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

There are two common misconceptions people have about doe harvest.

1. If I shoot alot of does, it will decrease my deer herd.

2. If I shoot alot of does, my bucks will leave.

Neither of these are true (or entirely true). First, in terms of population decrease, there is a tiny bit of truth. If you remove does, you remove chances at reproduction. What most people do not realize however, is that any given area has a specific "carry capacity" determined by environment, pressure, food availability, etc. By removing mouths (does) from your area, you are increasing the amount of available food for each surviving deer. Think of it like a piece of pie. You can have twelve small slices, or 6 big slices. The size of the pie is fixed. The amount of food is your pie, and it will stay the same unless you do alot of habitat management with forage production in mind.

In terms of the second misconception, taking does away from your area will not make your bucks leave. I spoke to a good friend who is a wildlife biologist on this topic recently. He said that "with the exception of the rut, bucks want nothing to do with does. Bucks keep to themselves, bed in different areas, often travel in other areas and feed in other areas than areas where large does congregate. By removing does from your herd, you are creating a "healthier" rut for your population. Your bucks will be competing for the remaining number of does."

Here's another factor about doe harvest that I never thought about until my friend enlightened me. In my part of Mississippi where my property is, we have very very fertile soils and an EXTREMELY high deer density (60-70 deer per sq. mile). We always have two big ruts (first and biggest rut is the first week of January) and the second is the end of January/early Feb. According to my trail cam data, over the past few years, we've had a THIRD rut in the end of Feb./first week of March. Bucks are scraping into March. All of this happens because our buck/doe ratio is so skewed that some of the does aren't bred in the first or second rut, so they come into heat again. This causes a problem in the fawning season, because we have does having fawns over a two month period. By spreading out the fawning season, there are less fawns at a given time and fawns are more susceptible to predators. If there was a single major rut and all the fawns were born at one time, there would be a big flush of fawns at one time. It would spread the predators out and be harder for predators to pick the fawns off. So a skewed buck/doe ratio has a major effect on herd health, rut health, and fawn survival.

In other words, SHOOT DOES.