Hunter Responsibility For Deer Density?

[shaman]

Deer density too high?

To high for whom?

Me? I couldn't be happier with the deer density around my place. I love the fact that we can each fill a couple tags and have plenty of venison every year. On the other hand, the state thinks we have too many and wants us to cull as many as possible. The reason probably is the insurance company. Their vision of deer populations and mine are considerably different.

Give me a discount on my insurance, and I'[ll think about it. How about putting a refer truck in the parking lot of the local Walmart and letting me donate doe directly to a volunteer insurance company employee? How about a cup of coffee and a donut for my trouble?

Were it to get to situation where there were simply too many deer, then we'd take care of it. However, I personally don't see it at my place.

 

[Bullwinkle]

I am in one of the highest deer population counties in the state

It’s interesting. Land value are skyrocketing. There is squat on the market. Most good ones never see a realtor - in fact I am looking at an 80 I heard about this morning that’s being networked before putting on market.

Foresters complain about damage to trees. Probably not a good place to regen oaks but for deer hunting - a lot want in and few are leaving

I’ve not met anyone who has sold their land because of too many deer. Be careful. I know a bunch that shot every doe that moved and now miss the old days.

Too many deer is a high class problem boys

 

[SwampCat]

To be honest - and I will admit I have not experienced it - I would like to try some elevated deer densities. I have tried some elevated hog densities - and not a fan.

 

[Drycreek]

To be honest - and I will admit I have not experienced it - I would like to try some elevated deer densities. I have tried some elevated hog densities - and not a fan.

Me and you both ! I honestly think in some parts ot Texas we have more hogs than deer. I've never seen 25 deer in a single picture, but I've seen that many hogs numerous times, and not the same sounder either. I mowed on my place the last three days and I'm past being tired of damn hogs ! Like trying to mow a mine field ..........after all the mines have detonated !

 

[Bullwinkle]

I got to hunt TX hogs a few times this spring. I had an absolute ball. A couple stands were in trees but most were ground blinds 15 yards from corn. I had boars pass the ground blind at 3 yards. What a rush

I thoroughly enjoyed hog hunting and hope to do it more. They are so much fun and challenging to take with a bow. The camp I go to cut a bunch of them this spring. I’d love to take a 300lb+ boar. The biggest I got was 248lb

If I lived in TX I could see getting addicted to controlling hogs. In some ways they are more fun to me than deer - more action, 365 days a year, relaxed and easy hunt.

I can also see why you wouldn’t want these beasts for growing food plots. Unreal the damage they do. It’s got to be frustrating making plots. I can see why they use corn feeders and bait so much

 

[Bullwinkle]

This was a fun sit. Took 3

 

[SwampCat]

I got to hunt TX hogs a few times this spring. I had an absolute ball. A couple stands were in trees but most were ground blinds 15 yards from corn. I had boars pass the ground blind at 3 yards. What a rush
View attachment 12495
I thoroughly enjoyed hog hunting and hope to do it more. They are so much fun and challenging to take with a bow. The camp I go to cut a bunch of them this spring. I’d love to take a 300lb+ boar. The biggest I got was 248lb

If I lived in TX I could see getting addicted to controlling hogs. In some ways they are more fun to me than deer - more action, 365 days a year, relaxed and easy hunt.

I can also see why you wouldn’t want these beasts for growing food plots. Unreal the damage they do. It’s got to be frustrating making plots. I can see why they use corn feeders and bait so much

I have two pieces of property, eight miles apart. One of them is overrun with hogs and a challenge to do any plantings. The other, my home ground - has a manageable number - always a boar hog or two and maybe a sounder - maybe not. And I agree, when you spend the kind of money it takes to buy hunting land today - it can get hard to justify when you only pull the trigger a couple times during deer season. I have killed around 120 hogs since last September - bow, ml, modern gun, and trap. I cant say I dont enjoy it.

 

[shaman]

To really experience high deer densities, y'all really ought to come to suburban Cincinnati. Hamilton County supposedly has some of the highest densities in the world-- 1100+ per sq mi.

