That’s the first time I’ve ever heard someone say we aren’t killing enough bucks. Like has been said and like I’ve said in another thread. You have too many hunters on that property. 7 would prolly be the max I would have on that property and it’s gonna have to be 7 guys who are willing to let deer walk for about 3 years in order to get more does. You said you have way more bucks than does but yet you don’t see big ones chasing during the rut? That’s totally backwards.you should have bucks fighting each other every day to breed the few does you have. When we took over the lease I have now there were too many members and they didn’t cull much. After 4 years of trying to manage for 3.5 or better we are starting to see some real differences. Main thing we did was reduce members and bring in guys who are all on the same page. Now we plant well and do what we need to do in order to be able to have more deer per acre than what we used to have. But never once did I think we had too many bucks and needed to kill em. You need to spend a few years killing nothing and then see where you are. The area you are in has always been hunted hard and they’ve always killed whatever and however many they wanted. In my opinion that area isn’t worth the time and money you put in it unless you are gonna reduce your membership by 2/3 and stop killing deer for a while.

I’ve seen numbers decline at my location over the last decade and I’m in a good area. This year is the worst I’ve seen it in the 16 years I’ve lived here. I used to have 40+ deer (bucks,does,fawns) that would use my property during this time of year……Right now I have about 12-15 max in comparison.....with only a few of those being young dink bucks.....I dont even have a 4 year old buck on camera this year and only one that's 3

Once businesses and interests become so big then they stop really being “people” and kinda become their own entity. I was having a similar discussion with my wife the other day about how once Wal-Mart grew to a certain size then it stopped being about Sam Walton’s people skills and became it’s own entity of WAL-MART driven solely by profit motive. It’s the same with things like “Insurance”……It becomes its own entity that is profit driven and the formula of cut cost, reduce overhead, limit claims, yada yada….. doesn’t give a damn about deer …. Even if you are someone in that industry though…….if you like deer hunting then you have to recognize that there needs to be a way to help “deer” compete with the profit motive that doesn’t want them. You would think that the role of the DCNR would be that of representing the “deer” but instead we have a system where the special interest groups and their profit motives control the game now from a board. At the end of the day it’s profit $$ and not really people that seeks to do these things. Profit is like its own entity that controls the people. “People” have to put into place safeguards in situations like these to protect things like natural resources from profit. It seems like we’ve don’t the opposite of that.

I have a unique situation relative to the place I hunt, and it makes everyone think we have more deer than we do. Most of my hunting is on a 25,000 acre military base, and that land is gridded with a road system. It is sectioned off into what they call "areas" (training areas), each of which averages probably 200 acres (I really have no clue, that's just my guess). And even within each area there's a decent system of woods roads, so it's easy to access all of it, and a lot of it is open enough to have good visibility. My point is it's easy to SEE deer, they don't have anywhere to go. Also, there may be 7 or 8 guys hunting at the same time within that area, so the deer are getting jumped, or they're slipping out from all the activity. So the unthoughtful conclusion is that "boy we are loaded with deer, we need to shoot some does!!!" NO WE DON'T!!! They think there ARE a lot of deer because they're SEEING a number of deer, but I believe you're seeing most/all the deer in that area many times!! It's not as many as you think!! It's not like there were 40 deer in that area and you saw 10 of them...you possibly saw all 10 deer in that area, bruh!!!
The measure of deer density isn't based on sightings to me, but rather it's based on sign. If you have a lot of deer, you have a LOT of sign, and the reality is there are several of those areas on this military base that just have a "meh" amount of sign.

I think most folks don't realize how easy it is to seriously damage your herd, how quickly you can decimate them to a point that the hunting experience is just lousy.

All I’ll ask is one question.
During the “good ol days” of hunting. What were the limits for bucks, and what were the limits for does?

The majority of you got what you asked for.

