And on a property that small, all 11 of those buck fawns born to the does living there, would have dispersed off onto surrounding properties in a 2-10 mile radius. Do some research on buck fawn dispersal. Unless you’ve got thousands of acres, 90% of the young bucks you see on your property will have been born somewhere else and dispersed over onto you. It’s a major reason why what your neighbors and neighbors neighbors are doing and shooting, really affects what you’re able to do and accomplish management wise on your property

So Mbrock and Abolt300... what acreage would you say it takes for a deer to be hunted on the same land it was born on? If all the bucks born on your property pretty much leave, should the goal of having healthy does and fawns change to trying to attract more spikes and 2 year olds? Or are the paths to both those goals the same?

I'm trying to decide if trapping coyotes should even be a concern anymore since those buck fawns wouldn't have stayed on my property anyways. Let the coyotes kill the fawns to make more room for the bucks coming in from other properties.

Yotes eat young doe fawns also...

Pwyse whether we like it or not coyotes are a substantial part of deer mortality on certain landscapes. Research out of South Carolina has pretty much negated any long term benefits to coyote control. It can be effective short term, but there’s so many transient (without a defined home range) coyotes on the landscape they quickly fill any voids from trapping. I’m not saying don’t trap. I’m not saying don’t shoot coyotes. I’m simply saying I manage deer herds now with a different perspective than I used to, and focus on providing key habitat requirements for successful fawning and rearing, plus nutritional needs for lactation and antler growth. If you’re providing those things, dispersing young bucks will utilize what you have. One of the primary places I manage is an absolute freak show for summer bachelor groups and development. Why? Because we are providing a lot of biomass in herbaceous growth and cover. It attracts a lot of bucks during antler growth and recovery. So many, in fact, they can’t all coexist on the same acreage when fall rolls around. So we, in theory, are benefiting a lot of other hunters those bucks disperse to, after spending half the year here. Does are in superb physical condition, and produce mostly twins, with some triplets, and they also disperse to surrounding properties. But let me tell you we pull a ton of 1-2 year olds that decide they want to stay. They just have to earn their place due to so much competition for great resources. I’d love to start a fawn capture study there and follow some of the fawns that do hang around, because right now I have some theories on some of the bucks that do stay. We pull a lot of runt looking 80 lb spikes from miles away that were born on poor habitat, and they don’t look like the same deer as some of our 125 lb 8 point one year olds that I’m fairly sure are born here and decide to stay. It’s very few though. Over the years we’ve seen a very high increase in fork antlered 1 year olds, but we are managing several square miles. That’s enough property to hold some of the bucks being born there.

Pwyse whether we like it or not coyotes are a substantial part of deer mortality on certain landscapes. Research out of South Carolina has pretty much negated any long term benefits to coyote control. It can be effective short term, but there’s so many transient (without a defined home range) coyotes on the landscape they quickly fill any voids from trapping. I’m not saying don’t trap. I’m not saying don’t shoot coyotes. I’m simply saying I manage deer herds now with a different perspective than I used to, and focus on providing key habitat requirements for successful fawning and rearing, plus nutritional needs for lactation and antler growth. If you’re providing those things, dispersing young bucks will utilize what you have. One of the primary places I manage is an absolute freak show for summer bachelor groups and development. Why? Because we are providing a lot of biomass in herbaceous growth and cover. It attracts a lot of bucks during antler growth and recovery. So many, in fact, they can’t all coexist on the same acreage when fall rolls around. So we, in theory, are benefiting a lot of other hunters those bucks disperse to, after spending half the year here. Does are in superb physical condition, and produce mostly twins, with some triplets, and they also disperse to surrounding properties. But let me tell you we pull a ton of 1-2 year olds that decide they want to stay. They just have to earn their place due to so much competition for great resources. I’d love to start a fawn capture study there and follow some of the fawns that do hang around, because right now I have some theories on some of the bucks that do stay. We pull a lot of runt looking 80 lb spikes from miles away that were born on poor habitat, and they don’t look like the same deer as some of our 125 lb 8 point one year olds that I’m fairly sure are born here and decide to stay. It’s very few though. Over the years we’ve seen a very high increase in fork antlered 1 year olds, but we are managing several square miles. That’s enough property to hold some of the bucks being born there.

Pwyse whether we like it or not coyotes are a substantial part of deer mortality on certain landscapes. Research out of South Carolina has pretty much negated any long term benefits to coyote control. It can be effective short term, but there’s so many transient (without a defined home range) coyotes on the landscape they quickly fill any voids from trapping. I’m not saying don’t trap. I’m not saying don’t shoot coyotes. I’m simply saying I manage deer herds now with a different perspective than I used to, and focus on providing key habitat requirements for successful fawning and rearing, plus nutritional needs for lactation and antler growth. If you’re providing those things, dispersing young bucks will utilize what you have. One of the primary places I manage is an absolute freak show for summer bachelor groups and development. Why? Because we are providing a lot of biomass in herbaceous growth and cover. It attracts a lot of bucks during antler growth and recovery. So many, in fact, they can’t all coexist on the same acreage when fall rolls around. So we, in theory, are benefiting a lot of other hunters those bucks disperse to, after spending half the year here. Does are in superb physical condition, and produce mostly twins, with some triplets, and they also disperse to surrounding properties. But let me tell you we pull a ton of 1-2 year olds that decide they want to stay. They just have to earn their place due to so much competition for great resources. I’d love to start a fawn capture study there and follow some of the fawns that do hang around, because right now I have some theories on some of the bucks that do stay. We pull a lot of runt looking 80 lb spikes from miles away that were born on poor habitat, and they don’t look like the same deer as some of our 125 lb 8 point one year olds that I’m fairly sure are born here and decide to stay. It’s very few though. Over the years we’ve seen a very high increase in fork antlered 1 year olds, but we are managing several square miles. That’s enough property to hold some of the bucks being born there.

Speaking of coyote depredation . Ft rucker put some good info out years ago about this. Best i recall , they concluded coyotes were responsible for north of 70% fawn mortality. Its an eye opener for sure

I try to trap at the right time to create a void of coyotes during fawning. I used to do the same with coons during turkey nesting. Will have to get back in both of them this year.

I believe there’s research now showing if you want to save your turkeys you need to be more concerned with the coyotes than coons.

I believe there’s research now showing if you want to save your turkeys you need to be more concerned with the coyotes than coons.

We found some coyote crap other day that had pieces of a Gobbler beard in it. We'd had a nice Gobbler in the area (on cam) and he disappeared, guess we know what happened to him now 🫤😡🫤