I’m good friends with the guy that handled the land for landowners in our club. Early 2000s I kept trying to get him to let me burn his the pines. He was on board but it had to be forestry ww would hire to burn it. Never could get the members to get on board. QDMA was promoting fire as a management tool. More acreage per dollar for the quality browse. We’d burn my buddies place and helped with turkeys more than anything. We used a leaf blower and bic lighter back then lol.

They were pegged with kill all does when they actually had numerous other studies they promoted for the betterment of deer herds. Hunters screwed up their messaging.

I had dreams of grandeur for our place but reality crept in.

I know of only one place that has had a blend of trophy/quality mix since the 80s. They kill older bucks but allow kids to kill their older poor racked bucks. Basically protecting the younger bucks. They have the resources to manage their land and have adjoining landowners on the same page.

The amount of bucks dying to rut or fighting is so small that it's not worth even considering, if we're gonna get that stupid with it, how many does are killed by cars compared to bucks. This crap is so silly every year. If you want more better deer quit shooting as many, if you don't give a crap shootem all. It's really scary to think some of yall are walking around with loaded guns!

You can say the same with over population, I wish someone would post what percentage of Alabama. Is so overpopulated with deer it's hurting the health of the heard. I would bet the farm it's less than 5%. So yeah go blast the hell out of does because you might be in that 5% and then wonder why you don't see any deer

What bothers me is this all or none mentality since Covid.

If you wanna manage your place like that knock yourself out. But at the same time don’t knock someone for wanting to better their deer herd.
Just because you want to keep it simple doesn’t mean the answer is simple.

You’re applying the same mentality you’re arguing against.

There’s numerous metrics biologist can look for. Just because the animal appears healthy doesn’t mean it is. Yes it may be surviving but surviving and producing healthy offspring are not the same. It’s already been mentioned once in this thread.

I honestly could care less what you’re doing on your place, just enjoy seeing and reading an honest discussion which is impossible to have around here. 😝

I really don't think i am. My personal opinion is the season is too long and too many deer are getting killed, that's MY opinion. I also know that no one cares about my opinion. The state is not gonna change anything based on my opinion. I also understand the state could care less about managing the deer herd. So getting up every day a complaint about what they should do is a complete waste of time. So that leaves us with what we can REALISTICALLY do. That answer is simple also.....the best we can with what we got! With that in mind the original question of this thread was managing buck to doe ratio. If you are managing, one would think you care bout the deer herd. Imo the best way to do that to meet what the question asked, is stop shooting so many bucks. No you can be an imbecile and ask what's too many. But too many is obviously less than however many your shooting to get you to ask this question if you shot 40 bucks last year 40 is too many, if you shot one last year one is too many. And again, if you want to shoot every freaking deer you ever see, I really don't care. But that is irrelevant to THIS thread.

MSU study revealed the average annual mortality on bucks in the SE is 10%, so by the time a cohort of bucks have survived until age 5, only 59 of the original 100 at birth remain. That is taking out hunting related mortality and vehicle collisions. So almost 50% of bucks will die by their 5th birthday if you take cars and hunters out of the equation.

Next.

There it is!!
Reality

I’ve already given an example on two properties in a post above. It’s considerably more than 5%. I guess it depends on how you define hurting the health of the herd. Like I said, deer are surviving in this state. They’re not thriving. Herd health could improve on vast acreages but people are passive managers, not active.

My eyes were really opened a few years ago when I hung out at processors recording data and collecting CWD samples on deer being brought in. It was very easy to pick out deer from quality habitat over those just surviving. Night and day. The amount of truly physically fit deer being brought in was about 10% compared to deer just getting by. And fat on their rump during the fall with acorns and corn on every 40 acres is not an indicator of overall fitness.

Next.

Forgot to mention, overpopulation is a relative term to area. If deer have resorted to consuming low quality, or low preference food choices, they are overpopulated. In some areas that may be 30 deer per square mile and others it may be 80. 80 deer in superb habitat are in better condition than 40 in poor habitat.

Matt,
I really appreciate your input on this thread and others. Thanks

Yep me too. Your educated opinion and knowledge of facts carries a lot of weight with me. Thanks!

Matt, I've been listening to some of Dr. Strickland at MSU's podcasts lately. Unbelievably interesting stuff based on scientific studies. The two of them that struck me the most were:

1. We've known for a while that does control more of a buck's genetics than the buck that sired her. But, what he's proven is the "genetic programming" bucks can get with better nutrition while in the womb. The jumps he's shown are remarkable, as compared to the control group. Most people quit feeding at all when deer season goes out...but that's when they need it the most.

2. The difference taking out the bottom half of each age class of bucks makes.

Both goals are unachievable for most, as it requires a controlled setting...either high fence or massive acreage. The feeding part also requires feeding during turkey season, which turkey hunters can't legally do.

I have a fortunate situation in that I have a close friend with large enough acreage and commitment to this plan that we are seeing the results of this management plan. The weekend before the snow was absolutely unbelievable as far as number of bucks seen, as well as numbers of quality bucks seen. Instead of a "hit" list of buck pics, he has a "do=not-kill" list of buck pics. This is the hard part, and most hunters aren't capable of not pulling the trigger in exchange for future good.

Zero corn on his place during deer season...just fields with quality grasses and grains. Pours high quality, high nutrition feed to them as soon as the season ends...all the way through September. It's working.

That’s the epigenetic triggers resulting from increased nutrition and conditions. Most ppl in AL have NO idea what native deer are capable of because the thresholds for epigenetic controls are not met, meaning deer are not expressing their potential and they never will, simply because of conditional stress that isn’t even fully expressed ( can’t look at deer in this state and say they aren’t healthy). In reality, they are not receiving what they need to trigger their potential. When you see it in practice it’s simply mind blowing. Bucks are capable of so much more than they are expressing.

Yep...I think I remember Dr. Strickland saying the bucks in the study put on 20-30 inches on average more than the bucks in the control group.

Now, now, Matt ... let's not bring facts, studies, percentages and research into the discussion. Tsk-tsk.

Follow the science! 🤪

I'm out.

Frankie don’t like science.

Sometimes neither do I. 😂

It’s a heck of a lot better than math.