I am "pro-management" and "selective/mimimalist harvest" moreso than most guys I know. That being said, I've got some "sensible" opinions that aren't based on school-taught deer management ideologies....again, I wouldn't argue with a professional about this, because it's just my reasonable opinions, but I do feel confident about these things....

Deer behave the way the Lord created them. We are often screwing stuff up when we try to manipulate the herd structure, not accounting for the ways they normally behave and disperse. I don't believe in trying to selectively kill X many does or X many bucks. That's just a game we play, that at best has short term, isolated results. We are not "balancing the herd" in any far reaching, lasting way. There's a natural reason that you have more does than bucks (and I'm not even fully sure you really do), that has nothing to do with hunting history.

You are not overpopulated, not even close, not even remotely close, not even if you double the deer on your place. They aren't going to stay within the imaginary property lines of your land, they'll cross a road if need be. And Alabama is SO thick, so green, there's exponentially more food than you realize. And you aren't the only mortality control for deer on your property...numerous ways of natural mortality is something you can't account for. I've always assumed that maybe 50% of fawns make it anyway (even if it's 75% you're still not replacing 25% year after year).

Again, I could be categorically wrong about all of that. I don't believe I am, but you see my point.

Look I am not a biologist. I am an accountant, and this to me is a math problem. Yes I have to many members, I get that. I want to lower it, but until I hold the lease I am not sure I can do that.

So back to the math. The game laws are liberal for doe kills, and restrictive for buck kills. That is restricted further by the timber company, in that we have a 6pt or better rule. What I am saying is, over time, we are killing more doe's than bucks. The negative impact of that is you don't see bucks chasing doe's. You see more bucks on camera's then doe's, but since most of the bucks are nocturnal, and buried up in pine thickets during the day, it's not easy to kill a mature one. Which means what? We are basically a buck factory.

A doe has a 50-50 chance of having a doe fawn verus a buck fawn. If I kill 5 doe's, then I have to have at least 10 remaining to be bred to replace the 5 that were killed. But if I kill 5 doe's and have 10 that are bred, I get basically 5 doe's and 5 more bucks. If we only kill 2 or 3 bucks, that my doe number stays the same, and my buck number increases.

A solution is to stop killing doe's and let the population rebalance. Another solution, which is what I am suggesting is to take some of the immature bucks out of the loop on top of not killing doe's. How long has the doe limit been 1 or 2 a day? At least 10 years right? Just basic math would tend to indicate as the doe herd is killed off, it is replaced by less doe's. If you can only kill 3 bucks, and in my case, its 6pt or better, no one has tagged out on bucks in a club I have been in. Not saying it doesn't happen, but I am saying I have not seen it.

So what I am asserting is the game laws have severly decreased the states doe herd, while increasing the buck herd. I don't need 30 bucks to breed 30 doe's. I probably don't need 5. Killing to many bucks will fix itself. They will come off of other properties because there are doe's.

Here is an example. Assuming a 1 to 1 ratio of bucks and doe's. At 30 deer per sq mile, I have 49 deer on my lease. If I kill 10 doe's and 5 bucks, I have killed 49% of the doe's and 20% of the bucks. All remaining doe's are bred and have twins, one of each sex. So I started before the seaon with 25 doe's and 25 bucks. After the season and deer are bred, I have 29 doe's and 34 bucks. At end of first season, I had 15 doe's left and 20 bucks. Assume same kill ratio the second season, and at the end I have 19 doe's and 29 bucks. So I started with 25 each, and after 2 years of 10 and 5 kills doe's to Buck's, I have 19 doe's and 29 bucks. So 10 more bucks than doe's.

The ratio will eventually get to an even larger spread between the number of bucks to doe's. If the mature bucks push off the immature ones, then my total population decreases.

The only way to correct it is to 1. Stop killing doe's for a few years and kill bucks only, or 2. which I think would work faster, is to kill some immature bucks and leave the doe's alone.

Riddle me this - if Alfa and the politicians wants every deer in the state dead, then why is there a 3 buck limit?

