Sometimes telling you hunting buddies that you didn't kill a buck can be tough. Peer pressure can be a powerful thing when it comes to assessing ones perceived prowess as a deer hunter. Often, the task of harvesting a doe has usually been something that could "wait til later" or not be done at all. Right or wrong, many of today's hunters have been raised to look more at the quantity rather than the quality side of deer management.

Hopefully, this is beginning to change. There appears to be a growing number of hunters becoming interested in being apart of producing the quality side of deer hunting, rather than wanting to see 30+ deer in a day. Now, it's my belief that many hunters would be content to see less deer if there were prospects of seeing more and bigger bucks roaming the forest.

Whenever a hunter of group hunters become interested in a quality deer management program, their initial goal is to produce bigger and better racked buck. After they get into the program things like what to plant in food plots, what supplemental protein feedings needs to be done, and what to do to manage the natural habitat come into play. Rarely dealing with the doe population come up in this sort of planning. Too often the question "what to do about the the doe population" is neglected of put off until a crisis occurs form over population.

When an area's deer population is allowed to exceed carrying capacities, the damage done to the natural habitat can be so acute that it may take years to come back. When there are too many doe, there is created a stress on the entire deer population. A by-product of this is that the rut becomes strung out, because there are not enough buck to service the overabundance of does when they com e into estrous. This not only results in later than normal births, but also inflicts a stressful toll on the antlered buck population.

Hunters often look at managing the doe population as a chore- a pain in the neck. Around these parts , the practice of harvesting does has been frowned on for generations. When is comes to shooting doe, traditions of the past often dies hard.

Harvesting enough doe requires proper hunter management. The hunter must be a part of the solution rather than be a part of the problem. This means that every hunter in a deer management program must be aware that "X" number of doe must be harvested for the overall benefit of the deer population. A quality deer management program cannot happen by only trying to kill the best buck roaming the property. Unfortunately, the lure of antlers often keeps hunters form supporting a quality deer management program. The mind set of " we won't kill any does during the rut because there may be a big buck following one of them, so we'll wait til after the rut is over" is counterproductive to the goal of high quality deer population management. And, taking does late in the season, after the deer hunting becomes pressured, is often not an easy thing to do; even if there is a high population of deer. So, what often happens is the this "wait period" ends up with a failure to harvest what needs to be taken, even by then most experienced hunters.

Deer hunting doe not always have to be antler driven. It's my belief that deer hunting should be about the experience and how we can improve things. And, in order to make things better, we need hunters who can thinking terms of being involved in everything it takes to make and maintain a quality deer herd- from the development of natural habitat to helping to keep the doe number in balance.

 

By: Charles Alsheimer of Whitetail News

- Habitat will be preserves if deer numbers are kept below the range's carrying capacity.

- Harvesting doe and putting less pressure on the buck population will provide a better adult doe to antlered buck ratio.

- There will be more mature bucks, more rubbing behavior, and more scraping behavior.

- With more mature bucks in the population, the rut will be more intense. Frenzied chasing and fighting will occur often.

- With a more balanced adult doe to antlered buck ratio, hunting techniques like rattling and calling will become more productive.

- The rut will be more strung out if there are too many doe and not enough bucks. With an adult doe to antlered buck ratio of 3 to 1 or less, the rut will last around 40 days as opposed to 90+ days if there are too many doe.

- With a more condensed rut, the majority of fawns will be born on schedule, rather than late in the summer.