It's an almost daily occurance to see deer on the way to work. I saw one this morning, munching on the plantings at a neighbor's mailbox. She didn't even look up at me. It gets weird. For instance, we have a doe that got separated from her fawn the other day and stood in our yard trying to figure out how to get over the hedge and fence across the back of the yard. You could hear the fawn bleat. The past few days, we've had painters working on the house. She keeps coming back and visiting. She appears to be curious as to what the painters are doing and stops by to check on their progress (WT?)

We have a herd of doe that have learned to use crosswalks. To get diagonally across the intersection, the matriarch crosses first, and then watches the rest of the herd come across. She then crosses the other street and stands guard until everyone is across.

Our house has hosta plants planted around the air conditioner and this is under one of our living room windows. The deer could care less about the compressor running. They come up, chew on the hostas and watch us through the window like it's TV. The dogs have stopped barking at them. The funny thing is my collie goes nuts if he sees a deer or horse on TV, but he hardly pays any attention to the ones in the yard.

BTW: the local governments are finally figuring out that hunters make good deer control. Our municipality has a program where you can register with the mayor and get a bow hunting permit. There's now a limited number of bow permits issued for the neighboring county park. However, this is all drop-in-the-bucket stuff.

Down at the farm, it's not quite as hectic. However, if I have the windows open in the bedroom, I'm often getting deer waking me up in the morning. Either they smell us inside and start snorting, or sometimes you get a curious doe sticking her head in to check us out. I've seen them come out and stand in the road and watch the neighbor kids playing with fireworks. One morning, a doe came up to the house and stood watching me drink my coffee. All of a sudden, she got really frightened and ran off. I went to where she had been standing to see what had spooked her. From her vantage, you could see the big buck mounted in the living room. That must have really messed with her head.

 

[Goldentriangle]

I believe that my home area in Illinois would be considered a high deer density. Honestly, with the sea of corn and beans everywhere, I don't think we could ever control them with hunting. I feel that we got this way due to all the outfitting and leasing of ground. People don't pay 4-5k for a hunt to come shoot a doe.
There are places in my county and the neighbouring counties where we used to take "deer drives" in our vehicles to see some big bucks. It was unreal the amount of deer we would see on these drives.
Along came the late winter antlerless only seasons, we were told to kill as many as possible. Most everyone that I know commenced to slaughtering all these pregnant does. I was one of them. I know of many years where I shot over 12-15 deer myself, that's between bow, shotgun, and muzzy. We had local programs that would take any legally tagged deer for less fortunate families. This continued for several years with really no noticeable difference in the local population.
The hammer finally met the nail when EHD hit local areas hard. Many small pockets locally lost literally all of their deer. We hit a wall. Even though most areas of my county (including my Inlaws farm) still had plenty of deer. There was a very noticeable impact on the herd. After a year or two of people crying about the deer herd, the state cut out the late doe seasons.
Since then, we havnt had EHD near as bad as the first two years it hit. The deer numbers are slowly climbing back. The hunting is as good as ever on my Inlaws farm. We annually shoot 6-8 does with a 3.5-5.5 year old buck thrown in every other year on this 136 acres. That may be a little heavy for most areas but it makes no difference here, I see just as many deer the next year usually.
The moral of my long winded rant is, if conditions, food, cover are good, I don't think you can totally control the herd. Heavy harvest can help, but Mother Nature is truly in charge.
Thanks
Scott



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[Bullwinkle]

Good post Scott

 

[farmhunter]

Lots of good experience shared here. I can relate to some and not at all to others.
In upstate NY - my area is heavily hunted. And heavily populated with deer. they say our hunter numbers are decreasing - sometimes I agree - other times - its pretty clear that we still have a lot of hunters - and a large, and young deer population. We have no hogs.

I think we have about 30-50 deer per square mile - in the immediate area we hunt. it wasn't always this way - I do think people take less does than before in general - and rarely take fawns. Personally - we don't drive deer anymore - haven't for 20 years now. Other change is that two neighbors take almost no does - their goal is a couple shooter bucks - and they like the does to attract the bucks. They rely on farmers food and leftovers - and natural browse. The three neighbors control about 600 acres, and when the snow comes and all the farmers crop left overs are gone - our 180 acres gets overrun with deer - especially does and fawns that usually stay next door. We cannot consume all the does we could shoot, we invite others to doe hunt and we share meat wherever we can, we'll take 6-10 mature does every year - some years we have a dozen or more orphan fawns just everywhere. It really seems like we couldn't shoot too many deer ever. My last hunt of the year last December - I had to pick one of 23 does and fawns after we'd already taken over 12 deer.