I’m no biologist either. Although I do spend time reading a lot of information and I do have a biologist give me info when I need it. You can do what ever you want with your property. But with 19 members and their family hunting 1000 acres and you give these guys the go ahead to kill “immature” bucks. It won’t be long before you have no bucks or very few left on your property. You made the comment of charging $1400 and telling them they can’t kill anything for a few years. If you want that property to change then that’s your only way to do it IMO. I think you’re trying to create something good but with the pressure y’all have on that place right now it’s just not gonna work. Reduce pressure and you will see some changes. You aren’t gonna change your herd for the better by killing all the young bucks. You reduce the numbers of people hunting and the lower pressure will help you the most.

It's happening slow enough that everyone doesn’t recognize it but we are being slowly converted over into something where deer are no longer really a natural resource for all but a luxury more like high end golf only for the wealthy. That’s where profit is finding its current balance with still having deer….or some still having deer. As we draw down the deer populations then you are in essence dividing it more and more into just the haves and have nots…….That’s what happens when you put profit in charge of the board that makes the decisions for deer. There’s nothing at all wrong with other interests making money but their profit motive isn’t going to do what’s best for the deer at the end of the day…..profit is going to do what’s best for profit. We should let the biologists and the game wardens and the folks who know “deer” and truly care about their interest and have them as their top priority represent what is in the best interest of “deer”……If not then you’re just tainting the structure of each interest fighting for its own stake in the game and artificially stacking the deck in favor of profit and against “deer”.

They want freezers full of does

It's real simple. Killing a few more does than bucks is not necessarily a bad thing. Think about it like this.... natural buck mortality is significantly higher than doe mortality. Bucks fight and get killed, bucks succumb to rut stress and die, bucks travel long distances looking for does and get shot on other properties or run over. When you factor this natural mortality into the equation, unless you are absolutely pounding your does, your herd is probably losing the same number of bucks and does every year. It's proven that does drop fawns at an almost perfect 1:1 ratio so they are both being replaced at essentially the same rate that they are leaving the herd (unless you are over shooting the property). Bucks are going to breed whatever does are available, so if you want more deer, dont shoot does. In your simplified analysis, you also need to factor in the fact that while does do normally drop twins, fawn depredation in AL is exceptionally high. Rarely do we see large numbers of does with twins in the fall. Hogs, fire ants, coyotes, bobcats, dogs, and cars. A lot of fawns simply do not make it to maturity, so you cannot use 2 deer per doe per year for your growth number.

Just being completely honest. Your problem is not the deer. It's not the land. It's not the timber make up of your property and its not the food you plant. Your problem is you dont have a real management plan with stated goals, you do not have member buy-in on the plan, your membership numbers are way too high for the property acreage you have, and your membership make up is not correct for what you want to do. Just reading your posts, your group over hunts your land, you put way too many hunters in the woods, and you over pressure your deer. You force every deer on your property to go almost completely nocturnal, move into sanctuary areas you do not hunt, or simply move a half mile over onto someone else's property that is not constantly bothering them. The truth hurts but it's still the truth. You or your members (dont know who sets the dues or member numbers) want premium hunting at dollar general pricing and that simply does not occur anymore like it used to. You cannot put 12-20 guns on 1000 acres for 3.5 months and expect to have good hunting. As others have said, lower your membership to 5 or 6 total guns, hunt only on good winds, dont over pressure your fields, hunt travel corridors by setting tripods up in roads, get a chainsaw on a stick and do a little work in those pine plantations cutting lanes. You can limb those pines (timber company doesnt care) and create 100 yd shooting lanes that you can slip into in those planted pines when the wind is right. Get 5 members that are willing to do what it takes to have the type hunting you want to have, which in this case means 5 hunters that know how to exercise trigger restraint and are patient enough to wait for a property to develop. Building up a property takes time, money, hard labor, and trigger restraint.

