re: Old time deer management ideas...why do people love em

GA and SC DNR departments have both reduced the number of doe days this year during the season for the express purpose of increasing the herd.

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Why Reduce Either-Sex Days? Fawn recruitment rates — the number of fawns that survive into fall — have declined in all five of Georgia’s physiographic regions and about 26 percent statewide. Also, doe harvest rates have increased 13 percent over several years, while the percentage of does in the harvest has remained near 65 percent. Echoing these trends, comments during recent public meetings indicated strong support for reducing the doe harvest.

Combined, these factors warranted regulatory changes to reduce the doe harvest. While no regulation will satisfy everyone, the Wildlife Resources Division (WRD) developed a regulation that strikes a balance between addressing biological concerns with the deer population and the desires of deer hunters.

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going to ruston then Farmerville in the morning i'll shoot you a text when I get to town

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late afternoon

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yes, got to drop some stuff of to son #1 on campus and check in to motel then we can meet up for a beer

aight sounds good to me, I'll shoot you a text

Both of my grandpa's had this engrained in them. They would preach it to us that you didn't shot a doe because you were basically killing several deer.

My dad still has this mentality and I still have a little of it engrained in me as well.

I was reading some other hunting message boards and it finally dawned on me. During the Great Depression, many deer populations were almost hunted to the point of almost near 'extinction' in many areas. Same can be said of many other types of game.

It took several decades afterward for many of the wildlife populations to recover from overhunting.

That why a lot of the old-timers look down upon killing a doe. To them it was about survival.

Old timers had it beat into their heads that if you kill a doe, you kill the goose that laid the golden eggs. I was a young un, but I remember going years without seeing a deer. For the first few years that we started killing deer on our property, I shied away from killing does. My uncles killed every deer they saw and I figured it would catch up to them one day and the kill rate would decline. On the contrary, they killed more and more every year. At some point around the year 2000, I figured if you can't beat em, join em. At one point, my 2 uncles and a cousin were consistently killing 10-15 deer a year on 80 acres every single year.

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right or wrong, that was the thought process...

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I think that was a reasonable way to look at it back then, but things are different now. Populations are higher than ever before. Regardless if you see deer or not while hunting, many areas are overpopulated and above carrying capacity. If you want to improve your herd and your hunting, you've got to look at it in a different light. (Not you specifically, just people in general haha.)

I hear you, my dad moved to Monroe from Tensas in 61, he said at one point he tried to take a track home and fry it.

I really don't know anything about the herd on this piece of property, other than the abundance of does and small bucks that are seen daily. My friends have killed some nice ones, but they seem to be the exception.

I like hunting for the social aspect as much as anything, so hell, I am really ok with it. Just seems this property may be underutilized without different management strategies.

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old timers think if you kill does it will hurt the herd population

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My dad will pass on a group of 25 slickheads to shoot a spike or young basket rack
Its got to where its a running joke in our club everytime he pulls the trigger on whether it will have knots or be a wallhanger 3point. He refuses to kill a doe but will drop a young buck every time just so he can hang the rack up in his shop. I love the man to death,but no telling at the arguments we've had over him shooting young bucks