Matt/TN

I realized tonight just how bad the buck to doe ratio can be. I went out driving tonight to some known deer hotspots. Overall I saw 66 deer and 6 bucks. Around my hunting area it's probably about 3-4:1 which isn't ALL that bad but to the spot I went it was HORRIBLE. No one hunts this area either. It's a big agricultural area. I stopped at a corn field and got out and I swear it was like herds of cows. There were 45 deer in about a 1 acre field. I realize the bucks will hang back in the woods but I know theres not that many. Out of the 45 deer 3 were bucks. Just thought that was pretty bad. What is the approx buck to doe ratio in your area.

Bullet Hole Bailey

1-1 im not joking, its because there arent anywhere near 60 deer behind my house where i hunt

Matt/TN

They weren't behind my house but within about 8miles

mauser06

the buck to doe ratio in my area was pretty pathetic. id honestly say it was near 20 antlerless to 1 antlered deer when i started hunting in the late 90s.

since then we underwent major herd reduction and antler restrictions...i want to say 2002...

the area i do alot of my hunting is special regs...you can rifle hunt for does for 5 weeks. plus all the other seasons. the herd is definently thinned out. we dont see half of what we used to see...BUT...one thing ive noticed is i atleast see antlered bucks now. now id say its somewhere around 4-6 antlerless to 1 antlered...not tooooo bad...now for all them sub-legal bucks to become legal....for some reason the antler restrictions just dont seem to be doing a whole lot in my area...weve always had the nice ones that somehow make it...and weve always had the younguns..just not as many...something is wrong...we should be seeing lots of decint 2.5yo shooters..my guess is illegal taking of sub-legal bucks, jrs and others allowed to take sub-legals and hunters taking bucks in the late season with rifles, bows and flintlocks after they shed their antlers...

been neat to watch it all unfold...before in PA it was HARD to get an antlerless tag...im pretty sure that if you took a buck you couldnt even use your antlerless tag...so although we see less deer im atleast glad we see more antlered deer...wishful thinking keeps me looking forward to each season to see what made it....hopefully this year theres a couple more shooters...

please oh please guys dont turn this into a PA debate/arguement...im just stating what ive noticed in my area that ive been hunting hard for near 10yrs now...

bloodcrick

not a close ratio in my area either, but we are working on it!!

KYDeerHunter03

I am not really certain what the ratio is here, but during the winter we had about a herd of 20 that would hang out in our yard and sometimes even come up to the backporch to eat birdseedBut out of those 20 about 3 or 4 of them were bucks.

SaskBushMan

Not sure of the ratio but I wish the hunters around here would start filling their tags with does for atleast 2 seasons I think it would be a great help. To many horn hunters around here.

rankbull

our ratio is bad, so I shoot every antlerles that walks by.

Matt/TN

well what really needs to happen in this area I'm talking about is either:


A: The residents need to let people hunt. This is big wide open agricultural land. I may go take pictures tonight so everyone gets an idea.

B: The farmers need to get kill permits. No joke the 1 acre corn patch COULD be mowed down by a herd of the 45 deer I saw in a matter of days. So you would think the farmers would be getting sick of it. There is no doubt in my mind that the farmers could get kill permits because of the deer ruining their crops.



The overall health of the herd isn't good at all, you know there is some serious inbreeding going on due to the lack of bucks. There is also no way the carying campicity of the land is anywhere near the amount of deer there is. I would honestly be surprised to see a MATURE deer there dress over 140lbs. Considering the 2yr old I killed last year dressed right at 135. Just my thoughts

IL-Cornfed

WOW.... that's a TON of deer!!! [:-]

I couldn't imagine how stressful it would be to try to have any foodplots in that region ?!? The areas I hunt seem to be managed pretty well concerning overall deer populations and Buck to Doe ratios. In fact, IL is such a great QDM state because of UNLIMITED Doe tags and hunters that WILL do their best to tag several every season.

Last year I probably seen deer over the course of the entire season (Oct 1 to Jan 11) at nearly a 1:1 ratio. Of course when you have days in Nov where you may see only a Doe or two but then something like 6 pr 7 small bucks, it manipultaes the sighting ratio considerably. That being said, I don't think any property I have hunted in the past 20 years ever seemed to have much worse than a 1:3 ratio.

I know one thing, IF deer ratios and populations were like that on any tracts I hunted..... everyone I know would have all the venison they could handle! Shooting Does is just such a fun way to test tackle and to prepare for that shot of a lifetime!