Shooting Does

[BuckSutherland]

Bucksutherland:

I thought I heard a statistic that said there are more wolves in Minnesota than almost all the other lower 47 combined. How can they say there aren't that many wolves?

You tell me. I think its a real miracle that I have wolves on my 5 game cameras EVERY SINGLE TIME that I check them from my land in Cass County. I am so sick of these mangy bastards. But the DNR will tell you that we only have about 2,600 wolves in the state. I found 4 kills on our land again last year after 5 the year before. They pretty much eat everything other than the tail and the shit sack.

You want to find out how many wolves there really are get a shirt that says "I love wolves" and walk into a bar in NE MN the night before opener and see how long it takes before someone takes a swing at you. A lot of tradition and tourist dollars are at stake here. I know why license sales were down so hard this year. Lets see if the DNR can figure it out.

 

[Nova]

From trail cams and actual sightings we know we have too many does on our farm. 10 miles east they don't have hardly any deer, so yes this is a very fluid issue.

We take as many as we can legally and physically. Unfortunately for the last 3 years we have been restricted to one deer per person, so the doe harvest has been slow. This year we are allowed one buck and one doe, or two does. We have taken 5 so far this year and we plan to take another one or two. I prefer to take them early in the season, but pretty much when we can we do. When I can count 53 deer in a 55 acre alfalfa field in one night there are to many deer in the area. You can look at the wood line from the field in any direction on our farm and see a definite browse line. Food plots get wiped out before December even with 55 acres of alfalfa to help sustain them. Too many deer and they need to be managed.

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

<div style="position:relative;width:100%;display:inline-block;"><iframe src="https://ljsp.lwcdn.com/api/video/em...4eaf5&pi=b1d70b5c-8e54-463f-9ced-1ca62c173276" allowfullscreen style="border:none;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe><div style="padding-top:56.25%;"></div></div>

 

[WTNUT]

I started to read this thread, and it seemed as though all was covered. Here are my thoughts on how we deal with does.

1. Populations need to be monitored yearly and all year long. A heavy mast year can make you think there are fewer does than there are because does are scattered. Poor mast years put more does in plots and make you think there are more than there really are. Get a feel for what your property needs to look like with doe sightings during changes in food year to year. We have coyotes in spells. Some years, we have many, some years not so many. But, they can be hard on fawns at times. Monitor all of this and learn over time what you need to take. For us, we have probably averaged 10 does for every buck taken from the farms. Now keep in mind when I bought my first tract I hunted all week of gun season and never say a deer. Unchecked hunting on “open” land had really hurt the population. Now, our neighbors don’t shoot does waiting on what they perceive as “my bucks”. In reality they are no more mine than they are theirs. Nevertheless, I have learned we have to shoot enough does for us and the neighbors.

2. We shoot about 1/3 of our does in October and the rest after their second week of December.

3. I like a balanced herd to the extent that can be accomplished therefore, we specifically try to take does of all ages. 1-2 year olds as a group, 3-5 year olds as another and the oldest as another group. If I could only take one age group I would take the older does to get the wisdom out of the herd when it comes to hunting hunters and to turn over the genetics quicker.

4. Our State biologist say to take 7 does per 100 acres. Even I can’t take that many and have the deer per square mile that I want. So I have no idea where that number comes from.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[yoderjac]

#1 above is a great point. I've got wireless trail cameras running 24/7/365. We also record hunter observations every hunt. What happens on good mast crop years, deer are more sensitive to hunting pressure and don't have to travel farm from bedding to food. They still use our fields but rarely use them during daylight hours. Our hunter observations and daytime pictures are way down during these years, but the total picture count is not. Deer are just shifting to more night time use of the fields. In poor mast crop years, hunter sightings are way up. Deer are forced to travel between bedding and the food plots and will tolerate more hunting pressure before becoming nocturnal. Hunter observations and daytime pictures go up, but the total picture count does not. I find our trail cameras a much more reliable indicator of deer populations.

Because of the effect of food source changes and hunting pressure, we don't use data from hunting season. We use the 4 months after the season to estimate survival rate trends and the month before the season to estimate recruitment trends.

What we see is not always what is out there!

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Telemark]

Well I just found out my uncle in Ohio has banned shooting does on his property because the Amish who moved into the area have just about wiped the deer out. I am very disappointed. His place used to be a hunting paradise.

 

[SwampCat]

#1 above is a great point. I've got wireless trail cameras running 24/7/365. We also record hunter observations every hunt. What happens on good mast crop years, deer are more sensitive to hunting pressure and don't have to travel farm from bedding to food. They still use our fields but rarely use them during daylight hours. Our hunter observations and daytime pictures are way down during these years, but the total picture count is not. Deer are just shifting to more night time use of the fields. In poor mast crop years, hunter sightings are way up. Deer are forced to travel between bedding and the food plots and will tolerate more hunting pressure before becoming nocturnal. Hunter observations and daytime pictures go up, but the total picture count does not. I find our trail cameras a much more reliable indicator of deer populations.

Because of the effect of food source changes and hunting pressure, we don't use data from hunting season. We use the 4 months after the season to estimate survival rate trends and the month before the season to estimate recruitment trends.

