. We have not killed a doe on our property here since we bought it back in 2014 but so far the wife and I have killed 11 bucks off the place since 2014 with us taking 4 last year. This year I suspect we may kill up to 3 deer off or here between 3 hunters...I may eat tag soup because I am only looking at 1 deer so far...

 

[SwampCat]

I have never understood how someone gets “too many deer”. We have 300 acres and much more fear having too few deer. Do you guys not like to shoot deer or dont like deer meat

 

[Triple C]

Triple C, my wife and I own 2 properties. 1 is big woods here where we live and only openings are plots I have created with dozer and 1 about 1 care area I opened on the north side of our largest plot just for edge and to let turn into native grasses and forbs. The other is the place I always called “Home 10” and is approximately 30 acres in size.
At Home 10 we have an honest to goodness doe factory. We don’t see very many bucks at all until the last week of October through the 3rd week of November and then it’s not a lot of bucks...maybe 3 or 4. The land consists of some woods bordered by large cattle and hay pastures. Lots of hunting pressure around that area but still way too many does.
Here on our 90 of big woods we have an over abundance of bucks with 3 this year being at least 4.5 and one being older so far. We have a several does as well and I would say we have a 1:1 ratio. The bucks dominate every feeding area other than our backyard here at our house. So far I haven’t seen a buck here in the yard but regularly see 7-9 does out here. I have a lot of subsistence living type folks all around me and they Along with the coyotes keep the doe population in check. We have not killed a doe on our property here since we bought it back in 2014 but so far the wife and I have killed 11 bucks off the place since 2014 with us taking 4 last year. This year I suspect we may kill up to 3 deer off or here between 3 hunters...I may eat tag soup because I am only looking at 1 deer so far...

Okie - Here’s what we’re missing this year that was common in 2018 and years before.


I have no doubt, that as we approach the chase phase, we will see a marked increase in buck sightings. We have just been to lax in taking enough doe off of the property over the years to the point that I’m convinced they now dominate the best habitat including the plots each afternoon. Just anecdotal as I’ve never conducted a true camera survey, but my guess is that we have 40+ doe on our property at any given time just based on the numbers we see in any of the plots in late afternoon.

 

[Triple C]

I have never understood how someone gets “too many deer”. We have 300 acres and much more fear having too few deer. Do you guys not like to shoot deer or dont like deer meat

Ha! 2011 I felt the same way...couldn’t have enough deer. Lack of pulling trigger or loosing an arrow over the years, coupled with good habitat has reversed that problem on our place.

 

[THE LLC]

Overstocked woods are like overstocked ponds. Lots of critters, but all stunted. Not a good situation.