I lease timber company land just like you do and the timber make-up sounds very similar to what you are describing, but our membership is kept to an absolute minimum (everyone has to pay more, way more), we are all on the same page and manage for 5 yr old bucks, we pay a lot and have have a lot of land per member, and I cannot remember the last time that someone killed a doe with a rifle on this property. We've been doing it for 6 yrs now (yep, building up a shot out property takes a long time and some lean years when you first start) and we kill studs on timber company land every year. I dont think you want to take it as far as we have but it sounds like you are trying or wanting to build a club with high deer density where you see a lot of deer and have the opportunity to kill a good buck every now and then. Skip the point restrictions, dont shoot does for a couple years and shoot only 3 yr old or older bucks to start with. Point restrictions just provide people with excuses to kill young bucks. Once you've built your population and age structure, then you can decide if you want to take it up a notch and shoot older cull bucks and trophy bucks only, or you might want to have a more traditional club where you take a few does, see plenty of deer and kill a good buck every now and then. Whichever you decide, neither is right or wrong. It is a matter of personal preference. If I'm right on the quality of hunting you are looking for, you need to purge your membership of anyone that feels that they "have" to kill a deer just because they paid club dues. Having the right members is even more important that having the right land. This comes from experience. I've been leasing land and running big acreage clubs since the early 90s. Lastly, if you cannot get the lease in your name, find another property where you can. Otherwise it will just be an exercise in frustration. Lastly, always listen to your members suggestions or wants, as they need to have input in the management plan and activities, but remember that in the end, someone has to make the final call and it's often impossible to make everyone happy. Great clubs are run as benevolent dictatorships, it's not a democracy. Best of luck with it.

I have read alot too. The most troubling thing the biologist I had come out tell me is we needed to kill 15 doe's and age the jawbones this year. Well if I am on the low side of the density scale, which I am convinced we are, killing 15 doe's would really hurt my numbers for the following few years. The rest of her recommendations, I was on board with. And really they have 2 plans they assist with. Being able to kill more deer, and being able to kill trophy deer. I don't think I can do trophy unless I have adjacent landowner/club participation.

The thing I don't understand is how killing some immature bucks would negatively impact us. We already have some nice mature ones. It's not like we are killing 4 or 5 of them a year, only one so far this year. I have at least 4 other nice mature bucks on camera. And several that will be there next year. Yes I suppose some of these immature ones could wind up being a really nice buck if they live, but I don't need them to grow my deer population. I need doe's. All my core group like to eat venison, so.... I really feel like I need to have an offer when I ask for them to pay more for less members, and say, hey we need to give the doe's a pass. Make sense?

I am only talking about a 2 year scenario. The spike limit would be set, if I have low number of members, at 1 per member. If I have more, then it would be a set number, first come first served, limit one per membership, and I would probably have to exempt myself since I am the Pres. Doe's would have to either be off the table, or 1 per membership. That leaves the kids who haven't killed a deer. I would rather they kill a spike than a doe. But I don't want to hamper a child. And doe kills would need to happen in the woods, not on green fields.

I don't think the problem is killing doe's as much as the problem is a low deer denisity in my area. If it was higher, I don't think we would notice so much. But because it is low, I really think its obvious. I will say I think our numbers have come up a little in the 3 years I have been there, but the facts are we still kill more doe's than bucks, and at some point, you end up with more bucks than doe's, unless neighboring properties have to many doe's, then we could accumulate some of theirs I suppose.

I also tend to think us having properly limed and fertilized plots with good forage on them will help draw and keep deer. But I have been the person funding that. The same with minerals, I am the one funding that as well.

And perhaps that is the sales pitch. Hey guys, I have spent about 15K on a tractor and implements. I have soil tested, limed and fertilized. I have planted alot of the perennial forage, and I maintain all of that with my money. I need you to commit to this for a year or two.

But then I need to find a place to hunt and keep my freezer stocked, because I cannot ask someone to do something I am not willing to do myself.

What is more expensive to insurance companies - car collisions with does or car collisions with bucks?

