I have private property to hunt, so, no competition on shooting until I'm ready. My question is. Do you shoot a doe or does and then wait on the big boy(I only harvest one nice buck a year off this property)
Last couple of years. I have waited and passed on many does in order to take the big boy first. My theory has been. More live bait for the rut the better. Also, the does that are shot early just might have been the ones to come into estrous first.
I have a nice food plot planted with oats, wheat and corn, so, the does will be there all season.
We have a long season(3.5 months) and can legally take 11 deer. But this particular property, I only harvest 1 buck and 2 does a year. Other properties are brown it's down.
What are your opinions?
Thanks, Sarge

To each their own. I don't shoot does at all. The more there are the more reason a buck has to stick around. More fawns also equals more future does and bucks, and I just like to see them. If the next person wants to fill their freezer then go for it.

I'm of the mind fill the freezer first then worry about the rest. I also think the fewer does the more he has to look for one.

Depends on how much and how important it is to eat venison, Many years I have waited for the big buck to show as I passed up doe after doe early. Ended up with tag soup. Now I shoot the first quality deer that provides a shot. Whatever you decide have a good time and good luck!

Chris

We have a ton of deer around here and the ratio is 4:1 doe to buck or worse. The doe need managing, but I wait until after I get my buck. I hate to make a mature buck uncomfortable with an area because I shot and drug a doe out. To each his own but that’s how I do it.

I have two other spots for the freezer fill. This spot is being managed. There is a 10 point the landowner wants me to harvest. He used to hunt it for years, so, his recommendation was to me. Be patient. His advice has worked two years in a row now. I have to admit, it's hard to pass a nice fat doe when it's standing 15-20 yards from ya like last year at the beginning of the season. I did harvest her 5 weeks later.

I have very limited time in gun deer season , any legal deer worth my time processing gets shot.

you would have to have a terrific amount of land to have a deer that stayed on your place especially a rutting buck that might make a several mile loop

sounds like you should do whatever keeps the land owner happy

I hunt deer for meat. Once in a while they have bones on their head, and I have killed some extremely nice bucks. I tend to try to fill the freezer first and usually have plenty of antlerless tags for does, but some years even they are scarce. This year, as in many years, brown will be down.

Meat's meat!

Moosetrot

... kill 11 deer ..... is this a trick question or something? Lol

I'll say it like my Grandad always did, "Kill em all!" Just like climate change, it really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. IMO

It's true, SC has very liberal bag limits. Used to be more. Gun season has started (8/15/2021) in the lower part of the state. I have to wait until Oct. 11 to rifle hunt.

We have a lot of does here.
Fewer does cause the big bucks to travel more to breed, otherwise
The bucks stay in the pine plantations and the does go to them and you never see the bucks.
Seen it time and time again.
Thin out the does and you will see the bucks

... I understand Mr. SGT.C .. but that was my answer... kill the first 11 no questions asked... some might end up having big antlers

11. to me that's too many. I have killed 9 in one season and gave it to folks who needed it. My goal is 4-5 this season. The new upright in the workshop is empty. Plus have to have room for the bluecat fillets coming in November and the hog coming in February.

Nosey does don't get second chances

I have stands set for does and stands for bucks. I shoot the does in the open areas and watch them at my buck stands.
We’ll shoot does during archery season and the first 2 weeks of gun season. We attempt to take 50 off one property and about 90 or so off another property. The last two weeks of the season, the guns are taken out and we go riding and fill the truck. Still had folks wanting deer after the season was over, lol. We come close to meeting the quota every year, and every year we have an over abundance of deer. It’s not a brown and down around either of the properties, folks know what kind of bucks our county can produce and everyone wants a chance at one.

I don't hunt deer much anymore. Drifter prefers beef to venison. I went to buy a beef roast to cut into stew meat today. Came home and took out a pack of deer steaks. I won't pay $9 a pound for cheap beef. If Pete wants beef instead of deer he needs to come out of retirement, LOL. If it's brown it's down this year.

