Doe Management: Why Harvest Momma?
Summer trail cam picture after trail cam picture, all I see is does. Early season comes and still nothing in my supremely groomed food plots. This begs the questions, where are the bucks? Why am I not seeing as many bucks as my buddies? Is my property inferior? Am I not running trail cams right? Should I have bought that highly advertised mineral block from the local hunting retail mogul? The answer to these questions is likely a resounding no. If you find yourself asking or experiencing a high number of doe trail cam pictures and a lack of bucks, let me present some ideas to help us dive deeper into a very important land management concept. Doe Management.
Buck to doe ratio is an extremely important aspect of your property's management plan. But we hear that all the time on TV shows, Facebook, and Podcasts. Simply put, why shoot does when everyone is after that big buck? What does a solid doe to buck ration mean? Why do I need a solid doe to buck ratio? And what can you do to help?
Doe to Buck Ration By Definiton
By definition, doe to buck ratio means the number of does compared to the number of bucks that call your property their core area. Ideally in the perfectly managed world we would prefer this to be a 1:1 ratio, but that is simply not feasible. As Kip Adams of the QDMA (Quality Deer Management Association) has said, bucks are like human males, we are likely to do something stupid, meaning getting ran over by a car, walking in front of a hunter, or getting caught in a barbed wire fence for that matter. that being said a 2:1 ratio (2 does to every 1 buck) is more feasible for most land managers. The most common ways of collecting the data on your properties doe to buck ratio is via trail cam. As mentioned above, if during the summer months you have nothing but doe picture after doe picture over your mineral sights, you definitely need to keep reading.
Why Do I Need A Solid Doe To Buck Ratio?
What does it matter? Every year during rut there are bucks all over my property. Why wait for rut? Well, the answer is simple, A solid buck to doe ratio will greatly improve the quality of your hunts throughout the ENTIRE season. Below are a few examples of why.
- Does push bucks out of early and late season feeding areas. Think of it as an onion. The inner core is your food source you have planted, or that ag field the farm that you lease from plants. The next layer will be the doe family groups, the next immature bucks, and finally the solitary monarch that we are all searching for. Bedded down next to a fallen tree with the wind hitting the back of his head and his eyes looking forward. Dominant doe family groups will drive mature and sometimes immature bucks further and further away from these food sources often hunted by early season bowhunters.
- .More intense rut competition. Year after year growing up hunting one of our farms I kept searching for that experience of "the rut". The grunting, running into rattling antlers, watching a giant throw caution to the wind chasing a doe, but it never happened. Why? Was this property a place where they just didn't breed? Obviously the answer was no. The truth is this was the property we grew up hunting on. And never had we ever harvested a doe. A great percentage of the trail cam pictures were does, A mature doe with two yearlings or a 2.5 year old doe with several others. The fact is the more and more the doe to buck ratio gets skewed into favoring the does the less and less rut activity you will experience. Simply put the bucks don't have to work as hard to breed all of the does that drop into estrus.
HELP What Can I do To HELP!?
The answer is simple. Measure the doe to buck ratio on your property, analyze the information provided through trail cams, implement an improvement and insure it stays under control. Simply put, shoot some does! If your trail cams are telling you there are far more does than bucks on your property, or you are experiencing some lack luster rut activity, chances are your doe to buck ratio is out of whack.
Opening weekend DOUBLE!!!
FINAL TIP
You have it all figured out, your doe to buck ratio is too high. Your trail cams have told you so, and after a few disappointing ruts this might be just what your property needs to get things back into gear. You have your tags bought and have a doe family group patterned pre season with an approaching cold front coming on opening day. Should you shoot just anything without antlers, or is there more to the game? The answer is make sure its a mature doe. The bigger the better. Why though?
- Mature does are SMART!! If you have the opportunity to pluck off a smart deer that could pick you off the stand faster than you can recite your favorite "I've been busted" cuss word and clear the area, she needs to go.
- Mature does are SMART!! During the rut, its often not the mature does that bring that giant strolling by your stand, its the less experienced ones. If a doe is mature and she drops into estrus, she's been through the song and dance before. She will likely bed down in the thickest nastiest cover possible and get bred by the buck of her chasing for DAYS!! By taking her out of the herd, you are opening up more opportunities for that mature buck to be on his feet instead of being locked down with that doe.
The fact is simple, if you have never shot a doe, I encourage you to give it a shot this year, its likely just as exhilarating as shooting that buck (I still get the shakes from a doe harvest) you have been after. And by doing so you will actually IMPROVE your odds of harvesting that buck come rut, especially if the doe or does you decide to harvest are mature ones. So get out there, prepare by getting doe tags early so they don't sell out, and get some real life target practice in on Momma. I promise you you will not regret it!