For us - I feel we take a significant amount of homebody does every year - and some of the neighbor does too - none of this happened until the neighbors stopped taking does though. We've also kind of learned that we cannot stockpile bucks. They tend to spread out more if too many of them -

 

[Chainsaw]

Coming from someone who would like to to see greater deer density, my management involves increasing fawning habitat, removing predators, and not shooting any does. I own 300 acres and there are four of us who hunt it. Our zone allows the harvest of four does each. If we killed four does each, in a couple years we would not have any deer left. I am unable to comprehend high deer densities because I have never experienced it. Those of you living with high deer densities - how does it get that way - especially in areas of liberal anterless bag limits? Do the hunters just choose to ignore the problem and let it go. In my experience, it is much easier to reduce the herd than grow the herd. We never kill the number of deer we would like to for annual consumption. From my perspective - a lot of the hunters complaining about too many deer have the power to change that - but elect not to. It is a foreign concept to me. How does it get to that point?

We enjoy having as many deer on the property as the property can support. Timber values and insurance risk are not important to me as I'm not in the timber business nor the insurance business. With that said some years we take over twenty deer to get things back in check. Like Farmhunter experiences the influx of winter deer to the property is a wild card; we just can not control everyone elses' deer population nor can we make up for those that have poor habitat and a low amount of food. Thus sometimes we "mess up" and end up with too many deer as the deer in this area want to live or at least visit here during different times of the year. In the past we could legally take as many does as was ever needed to get back in balance. Today tags are getting scarcer so it will be more difficult to keep the population in check some years and we no longer choose to shoot large numbers of does anyways. Bringing in yet more hunters is not a solution for us either.

 

[Paradise725]

Interesting issue. Where I hunt, it's not an issue. Where I live, it's bad enough that there already essentially no limit, but if the current proposed changes are approved by the legislature, bonus tags will be for 15 deer and there will be a September gun doe weekend, just two of about 15 proposed changes.

A lot of people blame urban sprawl for loss of habitat. For whitetail, it's a food mecca. A world of EDGE, nice mix of woods and tasty landscaping. But really, hunters may play a part, but the biggest issue is hunter access. Just too many places for deer to eat and hide with too few places.

Case in point, Anchorage, KY. If not THE worse, it's up there, deer/vehicle collision rates. Loads of rural acreage. Always complain about the deer/vehicle collisions, yet despite the Kentucky constitution that guarantees the right to hunt, cities like this have banned any type of weapon that fires a projectile (like a bow and arrow). So in the end, there is no access.

Hey KYDeerSteward, I just moved to Crestwood and the deer density in our neighborhood is crazy. Fortunately, I can shoot them with my bow and my neighbors have even encouraged me to do so!


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[MarkDarvin]

I couldn't imagine unlimited doe tags, legally. It's easy enough in MN to get tags for as many deer as you want, but if they roped the ethically minded into the mix, we'd have every deer dead for ten miles in no time.

 

[Baker]

In La. we have a program sponsored by the W&F called DMAP ( deer mgt asst program ) created by my good friend Dr Harry Jacobson over at Ms State. For a nominal fee biologist do a browse survey of a property then issue tags appropriate to recommended harvest. This allows a property to design harvest aligned with habitat including a lot of flexibility as to how harvest is accomplished. At the end of season you turn in all jaws weights lactation results and the agency prepares a detailed report.

Over time especially this is an effective tool for herd mgt if used wisely. Trends can be monitored and strategies modified to tailor results I think a big difference in La vs many areas I read about on this forum is there are many properties large enough to actually manage a deer herd vs micromanaging a small property that is only a fraction of the scale required to effectively manage herd dynamics.

I have seen this program used very effectively on a 6000 acre property in N La adjusting an overpopulated herd to a far healthier herd . I also use this program on my farm allowing me to manage specifically to my goals. At the end of the day it is man far more than anything else that effects population dynamics with property fragmentation creating many of the most significant challenges.

