Whitetail techniques vary a lot from east to west, and it seems to me that what works depends a lot on herd composition. For example, where I hunt in MT the buck/doe ratio is around 20%, i.e. 1/5th bucks, half of which are yearlings. As I understand, in most of the east and mid-west, it's usually closer to 50/50. No doubt someone will correct me if I'm wrong. This means that there is a lot more competition amongst the bucks to breed, and partly explains why rattling and scents are more effective. Anyone care to take up the discussion?

You are correct. For example. We are 1:1 on the property i hunt in South Texas and by the end of the season our bucks are usually missing a tine or two.
The idea is that you cull inferior genetic traits leaving your better bucks to breed. These will be your mature bucks, and in theory better bucks. It cuts down on the number of bucks you can kill, per se, if you are sticking to a pre-determined quota. But, they should be better deer, antler-wise.
From a hunting stand point it is great. While you have less mature bucks to hunt, the mature bucks move a whole lot more so you in-turn see more mature bucks. This is a big deal when you hunt in country were your line of site is about 30 yards!
All this is dependent, or part of a larger picture which is carrying capacity. If you are not worried about carrying capacity then I guess you can have whatever ratio you want.

Perry

Good response Perry. Up here in Archer and Young counties I think our ratio is somewhere in the 1:1 to maybe a 1:3 ratio. We have the 13 inch rule in the counties and the properties I work on also have aq 4.5 year old or older rule in place.

And yes by the last couple of weeks in the regular season it is common to see really good bucks with one antler broke off or all the tines gone.

A high fence place I worked on down in Erath county managed the property with a ratio of 2:1 or 2.5:1 bucks to does and the rut was a real rodeo on that place.

We have a high buck to doe ratio unfortunately a buck is lucky to make to two years old around here.If its brown its down.Thats what happens when you get 750,000 hunters in the woods for a 9 day season.

CHC,
Sounds like Sadie Hawkins Day for a month!

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Sounds like Sadie Hawkins Day for a month!

It was. One of the last times I worked there, the biologist and the owners and myself noticed turkey buzzards going into and coming out of an area a couple of hundred yards from the lodge on the property.

We got in our vehicles and drove as close as we could to the area where the buzzards were concentrated. We found two bucks locked up and dead, the smaller one was 150-155 class the other was 170-175+ class.

What has been hinted at here but not fully explored is that to get to that magical ratio you have to shoot the does. A mature doe with adequate nutrition, if capable of breeding, will drop two fawns per year. To add to that, Mother Nature leans toward procreation of the species. That means that slightly more than half the fawns will be doe fawns every year.

What that means is that every year the doe population at least doubles if there are not does taken. I have seen places where old timers who owned the land said "Nope; you aren't shooting my does. That is where the deer come from." One was lucky to see a buck at all, much less one old enough to take for the pot.

A lopsided b/d ratio is very hard on the bucks in northern states and provinces. Too many unbred does in December and even January. The relatively few bucks never stop chasing does that are coming back into heat long after the traditional November breeding period. The bucks literally drop dead from poor nutrition and exhaustion, combined with severe winter conditions. A good b/d ratio (2/1) is critical.

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I have seen places where old timers who owned the land said "Nope; you aren't shooting my does. That is where the deer come from." One was lucky to see a buck at all, much less one old enough to take for the pot.

I have seen that also. The odd part is, many of those old ranchers raised cattle and after the calves were born and weaned they would get rid of X amount of steers and heifers but not their herd bulls. Always fun asking them why they did that, but managed their deer numbers just the opposite.

Sometimes it is just difficult to get folks to grasp concepts such as managing overall numbers instead of just managing the bucks. It is hard or was hard, as the younger landowners/ranch managers of this day and time have access to better information, to get the old hands to comprehend that managing wildlife on their property has to be an active proposition, not a passive one.

You guys are lucky. In Ca where the voters get to decide the wildlife regulations and the Dept of Wildlife is made up of tree huggers we haven't had a doe season in over 50 years that I can recall. Our buck to doe ration is probably around 1:20 in most of the state.
Our deer season has been open since the 13th of Aug and although I have been out nearly every mourning and evening, I have yet to see a horn on my place. And they wonder why the hunter numbers are declining.

How effective is managing the bucks that are shot on a low fence place? That buck you pass on can easily get shot in the next pasture. I can see it would be very effective on a high fence place. Low fence?

That is why TP&WD established the 13 inch antler rule in so many counties.

I do not agree with that regulation, as I see bucks that on their best day, will never make the 13 inch inside limit.

That causes a problem, because inferior bucks are being kept in the gene pool, that should be removed.

In the ranches I have hunted here in Sonora, I have seen considerably more does than bucks, on my last hunt in 3 days i saw maybe 18 does and about 6 bucks, and a bunch of young guys with their moms I could not sex. Only bucks are shot on the ranches I have been too and with no exception I have never seen a ranch with a ratio of more than maybe 1 buck for every 3-4 does.

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Originally posted by carpetman1:
How effective is managing the bucks that are shot on a low fence place? That buck you pass on can easily get shot in the next pasture. I can see it would be very effective on a high fence place. Low fence?

We are low fenced and manage our bucks. Our process is two-fold.
Step one is to not shoot a buck until it gets a certain age, our's is 5.5 years old. We do not waiver on this rule. If you shoot a buck thinking it might get shot elsewhere, you have absolutely 100% removed it's chance of living.
Step two is to cooperate with bordering ranches, if they share the same management goals. I talk and share photos with our neighbors. We agree to let certain deer walk if they are big but not old enough. If it's over 5.5 the buck is fair game to anyone.
We also talk ratios and numbers to help achieve our goals. Luckily none of us are game hogs or trophy hoarders. We are all much more interested in the long term potential than short term trophies.

