My friend Bryan killed a nice deer

35 shooter

Well-Known Member
Where i live in MS. it's pretty much the same. North of 84 hwy the season ends on the last day of January.....does and bucks on private land.
South of 84 hwy the season goes through the second wk. of Feb....bucks only.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
if you reduce the buck numbers you reduce the herd numbers.
I know it sounds wrong.
but the younger bucks can't breed near as many does as a bigger buck can.
and the bigger ones can't breed them all.
they just don't have a long enough window of estrus for that to happen.
as time goes by the breeding issue becomes worse for the bucks and the older does just die off.
 

Winelover

North Central Arkansas
One breeding doe has the potential of removing three deer, from the population. Bucks can only mate, they don't propagate.....
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
one doe yes.
but if you look at it like this.
you have 80 does scattered about in small groups and only 2-3 bucks in the area.
the window of opportunity for those bucks to run into and mate with those deer is pretty marginal.
so at best 40 of them get bred.
take out 2 of those bucks during an extended hunting season.
the does have their fawns which brings the numbers up again, but the next year the young bucks are once again culled from the numbers.
now your buck ratio is even lower so even fewer does get bred and more die off over the winter.
the next fall you only have the surviving 2 yo bucks to breed.
they can't breed that many does, so you end up with a number of deer in an area that stays fairly small and sustained.
 

Doughty

New Member
fiver has got it right. For a prime example of how not to do it, look at California's NO doe hunting policy.
 

Winelover

North Central Arkansas
Maybe be the case for the "Wild West"....not so for the East. We don't have the natural predators nor the killing Winters. Just automobiles and hunters.

When the Michigan Department of Natural Resources had a Bovine Tuberculous epidemic in the Northern Lower, one could get as many "doe permits" as one wanted. Not so with "buck tags".

Here in Arkansas, standard policy is for "brush guards" on front of pickup trucks and large SUV's, due to large number of car deer crashes. Arkansas allows hunters to take twice as many does than bucks. In my zone, it's 2 to one. Combine that with the "three point" rule, tells me they want to reduce the doe herd, rather than the bucks.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
it must work here.
Idaho recently implemented a youth hunting program where kids under 18 can take either a buck or a doe.
I see groups of 5-6 does and only 1-2 of them will have a fawn or fawns with them.
I also see a lot of does by themselves during summer and fall.
 

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
Fiver, how is your wolf population? I know that parts of Canada, like where I hunted bear, they are seeing a decline in deep population as the wolf population grows. You can guess what happens to wolves when they see one.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
same thing that happens here I'm sure.

tags are cheap and good for the whole year, except for most of a month [during which time you spend another 12 dollars for a new tag]

I know of one spot the wife seen a pair while waiting for us to come down from hunting, and me and Littlegirl watched another one cut through the trees this fall.
we thought it was a yote so it got a pass.
then we seen a doe walk right through the same opening about 3-4 minutes later and realized it was only about a foot taller.
the two places are about 5-6 miles apart.
they are also only about 2 miles from the Wyoming border, and just down from the canyon [snake river] that leads to Yellowstone from the south [past Jackson Hole]
 
F

freebullet

Guest
Kill a doe you done killed 2-3 of next year's deer & the next year.... Seems all the does get bred round here. They're like bunnies! All got babies next spring.
 

Rally Hess

Well-Known Member
If you need some wolves we would be more than happy to share ours with you.
Is Bryan a trapper, he looks familiar to me. Nice buck too.
 
9

9.3X62AL

Guest
Doughty called it, concerning the California deer management strategy--which is antedeluvian, at best. Full agreement with Lamar's premise.
 

35 Whelen

Active Member
Nice work Bryan......any estimate on the velocity of that load? The more I read and research these marvels of cast lead, the more impressed I am. My goal this year is take all manner of game in my area with cast. That boolit looks like a scaled down version on the 360-210 NOE Thumper I have for the Whelen and the 358 Win.......
Again...well done , enjoy the good eating