In Georgia the number of anterless tags has increased steadily for the past few years.On all my hunting lands we have started seeing the results, more bucks! Also having antler size restrictions are helping grow them longer and therefore Bigger. Now we need help managing black bears to increase their areas into, newly opened forrest land that has been used to grow crops previously suggestions?? Rug

We have gone the same route in penna. and the combination of bad winters for the last 2 years and taking 6 pointers and larger have left us with weaker bucks in the rut that have'nt seemed to increase the does that are bred ratio . Seems to me that if we saved the bucks with better genetics and took the spikes and 4 pointers all of the herd would benefit . Like I said we have had a lot of hard snow so food has been scarce but when the game commision lets everone take 2 doe in a 2 week rifle season there is'nt much left in the woods . Me personally I think it was better before when you could see 15 or 20 deer the first day out and the local kids had a good chance of a small buck in the freezer that the whole family could enjoy

G'day All. It's funny you should mention that, 747. The members of my Deerstalking club have just finished the proposal to our state game management body to change our season from stag only to stag and doe, gender of tag to be awarded by ballot. Since the quality of the herds in general has been declining, here's hoping that sensible application of this will turn that around.

Cheers, Dave.
Non Illegitium Carborundum.
P.s, If you draw a doe tag, and don't fill it, you don't get to go in the ballot next year!

Rug, The state of WV increased the bear population by moving the season later. The theory was to allow the sows to go to hibernation prior to season opening. It worked and we now have an earlier opening season.

747, I felt the PA folks were on the right track with a higher harvest of does and reduced harvest of young bucks. I'm sure it did reduce the number of deer observed, but if similar to some of our over populated areas it was needed to permit quality forage food a chance at re-growth. Our DNR backed off the doe tags this year, but I think once they get back on track with their herd count they will release additional tags for the future. Gun seasons are usually schedled at the end of the rut and possibly your season was to early if it was actually interfering with mature bucks breeding the does. This season and next will give an indication of were your deer herd health is.

We have tried to work on our rancher in terms of the buck-doe ratio, but as an old cattle man, he just can't bring himself to sign up to shooting a bunch of does. In fact, although we do shoot a few, he doesn't want to see it. So, we shoot them, wait until he's at work, and then bring them in, skin and quarter them and put them in the ice chest.

As for our buck harvest restrictions--we don't shoot 1.5 y.o. bucks unless they happen to be long spikes and have large bodies (early births). We lay off the 2.5 y.o. and 3.5 y.o. unless they are long spikes or are 3.5 y.o. 8-pts. We shoot all the mature 8s we see. Yesm, we do make mistakes, as aging a buck on the hoof is chancy, but we don't usually second guess a hunter. It's not shoot and release. As a result, in the 5 years I've hunted this ranch, we've gone from seeing a very few 10-pt bucks per year, to the preponderance of mature bucks being 10s or better. Guess it could be chance, but we like to think our process has worked.

Dustoffer

Keep shooting those does. You are doing the rancher and yourself a favor. Especially if you shoot the older does that are more likely to have come from substandard bucks (assuming like you are that the bucks are improving).

Our buck rules are similar to yours, but we don't hit the 8's until 4.5.

Our ratio this year was 1:1 and we all saw more bucks than does.

quote:

Originally posted by tarbe:
if you shoot the older does that are more likely to have come from substandard bucks

Maybe I misunderstand, but are you saying older does are more likely to have come from substandard bucks?

Very curious as to where that comes from....

IV

Older does were bred at a time earlier in the management program, therefore more likely to have been sired by a lesser buck. If you are shooting the substandard bucks each year and leaving the breeding to the better bucks, on average, your younger does will more likely to be carrying the genes from the better bucks.

quote:

Originally posted by tarbe:
Older does were bred at a time earlier in the management program, therefore more likely to have been sired by a lesser buck. If you are shooting the substandard bucks each year and leaving the breeding to the better bucks, on average, your younger does will more likely to be carrying the genes from the better bucks.

Wouldn't that only hold true if all of the bucks were siring at an equal rate??

Wouldn't it also only hold true if the haplotype or desired trait in question of the "better" buck was a dominant allele where the expression of the desired characteristic was solely controlled by that allele and not a combination of alleles as most traits are are contributed to by the environment and the resulting proteins coded for by the specific allele in question?

Just a thought....

IV

I suspect that it takes "good genetics" from both the doe and the buck to produce quality antlers. We interpret a ten point or better as a standard for a buck's genetic potental. But I dont think we have a way of knowing what potential the doe has to give. If we knew which does gave us "tens" then we could shoot all the does that did not or could not. Does anybody know research about what a doe contributes to offspring quality?
Neat stuff!
John358

For the past couple years my family and I have been shooting just does and passing up all bucks unless it is huge. We are starting to see more and bigger bucks. I must say that our land in South eastern Ohio is very over populated and hunting is almost deer hhas become more of a chore-I still love it. Colectivley we take 9-12 deer every year. All but one in the past 3 years have been a doe. Well I did shoot a crappy 8 point last year. Had too the deer was huge and had the smallest rack I hav eever seen on a deer that size. We aged it with the help of our Ex-conservation officer buddy he estimated it was 4-5 years old. I am not kiddind the rack was pathetic. Any way- I say shoot more does and crappy bucks and you shoulod see more and hopefully better bucks-Ben

