a lot of deer means a lot of deer if the food is there some will get big
when a lot of deer does not mean a lot of big deer is when there is a brows line in the woods. almost no undergrowth , everything is eaten , winter starvation.
different areas will be very different
available food will make a huge difference
if you hardly get any snow and have forage year round or nearly year round your much more likely to have many big deer.
hay makes a huge difference
if you are in an area with hay , lots of big deer are possible of course at the cost that they are eating someone's profits
having hunted an island for nearly 30 years , a lot of deer didn't used to mean a lot of buck or big bucks by any means
you might see a heard of 30 doe with 1 buck on a single drive we did a lot of deer chasing and not much shooting till doe tags.
very little under growth they could graze a woods to almost nothing
how did this happen ?
decades of buck only
I won't say more than a few decades because before about 1950 there were doe taken just not during the deer season they were taken as they were needed , there was a balance even if not a legal one. then from about 1960 to 1990 there was a lot less deer taken in the spring and through the year.
not hardly any doe tags for that 30 years people shot the only buck the saw they might see 50 deer and one buck and it was the only legal deer to shoot so it was.
then almost 3 decades of near unlimited doe tags and we started seeing a lot more bucks , specially after a few years of earn a buck.
total number of deer is down maybe a little , people often still shoot the first buck they see but we see more and get the larger , hey it's an island and the gene pool isn't that big so they still aren't huge
add in some agriculture returning to the island fields being plowed again and winter wheat hay and pastures that had been farrow many years.
there is not one thing that will hold true for all areas , climate , agriculture , and terain make a big difference
