Lets just assume for a minute that 30 large property owners have gotten together in Bullock Co and we have 50K acres under a doe management cooperative for the county going into next season…….Right now the majority of folks are reporting populations being WAY down from what they used to be so the cooperative has decided to completely shut down doe harvesting until populations get back to a level where folks want them……

So there’s the question…….Where do we want them???.....What is the cooperative going to use as the gauge or metric for when we’ve reached a more ideal population range??.......I’m guessing ideal for hunters and managers is at a point where we have the maximum amount of buck fawns being born the habitat can produce with the fewest amount of does producing them…….That gives everyone in the county the best possible starting point for buck numbers and herd quality….What its eventually going to come down to is determining a target weight range for adult does in each county along with a corresponding “stable” range for the county doe harvest totals where that occurs……

I’m just throwing out some numbers here but basically in our hypothetical test county…..we’re gonna drive down the total doe harvest in Bullock Co from 2100…….. to maybe 1500 does or less next year……and hold it there…….and watch for the population to start growing until our average adult doe weight trends below lets say the 110-120 lb range…….Once it begins to drop to 105 then that will be our trigger for the cooperative to start back shooting a few does until the weight trends back up slightly into our target range……115 being the sweet spot…..Again just numbers for an example that most certainly need tweaking but you get the point........ this would begin to show you where your lower “bounds” fall out as far as total doe harvest numbers go……It would tell you that at a 110 lbs average we need to shoot roughly 1800 ish does to remain stable……If we really wanted to we could keep trending up with harvest until average doe weight increased to 120 and find an upper bound to the harvest…..That’s where our 1800-2200 target range for Bullock county came from with my original example…..That’s our wiggle room so that we’re not trying to cut hairs but rather just keeping it between the yellow and white lines ……Maybe its 1900-2100......Right now we’re barely keeping it out of the ditches in some places though……

Bullock co. has around 623sq. mile=400,000acres, can you control doe populations with 50,000acres?

You just don’t understand the plan Cape. The 50,000 acres are going to act as the stocking zone for the county. They are going to forgo killing any does on their big managed properties, in order to improve the deer hunting for all the smaller neighboring properties surrounding them. The same ones that will continue to kill the chit out of them like they have been. Then, with the large landowner co-op properties no longer shooting or turning over any part of their doe population, a much higher percentage of their buck fawns will disperse off onto the “shoot anything” smaller neighbor’s properties, thus insuring that they still have plenty of young bucks to kill every year in addition to all the does. In addition, most of the non-co-op properties will also still be killing the crap out of does and in doing so, they’ll lower their dispersal rates and retain a larger percentage of their young bucks every year for harvest too. The small property owners will be all for it!

Sounds like a great plan CNC. Should be really easy to get the large landowners to jump at that deal. Your best and most effective way to sell it to the large landowners will be to pitch it as “ just think about all the money you’ll be saving on bullets, you won’t have to shoot all those does or hunt as much” because that will be the only tangible benefit to the large landowners for participating in the experiment.

I think you could if you had it fairly spread out across the county

Keep in mind too that these are for the most part going to be 50K prime acres… …..If we really wanted to up the game then the cooperative would plan for a big trapping run this July so that hopefully we create a little boom to save us a few years of time trying to regrow……Just looking at the numbers I really don’t think Bullock Co is going to see much of any regrowth occur the way things are right now……Doe harvest went back down to around 2000-2100 does this year which is about the same number that was getting killed before…. but now our population is lower after we shot the 2900……So that same 2100 does on our new population is probably still too high for growth……At best growth is probably going to be sloooooow ……Need to get more folks on board not shooting them until it drives it down a few hundred more does……At some point folks should be able to use their eyeballs and see if growth is occurring…….

CNC, if I'm reading correctly you're saying large landowners cutting back on doe harvest due to their neighbors killing "too many" would be beneficial. If so, that seems clear. I'm not a large landowner, but I factor in neighbor harvest tendencies at my places.

Also, I've read for years where some large properties "need" to kill lots of does and they dread it/don't enjoy it. If a smaller neighbor wants to do the work for the bigger properties, it seems like a win-win.