Sure sure, removing does affects the population more than bucks. But if its all about $ and politics, the 3 buck limit becomes an antithesis.

Lockjaw, you said you have 1,000 acres. What is the total combined acreage of all your food plots? How many plots, and average size of each? Point being, if you've got 15-18 quarter to half acre food plots for a total of 8 or 9 acres or around 1% of your total acreage, your not going to be pulling many, if any deer off your neighbors onto your place.

And in marshall county the chances of finding a track have risen to 25%..up a whole .5% from 24.5%…things are lookin up

You control the overall population through the females….You can eliminate the entire deer population over time without ever shooting a buck……The 3 buck rule was put into place after the doe killing because if you reduce the overall population then you have the need to divide up the fewer bucks that are produced as a result....especially if you want some of them to make it to being trophies

I've always heard, maybe some of the deer biologist on here can confirm or deny, that buck fawn relocate away from their mother around 1 1/2 years of age 1 to 5 miles away. If this is true it adds yet another variable to the equation.

David

Well I would have said it was more until I measured a couple on the hunstand app. I have 24 plots right now. I have 2 that are half an acre, maybe 4 that are 1/3 and the rest are all small. Like planting a logging road. So I would say less than 10 acre's planted. Of that, I have I have 8 on the main road in the property. My 3 biggest fit into that category. Although the largest is maybe 20 or 30 yards off the road. We are supposed to get 2 half acre plots when they cut timber that would be more off the road and closer to the hard wood bottom that runs thru the property. Of my 19 members, there are about 7 that actively hunt, and the rest come infrequently or turkey hunt. I really want them to cut in such a way I can have a couple long straight logging roads I can plant. Like 200 yards long.

The planting position I have taken is lets soil test, lime and fertilze well and get alot of perennial plots going. The whitetail clover and Fusion plots I got established last year have been pounded. So much so that I am not even going to plant peas and beans anymore, just manage clover plots. IN the fall I will overseed those with wheat and brassica's.

I joined this club 3 years ago sight unseen. They only did fall ryegrass planting, so I started with spring peas and beans. Got 1 whitetail clover plot going, and saw how it was used and added more last year. This year I have put clover on nearly all the plots. I use primarily 4 different blends. Whitetail Clover, Fusion, Durana, and Plot Spike. Durana I tried this year. The rest I started last fall. I have also been putting out mineral mix, the kind that has lower numbers of salt and more of the minerals needed for antlers. Usually get it at TS, but I also use some Lucky Buck and I have some whitetail 30-06 mineral and vitimin mix to put out this spring. So my focus has been on getting fields where they are productive and are growing the kinds of forage that benefit the deer. I realize there is plenty to eat in the woods, but there isn't plenty to eat that is 40 % protein. Soil tested 2 seasons ago. I put 24 tons out there. Did most of that myself. First year I used my ATV and a groundhog max, the next year I bought a tractor. I use the ATV to spray now.

So I haven't spent much time scouting or developing area's for me to slip into. Alot of time I find an area and leave it alone until later in the season. I had camera's on two licking branch tree's with a scrape or multiple scrapes under them and this year there were no daytime buck pics. Last year on one especially I had day time pics. But its hard to hunt, because I really need wind out of the south to get to it without having to walk in from the south about 1/4 mile through some thick stuff. I found a new spot this year I need to develop for next season. I still am limited by my torn disk about where I can go.

Before they made me President, I just kind of kept to myself and hunted. I would talk to folks, but as far as sharing, not so much. Last year I saw a ton of deer, but I hunt alot. And I killed more than anyone else. Between me and my oldest son, we have killed the most this year, and I could easily have killed my doe limit. But because of my new role, I haven't. And the benefit is I learned alot about how the deer move thru the property. I probably need to invest in a tree saddle, and learn to use it. That means I will have to adjust my hunting style, and I will probably end up customizing a gun once I try a few of mine, although I think the 450BM AR will be the ticket, if I put a better scope for low light on it.