I have heard of none yet, but with the new developments in identifying SNP's (Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms-- genetics mumbo jumbo for where a single "A" "C" "T" or "G" is the only difference in a long segment of DNA) it is quite possible to identify SNP's and (in turn)the effects they have on antler development (which probably has thousands of genes that contribute)

But nonetheless, we are headed that direction. Problem is most genetics research is towards species of greater priority (extinction, threatened etc.) than deer so the genome is not mapped as of yet. I was just at a conference where I heard a talk about the costs of mapping an entire species genome could go down nearly 1000 fold and the time to do so could be cut from months to weeks or even days.

Anyone want to "buck up" (pardon the pun) for the costs of sequencing the entire odocoileus virginianus genome???

IV

All you guys are doing right. We have been doing to same things in South Texas for 13yrs now and the results are amazing. 4.5yrs and 8 or less points and it goes. Age is the biggest factor in your senerios. You are letting your herds average age reach maturity, 6.5 yrs, and by default your seeing better bucks. Bringing the ratio closer just lets more bucks get more groceries and offer you the chance to see bucks. This is all really simple and when applied the results are soooo rewarding. I laugh when i hear of people buying deer from somewhere else to "improve" genetics. It is a complete waste of money and I'm sure a pain in the neck. Look at the record books, good deer come from all over and the common demominator is MATURITY. Good management.

Perry

i saw 12 doe this morning in 2 hours and havent seen a buck since mid november.

KSTEPHENS, Sounds like you need to be killing some does and lay off the bucks where you are hunting.

Often when the club or whatever starts taking plenty of does, they get just as wary as the bucks. The result is you don't see as many deer but they are there.

Don't be afraid to take the does, preferably early in the season. This way they won't be around to eat up the food but also so there will be a better chance of most of the remaining does will be bred during the first estrus cycle resulting in more early born fawns. These early borns will have better forage and a better chance for survival,growth, and antler development. Merg

Superb advice from several posts here.

Get your buck:doe ratio to no more than 1:3, keep the average age of your does at less than 3.5 yrs old , and your fawning rate a greater than 75% per year. And also keep your buck ages @ 5.5 plus yrs and you will have fantastic hunting forever. I always hear of "culling" spikes....out of over 1200 "spikes" I've ageed exactly 2 were over 1.5 years old. They are just young deer, I've tagged some @ 1.5 yrs, and you should see what they turned into at 4.5 yrs of age. Let'em walk and grow up.

John 358, thanx. You nailed it. I often hear so much about "genetics" and they actually play a minor role in quality deer management. Food and habitat play an even larger role because without good food and shelter, even Goliath would have been a raghorn. Too many people put so much emphasis on the buck borne genetics when the does play an even greater role. Nearly 85% of bred does bear the young of TWO SEPARATE BUCKS. Strange as that might sound, it's been proven time and again. So it's really the doe who's the driver in the equation. Controlling doe populations is paramount to good genetics. In a 5 year period, ONE SINGLE DOE can be the matriarch of over 50 deer. (If you don't believe it, draw 5 lines across a sheet. In the first block put Doe 1 and her two fawns - 1 buck and one doe. In block two put Doe1 and her two fawns and then HER Fawn 1 and her two fawns. In block three, you have Doe 1, Fawn 1 and Fawn 2 along with Fawn 1's doe fawn producing twins. In just 3 years you already have 12 deer tied to Doe 1 and the herd increases exponentially the next two years)

I was just at a conference that they were talking about larger cervids(moose) and some of the studies done with moose, red deer and another european species(I think Roe deer). One interesting point was how important nutrition, both that year and in previous years, can be to cows/does. Some studies have suggested that a small calf might never "catch up" as far as growth and reproduction, even with improved conditions.

I wonder how this jives with QDM.....I think that smaller fawns don't grow as large the first year and maybe even for years after. Poor nutritional may manifest itself differently in does and bucks, with small does(nutritionally stressed) not heaving as large of fawns and those fawns not able to grow as big.

This would support what tarbe is saying but not because of genetics but from a nutritional stand point...healthier does have larger fawns which can grow into larger bucks because they are closer to reaching their genetic potential.

My hypothosis...remember how much you paid for it!


-phil

The Arkansas W&F did test in our hunting zone (SE Ark.) & determined that we have a 13 to 1 doe buck ratio. We have a problem. Shoot more does. They eat better anyway.

When I was in college getting my wildlife mgt degree in the 1960's the western states with either sex deer hunting had the best managed deer herds,ideal buck to doe ratios of 7 to 1 is ideal.Here in CA the Bds of Supervisors over rule game mgrs so doe hunts have been stopped far too long.This past fall in the Klamath NF all I saw were does way too many does & a warden told me buck numbers were very low.One time when I mentioned a doe hunt to a rancher he said no way then I told him I was going to contact legislators to pass a law that only bulls could be marketed he got really mad & our conversation ended.