Yep, that’s basically it…….the game check data just helps you see how many does all the other “neighbors” are wanting to shoot so you have a reasonable idea of how much to compensate for that…….Had there been a cooperative in place last year when the large increase in doe harvest occurred they would have seen it occurring and compensated by shutting their doe harvest down early…..Instead many of the plantations just added to the over harvest with last minute doe shootings……Had this idea been in place you could have looked at the game check data and seen that we were already 100’s of does over the goal when those last minute doe shooting were occurring…..Those are self-inflicted wounds now that populations are down

Here's the part of it that I’m not sure how we’ve gotten twisted around to believe differently……but……Let’s just say that our goal for Bullock Co is to shoot 2000 does county wide for population control……If the peak of the rut isnt until late Jan and hunters spend the first 90% of the season thinning those 2000 does down from this area or that…….I don’t know about everyone else….but when the rut gets here at the end of the season I’m gonna want to be sitting in the areas where the does HAVENT been shot out…… They can spread out and fill those voids the other hunters created in the spring and summer after the season is over……

If plantations wanted to hold more bucks and less does they could let a stand or two skip that 2 year burn rotation and let it go to 3,4 or 5 and get stemmy……or you could also go into some of those hardwood ridges and drop some big trash trees horizontally along the military crest of the ridge and on points and create bedding spots that bucks like…….You could also drop some along the creeks and open up sunlight to grow cane thickets along the bottoms……It aint ALL about the does just filling up any given stand…..the landscape dictates a big portion of how that occurs…..Bucks like some of the secondary locations outside of the NWSG prairies and they also like ground structure just like a bass holding on a log

So if you understand all of that now……then we can use our doe harvest range……lets say 1900-2100 for Bullock……as our goal for how many bucks we want to try to limit ourselves to as well…..This is where buck to doe ratio is really being controlled…..Ideally we would keep buck harvest down to the same level or less than the doe harvest number that holds the population stable……in our case as long as we arent killing more than about 2000 bucks then we should have pretty good age structure…….

Many counties are killing 1.5 to 1.8 times more bucks than does though…..If that’s the case then it doesn’t really matter what you’re doing on your own property……that’s ^^^^ dictating your buck to doe ratio……Increasing doe numbers in this case to try and match killing too many bucks doesn’t fix the problem….it just lowers the population……This is the fallacy we’ve been taught in the past…….If 2000 does is holding us stable in Bullock Co and hunters are killing 3000 bucks……we cant just raise doe harvest to 3000 to balance that without tanking the population…….You have to lower the buck harvest if you want better age structure…..OR……the other option is to raise population levels so that 3000 does becomes the new stable quota……and now you shoot 3000 does and 3000 bucks…..That’s assuming the habitat could sustain such a population increase

This is how you manage buck age structure through “total buck harvest” though and why that buck doesn’t need shot just because somebody deemed him a cull when there’s already 500-1000 more bucks being shot than does in your county……Jackson for example…….That was kinda the whole basis for my argument about just shooting an inferior racked buck because he’s 4 years old if it doesn’t tickle your fancy …….You’re just adding one more to that buck accounting line…..If you’re already 500-1000 over then you really don’t need one more added……

If you're wanting to recruit bucks or maintain bucks in order to improve age structure over a large area, you need to be shooting 30-40% less bucks, than you do does, in any given year, up until an adequate age structure has been re-established. Probably looking at a 5-7 year period of decreased buck harvest across all age classes to help remedy the issue. Natural buck mortality is and always will be significantly higher than natural doe mortality. Matt even quoted the study showing that only 59% of bucks make it to 5 yrs old, even with hunting completely removed from the equation. Killing exclusively bucks for 40 yrs, then moving to killing virtually equal numbers of does and bucks every year, is exactly what got us into the situation we currently have. I'm in complete agreement with you CNC, that in specific areas and certain counties of the state (a lot of them at that), the does absolutely need protection from overharvest, but the bucks need it too (even worse than the does due to their higher natural mortality). You simply cannot have buck and doe fawns being dropped at the same rate 50/50, and then expect to be able to maintain a healthy buck/doe ratio and buck age structure on a long term basis, while still harvesting just as many, or harvesting even close to as many, bucks as does every year. Even if you were starting with a great B/D ratio and great buck age structure, which is absolutely not the case in 98% of Alabama, you're losing ground on the buck side of the equation every single year. It's a hard pill to swallow but we are simply killing too many deer every year, and especially too many bucks when the recruitment rate of bucks into older age classes, is so poor due to a general lack of trigger restraint throughout most of the state.