 

[SwampCat]

In La. we have a program sponsored by the W&F called DMAP ( deer mgt asst program ) created by my good friend Dr Harry Jacobson over at Ms State. For a nominal fee biologist do a browse survey of a property then issue tags appropriate to recommended harvest. This allows a property to design harvest aligned with habitat including a lot of flexibility as to how harvest is accomplished. At the end of season you turn in all jaws weights lactation results and the agency prepares a detailed report.

Over time especially this is an effective tool for herd mgt if used wisely. Trends can be monitored and strategies modified to tailor results I think a big difference in La vs many areas I read about on this forum is there are many properties large enough to actually manage a deer herd vs micromanaging a small property that is only a fraction of the scale required to effectively manage herd dynamics.

I have seen this program used very effectively on a 6000 acre property in N La adjusting an overpopulated herd to a far healthier herd . I also use this program on my farm allowing me to manage specifically to my goals. At the end of the day it is man far more than anything else that effects population dynamics with property fragmentation creating many of the most significant challenges.

We have that same program in AR - our game and fish agency refers to DMAP as Deer Management Assistance Program, also. A lot of hunters refer to it as Doe Massacre Assistance Program.

 

[Baker]

Of course your not mandated to use all or any of the tags. Always the hunters choice to pull trigger. Land fragmentation complicates everything unless one has enough property to effectively manage a herd or builds a game fence which creates the opportunity for population mgt

 

[SwampCat]

Of course your not mandated to use all or any of the tags. Always the hunters choice to pull trigger. Land fragmentation complicates everything unless one has enough property to effectively manage a herd or builds a game fence which creates the opportunity for population mgt

I think a lot of folks perceive that their neighbor’s lease, with 2000 acres and a member per forty acres, and six regular doe tags that come with a hunting license - think that three hundred doe tags for that 2000 acres is probably sufficient - and then g&f gives them more of the special dmap antlerless tags. Unfortunately, deer travel from property to property - so just because you are not pulling the trigger does not mean your neighbor is not hammering down on them. In a lot of cases, regular antlerless tags available through a standard license are enough to keep the deer in check. I know leases who get dmap tags and didnt near about use all their regular state tags. It is almost like the dmap tags are reward for letting your deer over populate. Yes - i know there are some properties with a lot of acres per hunter who are unable to control the deer numbers due to the few hunters - but that is not the case with most dmap lands that I know of.

 

[Baker]

I think a lot of folks perceive that their neighbor’s lease, with 2000 acres and a member per forty acres, and six regular doe tags that come with a hunting license - think that three hundred doe tags for that 2000 acres is probably sufficient - and then g&f gives them more of the special dmap antlerless tags. Unfortunately, deer travel from property to property - so just because you are not pulling the trigger does not mean your neighbor is not hammering down on them. In a lot of cases, regular antlerless tags available through a standard license are enough to keep the deer in check. I know leases who get dmap tags and didnt near about use all their regular state tags. It is almost like the dmap tags are reward for letting your deer over populate. Yes - i know there are some properties with a lot of acres per hunter who are unable to control the deer numbers due to the few hunters - but that is not the case with most dmap lands that I know of.

I understand everything you are saying. Just goes to show how challenging effective mgt can be. For all these reasons and more is why we built a game fence around our 2500 acres. The deer are just as challenging as they always were. However now we are able to manage herd dynamics including numbers , age structure ,ratios, and create a truly healthy herd. Instead of constant frustration we get to experience the results of our efforts every year. I only wish I would have done it years before.

 

[SwampCat]

I understand everything you are saying. Just goes to show how challenging effective mgt can be. For all these reasons and more is why we built a game fence around our 2500 acres. The deer are just as challenging as they always were. However now we are able to manage herd dynamics including numbers , age structure ,ratios, and create a truly healthy herd. Instead of constant frustration we get to experience the results of our efforts every year. I only wish I would have done it years before.

I totally understand. 2500 acres is four square miles. A lot of the deer probably don't even realize they are contained. Your management activities can concentrate on what you can do - without worrying about what all your neighbors are doing.