What we see is not always what is out there!

Thanks,

Jack

I agree. Riding around my place on the sxs, we see bucks and does in about a 1:5 ratio. Trail cameras show much closer to a 1:3 ratio. This is after our rifle season and after most of the rut. During the rut and start of modern gun season, we were seeing close to 1:1.

 

[Maddog3355]

Buck you need to learn how to trap them wolves. I heard there easier to trap than coyotes because there more bold.

 

[H20fwler]

This is just on our land:
As I have purchased properties and spent a lot of time developing habitat for wildlife and watching more wildlife I have found that I have really backed off on my doe shooting. I don't have high deer density at my places or in the county I live. I really don't "need" the meat but my family and I like eating venison. Normally one or two of us will get a buck and a doe might be taken. If one of my boys wants to shoot a doe I prefer they shoot one without fawns with it...as I have grandkids the restriction would be totally lifted for beginning hunters.
I just enjoy seeing the does with fawns more now while I'm out hunting, I look at them as the best buck bait in town.

If I'm hunting somewhere else or on public I have no problem shooting a doe with no fawns in tow.

 

[4wanderingeyes]

You tell me. I think its a real miracle that I have wolves on my 5 game cameras EVERY SINGLE TIME that I check them from my land in Cass County. I am so sick of these mangy bastards. But the DNR will tell you that we only have about 2,600 wolves in the state. I found 4 kills on our land again last year after 5 the year before. They pretty much eat everything other than the tail and the shit sack.

You want to find out how many wolves there really are get a shirt that says "I love wolves" and walk into a bar in NE MN the night before opener and see how long it takes before someone takes a swing at you. A lot of tradition and tourist dollars are at stake here. I know why license sales were down so hard this year. Lets see if the DNR can figure it out.

View attachment 21733

Buck, they all look like yotes, shoot em!, unless they have a collar, then dont shoot em.

 

[roymunson]

Well I just found out my uncle in Ohio has banned shooting does on his property because the Amish who moved into the area have just about wiped the deer out. I am very disappointed. His place used to be a hunting paradise.

Where is he at? I hunt with and around some amish guys, and while there are certainly some bad ones out there, the guys I hunt with are not. We sat there with tags in our pockets and watched 5 different bucks stroll past us on the last day of firearms season this weekend. Deer weren't pressured at all.

As for does, that's a loaded question, and one that can only be answered for your area and you have to be a diligent steward of what you have. I have had people in the state ready to fight over killing does. but they're also complaining about not seeing any deer. We're blessed in our area to have good numbers. I like that the DNR gives us ample tags to manage deer how we see fit. I'd rather see less deer and more big deer, than tons of deer and a ridiculous browse line in the woods.

Plan this year on our 250 acre piece is to shoot 12-15.

That said, saturday night of gun season, 2 guys saw 20+ different does/fawns. And there were a lot of other deer in between them that weren't seen.

My plans are if we over harvest 1 year, we'll just back off next year. We have the food and the habitat (or that's the plan), so they'll be there.

Also, we have several hundred acres of standing corn that hte farmers haven't got to yet on a neighboring piece,so I'm sure we don't have all the deer at our place either.

 

[Telemark]

Where is he at? I hunt with and around some amish guys, and while there are certainly some bad ones out there, the guys I hunt with are not. We sat there with tags in our pockets and watched 5 different bucks stroll past us on the last day of firearms season this weekend. Deer weren't pressured at all

Holmes/Coshocton

I'm not anti-Amish. Some of them are lovely people. However, there are some awful groups of them around who are "Amish" in their name and clothing, and I detest those groups as much as any other sinister organization. The ones I'm refering to have no respect for animals, wild or domestic. Their horses are in awful condition, and they slaughter deer without mercy. These people are especially insidious because they are clannish and work together to such ends. They break the law andi spread CWD in violation of court orders.

Not all Amish are the same. Some of them are great. But some of them are awful.

 

[roymunson]

Holmes/Coshocton

I'm not anti-Amish. Some of them are lovely people. However, there are some awful groups of them around who are "Amish" in their name and clothing, and I detest those groups as much as any other sinister organization. The ones I'm refering to have no respect for animals, wild or domestic. Their horses are in awful condition, and they slaughter deer without mercy. These people are especially insidious because they are clannish and work together to such ends. They break the law andi spread CWD in violation of court orders.

Not all Amish are the same. Some of them are great. But some of them are awful.

I agree. I just get my hackles up when I've come across people who lump them all together. They're humans. Just like good and bad Catholics, Methodists, and Presbyterians...

I've had conversations with the guys I hunt with. We all kind of agree that we'd probably have better deer hunting if we stayed off the farm more during the off season, but we've also said we love the off season work so much that we're not willing to give that up yet.

If it was all about only killing the biggest buck or the most deer, we'd just back the truck up and hunt corn piles all the time. I have no problem with baiting and I do it late season, but I don't wanna do it all the time, and there are some folks out there who measure their manhood by how many inches they put on the ground every year. Not how my buddies and I go about it.