I own a small piece of land but I feed year round and pull a lot of deer off of other property’s. I’ve got a lot of deer hanging on my property and over the years the does have over populated it and all the bucks I had living on it have moved to other places only to be seen here and there instead of all the time. By the first of January the few bucks I have left go to neighboring properties to be with a doe instead of a lot of does. The bucks will chase and breed does from January 1 until there horns fall off the first part of April. To me there is no rut on my property anymore. Back when my numbers were in check the rut was intense but now you rarely see any rut activity. When my numbers were in check there was always bucks living on my property and you would see just as many bucks as you do does but now it’s not like that. I plan on taking some kids or people in need of meat to shoot several off my property this year especially the ones that don’t breed and all they do is eat every year then they get a ticket to the processor

I got to learn more about this homestead you speak of. You said “miles in either direction”. I’ll take that as at least 2 miles, potentially more. Two miles in every direction means you are in the middle of 10,240 acres. If you have a hundred acres, surrounding by 10000 acres of land, that is not legally hunted - then that is by far, one of the rarest places in the state of AL. I’ve worked forestry and studied maps in about every corner of the state. I’m pretty familiar with the national forests and public land scene - but these are obviously hunted properties.

Guess I’m just curious where this jewel exists.

Mining company land all around us state park butt's up to that then a couple miles of high fence past that

I don't know how many acres it is around me on my side of the road but huntstand shows it to be about a 3000 acre block of land with no to very minimal hunting pressure. There are two guys across the highway that hunt and we swap pictures and never do have the same bucks on camera. One guy kills a buck or two a year when he's not traveling for work. I think he didn't kill anything last year. Then the other guy is about two miles from me on the opposite side of the road. They kill a good many does but he's very selective on the bucks they kill.

So, it’s hunted - just nobody shooting does.

Obviously game camera and hunting observations tell you most of what you need to know. But somebody will need to shoot some at some point. Either poachers or the casual hunting that takes place.

Same thing happened at the house.

Lot of good suggestions. A very educated doe can raise a lot of bucks. Just keep in mind most deer travel where there is food. Deer could be coming from a large area and some times it is tough to get an actual count. It is kind of like watching an old timer farm, he would always dry out some seed and put some in the freezer for the next year. Save some seed.

What's the end goal just to shoot a few does? Everytime we try it someone shoots a button buck or spike and a few does and we basically end up right where started just down a few deer.

If you shoot a button buck or spike while doe killing you haven’t hurt a thing. Those are bucks likely to disperse anyway. If less than 20% of your antlerless harvest is young bucks you’re not doing any damage. He has plenty of deer, and wants to share that opportunity with others. Killing 5-6 does out of a group of 22 is not detrimental in any way.

Here’s my reason for shooting does whether is on the large property at the camp or on our 40ac here at home.

People are gonna say that you gotta shoot some of them eventually as if they will just keep on piling in and accumulating more and more does…..That’s not what happens though……They typically hit a point where social stress over resources kicks in and the older does run anything else off…….You’ll get to a point of seeing 20 does or so and that will be as many as you ever see….

This is why people talk about not seeing bucks anymore when doe populations get high in an area……Those old does are running off any young bucks that try to disperse into the area and set up shop…..This is how bucks end up often times setting up their core area in secondary locations….That’s just how the population dynamics set up on a landscape scale…..Shooting does in this scenario opens up holes for young bucks to fill….This idea would be ok if you had a lot of land and a lot of deer…..Your not going to grow bucks on 100 acres though…..the best strategy in this situation is to draw them to you with hot unpressured nooky

Hell , you gonna kill a young buck or spike now and then even if you're careful. It ain't gonna hurt nothing . Just don't shoot the biggest doe out of the group dont shoot the first doe that comes out unless you sure its a doe

A lot of these “secondary” locations on the landscape where bucks tend to end up calling home outside of the rut used to not get that much pressure from hunters because they typically arent great looking hunting spots….That changed a few years ago though……Now these bucks are being targeted with corn piles in all those little hidey holes in the edge of town or behind some houses, etc…..Most people’s square that they exist within is having a higher level of buck harvest occur as a result…..thus lowering the buck to doe ratio for the whole square. This is why tags will eventually be issued….in order to try and regulate some of that over harvest…..

This concept is how the big plantations are being impacted even though they are “THE BIG PLANTATIONS” …….Most of these places are predominately covered with prime fawning habitat for does….All of those native warm season prairies for quail habitat is perfect habitat to raise fawns in so therefore a high value resource for does……

What ends up happening is that many of the bucks end up dispersing outward away from the heavy doe concentrations into the secondary habitat that surrounds these places where they get shot by the general hunting public around them……It probably used to be that plenty of these bucks would survive in these secondary areas and return during the rut to the heavy doe areas to breed……Now that everyone is sniping bucks out of every woodlot possible though……there likely arent nearly as many of these bucks to come back home to the plantation to breed the wad of does that the habitat is producing…..Dont get me wrong, I’m sure the hunting is still good on the plantation but its how things change from "what they used to be" without you realizing what happened…..

I think the answer to the OP will vary due to significant factors. To piggyback on what CNC is saying, in feeding deer over the past few years, I've come to the conclusion that when a certain amount of does zero in on a food source they exclude bucks from coming there. The "sweet spot" on our leases seems to be around 10-11 does. When you start getting more than that on any given feeder, buck visits seem to decrease. This is just my anecdotal observation on my hunting land... it may not be that way elsewhere. But, on my place when 10-11 does become regular at any one food source, I'm removing a few.

We have 34 acres next to about 2200 acres that only barely sees hunting but also not far from public land. We have consistently had 3-4 does that live around “the yard” year round. There is another group that has a different but intersecting core area. Usually we top out at 11-12 does total(on camera at some point) by the middle of December showing up to two of my three feeders. Interestingly, they’ll all show up at a spinner in the woods and the gravity feeder in the yard, or the gravity feeder and spinner on a small plot 150 yards away, but not all three in a given year even though these three feeders are spread in a line only about 500 yards total. I get the rare picture of bucks between March and November. Like one every other month, one time, rare. But come December I start seeing them stroll through. They don’t go to the spin feeders even at night while the does are there. But they’ll parade by, sometimes 6 or more at once, past the gravity feeder in the yard. They still only rarely eat from it. But they hang around 30 minutes or more. We take one doe off the property each season in the last two weeks. They are nearly tame by mid November from seeing us and nothing happens. Still, we don’t hardly see the dozen bucks we know are adjacent to our property during the rut except at night.

Shoot them. I need to shoot more. We killed 10-12 per year for the 1st 3 years we lived on the farm. Didn't shoot any for the next 3 years and had great buck population and killed multiple good deer. Starting to get out of hand again. Not uncommon to see 15- 20 every day hunting.

Every time you shoot a doe 3 bucks sprout from the trees.

Your ground is much more fertile then ours. We only get 1.5 bucks. I guess I need to lime harder next year.