So I guess probably ideal or “great” would be in the 0.50 – 0.75 range……and then 0.76 – 0.99 being “good”……and then anything over 1 going downhill from there……We have a handful of counties flirting around the .80 -.99 range using the last 5 year average …..Keep in mind this map doesn’t show us anything about the deer population going up or down…..just the ratio at which they’re getting killed……It’s a pretty good piece of evidence for why there arent really any bucks out there that NEED shooting when you start having cull debates

In order to improve the age structure, we have to get large quantities of bucks back into the 3+ yr old age classes. To do that, buck harvest has to be cut way back or it will take forever to accomplish. According to the study Matt posted about, 40% of bucks will not make it to 5 yrs old, even if not a single buck is killed by hunting. It's nothing more than a statistical and math problem. Based on that, I'd say 0.40 or less would be good......0.41 - 0.60 decent.....0.61 - 0.75 would be an improvement over where we are. Anything between 0.76 and 0.85 would be much better than what is happening currently but you'd still be losing ground every year with regard to improving age structure. Problem is....which bucks are the easiest to kill? Those 1-3 yr olds six and eight points that are still young and dumb. If you have a 120 day season to hunt, and the majority of your buck harvest is almost completely wiping out most of your younger age classes of bucks, your recruitment rate into the older age classes is always going to be negligible. Alabama needs to drastically reduce the harvest of those 1-3 yr old bucks (which probably make up 75-80% of the current bucks harvested in the state) by 50-75%, for a 4-5 yr period at least, in order to give them a chance to make it into those older classes, and remember that 40% of them still will not make it to 5, even if they do not catch a bullet or arrow. Alabama's herd management, season length and regulations have really screwed things up within the state and it is going to be painful to fix. Personally, I do not think that it is possible to fix it at this point without a major culture change among the hunting population, and I know that it is not fixable with Chuckie in charge (he's way more interested in maximizing revenue and playing politics than the health of our deer and turkey) and the appointed CAB, making decisions about wildlife regs, instead of the degreed, boots on the ground, wildlife biologists like Matt Brock and others who really should be the shot callers on regs and management of the herd..

I wonder how far in under ideal population capacity we are across the board??.....That matters a good bit......The lower we push the population the less bucks you have to work with.....How much are we selling ourselves short from a capacity standpoint in most areas??

So follow me for a minute and this is how I see someone answering that question……

We’re gonna hypothetically start out in Bullock Co with 100 does and the plan is to let the population grow to an “ideal” population range…..In the beginning lets say that our grown adult does weigh 120+ lbs on average and we’re producing fawns at a rate of 1.39 fawns per doe….. These numbers are just for an example of the concept so don’t get too hung up on things being exact…..we can adjust those…..So it’s gonna look kinda like this as the population begins to multiply and fill in space……

100……1.39………120+
200……1.39………120+
500……1.39………120+
1000…..1.39………120+
1500…..1.39………120+

Yada…..yada…..yada……until you’re eventually gonna get to a population threshold where weight and birth rate begin to be effected by population growth and they begin to drop……Something kinda like this anyways

8000…… 1.35………119 lbs
8500……. 1.24………116 lbs
9000……..1.11………113 lbs
9500……..1.01………109 lbs

If you really wanted to simplify it, then what you really need to figure out is what is the ideal average weight range for does in your area and you use that as a guide……….About where do birth rates begin to fall off?……That gives everyone some kind of simple gauge to go by…..As a group we want to produce the most buck fawns we have the potential to produce using the fewest amount of does……and that’s what that threshold represents……

How do you figure the carrying capacity of the land when you factor in bait and food plots?

The same way I just described……by using the health of individual does that are sampled as a guide to herd health……I do wonder though if corn might prop up weights to a point where they are impacting the native vegetation more than we want them to while still holding weight…….If that were to be the case then I think its still just a simple adjustment of moving our goal weight range up a notch…..instead of 110-120 maybe we move it to 115-125……or something to that effect……Its something I’d keep in the back of mind to maybe consider if weights looked good but the habitat looked like it was getting browse lines and such…..I’m not sure this is even something to have to worry about but it did cross my mind with as much corn as some herds are eating…..

Except for maybe like the southwestern corner and portions of the bottom 1/3 of the state where you might need to take off 5-10 lbs……..I would think that a goal range of 110-120 lbs for adult does would be a very conservative range to go with for most anyone else around the state……I think most of us would agree that a grown doe that weighs 110-120 lbs is a healthy doe just about anywhere……To simplify it for everyone, if your average for grown adult does is falling out within that range then you’re probably ok……If you’re down in the 95-105 range then that’s where I’d probably be looking at population issues……and again that’s probably being conservative and maybe being 5-10 lbs high on all of that to begin with……..

But……at the end of the day this ^^^ is really what the population discussion should boil down to……Is our goal weight range too high….. or too low…..or just about right for what we want to see in the field??

I was in a QDM club for 27 years and we kept good records of what we killed and what the live weight was and other pertinent information. We had a state biologist in the club that aged jaw bones and made recommendations for the following year. Habitat changes have a huge effect on deer populations and weights.