Perry

I don't know what happened to my response, things just suddenly disappeared. Her in Md the buck-doe ratio is 1 to 3 or 4. DNR says that this pretty normal and if hunting didn't keep it that way, nature would/ we have two big hunting areas. Area A is the western part of Md, from about Frederick west. More mountainous further out, and not as good a food areas. Area B is from Frederick to the Ocean, and much more deer likeable. This for whitetails. We also have Sika on "the shore" in the marshy areas. Rules have been adjusted some, but basically, if you got the limit of deer in each season, MLer and modern firearms, you could get close to 40 dear, legally. In the county I live in, if shooting with a bow, are unlimited does. The season runs from Sept till end of January next year, and there are two MLer seasons and two modern rifle seasons. Some areas, however, are restricted to shotgun and slugs, during the modern firearms seas. We have a pretty healthy deer herd, and the DNR says we have 35,000 deer a year killed on the highways. Pennsylvania, which is just to our north and 3 times as big, has another 69+000 killed on the roads up there.
some years ago, Md got smart and started allowing people to pick up just killed deer along the roads, just need to call the game warden, so not many seen along the roads much any more. Saw two on the way to DC this evening. Was dark, and they were feeding along the edge of the road.

On my prior post see a misleading statement or so. If you hunt with a bow the season is from Sept till the end of January. there are an early and later MLer and early and late Modern firearms seasons. these run for up to two weeks for each one, and are alternated during the Oct to January dates. I don't know of anyone, other than cullers, who get 40 deer, but know a few folks who get 20 and donate them to farmers and hunters feeding the hungry, or to families.

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We are low fenced and manage our bucks. Our process is two-fold.
Step one is to not shoot a buck until it gets a certain age, our's is 5.5 years old. We do not waiver on this rule. If you shoot a buck thinking it might get shot elsewhere, you have absolutely 100% removed it's chance of living.
Step two is to cooperate with bordering ranches, if they share the same management goals. I talk and share photos with our neighbors. We agree to let certain deer walk if they are big but not old enough. If it's over 5.5 the buck is fair game to anyone.
We also talk ratios and numbers to help achieve our goals. Luckily none of us are game hogs or trophy hoarders. We are all much more interested in the long term potential than short term trophies.

That system works as long as you can get everyone to cooperate. Sometimes the hardest part is getting everyone to cooperate, and some folks have to be weeded out between seasons. One of the hardest parts my boss hass is getting folks to take out does. Some folks just can not get it into their head that a buck, regardless of its genetics cannot reach its potential if it cannot get enough food.

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Originally posted by Crazyhorseconsulting:

quote:

We are low fenced and manage our bucks. Our process is two-fold.
Step one is to not shoot a buck until it gets a certain age, our's is 5.5 years old. We do not waiver on this rule. If you shoot a buck thinking it might get shot elsewhere, you have absolutely 100% removed it's chance of living.
Step two is to cooperate with bordering ranches, if they share the same management goals. I talk and share photos with our neighbors. We agree to let certain deer walk if they are big but not old enough. If it's over 5.5 the buck is fair game to anyone.
We also talk ratios and numbers to help achieve our goals. Luckily none of us are game hogs or trophy hoarders. We are all much more interested in the long term potential than short term trophies.

That system works as long as you can get everyone to cooperate. Sometimes the hardest part is getting everyone to cooperate, and some folks have to be weeded out between seasons. One of the hardest parts my boss hass is getting folks to take out does. Some folks just can not get it into their head that a buck, regardless of its genetics cannot reach its potential if it cannot get enough food.

You are correct about that. Age first, then nutrition. Too many mouths at the table and all the genetics in the world won't matter. We carry our deer at a 1:20, deer to acre, capacity. I wouldn't mind it being 1:25. The state biologists have told us we can have 1:13-15 with our brush/forage diversity, but that would be on the max side of the equation. We try to kill our deer early so more forage is left for winter too. It has taken better part of 8 yrs but we are really seeing some nice deer. Our avg 5.5 yr old is a 145" 5x5 deer. It's been a rewarding process.

Perry

Just e'm a fellow in AU with six ewes, looks like the last one may have aborted. Had ten lambs from five, one triplet, rest twins. One is on the bottle and might not make it so isn't counted yet.

Late rancher friend in the high country of CO. Had 3/b/50 cows and nearly always had 100% calf crop, sometimes a twin or two beat that rate. No one else I've ever known came close to that.
His cattle ranged the forest on permit and could be walked up to. With him I've seen them actually line up to get some scratching. He'd come away tickled pink of course but very tired from it all as everyone had to be scratched. They'd trot in from 1/4 mile off just to get in line. Payback was wonderful he said. IF he missed any, they'd follow him close until he gave them their fair share. Spoiled as could be. I've never seen that with cattle anywhere except there.

CO prints the ratios of each hunting unit for all the game listed in the CPW booklet if anyone is interested.
George

Male/Female ratios vary with each species of hoof stock. If I remember correctly back in 1990 when I started planning my first elk hunt in Colorado, in reading the various brochures and other material concerning elk and mule deer, thinking among biologists at that time ranged in the area of 25-30 bulls/bucks per 10 cows/does.

Whitetails breeding biology is different. Whereas Elk/Mule deer form varying size harems with dominant bulls/bucks fighting to keep the harems together and doing most or all the breeding, pronghorns are similar.

With whitetails, any buck coming across a doe in heat, breeds it or fights another buck that may have found that same doe, that is why the ratios are different. From data I have studied here in Texas, there is really a very small percentage around 10% + or - of all does that do not get bred annually.

With our hair sheep, Lora and I have one mature ram for 18 to 20 breeding age does and we have pretty much a 100% lamb crop annually.