I have fed my family on venison totally for over 30 years. Deer die and I keep 4 freezers occupied with meat.
I’ll kill anything but small young deer be it bucks or does.

Just all depends on your objective…if you are hunting for a big buck, keep all the does you can around until after the rut. Then meat hunt late season. Meat is easy to get no matter when you decide to take it. Trophy bucks are a different story…you need to keep all the odds in your favor for as long as possible.

I see two types of deer, I like one of each, yearly. A young tender skillet deer. The second is a larger sausage, back strap and burger deer. Antlers...Meh..

if your after big bucks, you need less doe, so buck have to move around to find doe , get to a 2-1 doe to bucks ratio,

No spots or flat faces. Everything else is fair game

Its real simple. Deer need controlled. To control the growth of deer populations you have to kill does.

A deer eats between 6 and 10 pounds of food a day. The earlier in the season you kill your does the better the rest of the herd does through the winter.
The more balanced the doe to buck ratio the more active the rut.
If you have decient habitat than there is no better management tool than the bullet.

It is your choice but any given area just like in trapping has a limit for a healthy population and it will do no good to not shoot a doe, if the population is so high the damage they do can and will get worse, here in michigan we see it all the time. parts of the state have an over abundance of deer and a lot of does need to be taken to keep the population in check, so you will need to try and figure out a good population capacity for your area however in any area 1buck to 2 does would be a good ratio to have. Don't forget mother nature will do her thing if stuff gets to out of wack...

We get 1 deer in our area.

So I wait for a Buck a few days. Last season I passed on 40 does, a week later I took a doe. I didn't see a buck.

Been a debate on here for a long time. I wait and shoot any does after we kill our targeted buck . Does are buck bait. PERIOD . Most bucks are killed looking for love. DOES =LOVE . Some say bucks don't roam if they find a doe. Well good time to kill a mature buck is when he is locked down in a thicket. He won't leave the doe and I've walked up on then just looking around . A doe in heat wants to breed just as bad as the buck. One won't leave without the other. I killed a nice 10 pt once breeding a doe. She stayed around for over an hour. I went to get the truck and she was back standing looking at him when we got back. She was missing him so my son reunited them with his 243. LOL

Here where I live we are overran with does. I wish more people would shoot them. I bet I see a dozen or more does for every buck I see. Rare to see any buck, even a spike.

Before EHD hit us 3 times, we use to have 50-60 deer per square mile in my county. If a person didn't see 30-50 or more deer a night, with at least 1/3 of them in killing range, it was a bad hunt. Then we were down to about 10 deer per square mile after the disease swept through. One season, I hunted ~100 days and only saw less than 30 deer the whole season during legal light. We are starting to see number increase again, but nothing like what it use to be. I prefer to eat deer, so I fill the freezer with mature does early in the season, and keep an either sex tag available for a buck later in the year.

I honestly don't get the big buck thing (if you're older than about 20). I have several on my wall but at this point in my life, I'd shoot over a pile of them to hit a 1.5 yr old doe. Last thing in the woods I want to chew on is an old buck.

So the thing we have to ask ourselves is why we hunt deer. Is it for food or prestige of killing an old deer. Maybe buy a corvette if you want to show off something. Is anyone really impressed with a big buck? Any hunting publication has endless pics of them.

But...To each his own.

This ^^^^^^^^

To answer your question SgtC......shooting a doe(s) in an area where you are hunting a mature buck can be counterproductive. If that particular buck happens to be nearby when the boom goes off you can bet he will be heading somewhere else....and that buck may not use that area for a while during shooting hours.

If you've put some time in locating/patterning one buck, I would wait him out. Do your meat hunting on another property.

Our peak rutting activity here is Oct 25 to Nov 5. I shoot does either early archery (September days only) or after Thanksgiving. Each part of country is different. These southern deer are much more wilder/spookier than deer Ive hunted in the midwest.

Shoot what makes you happy.

Buck deer is lot cheaper than a vette . Most people that think or talk like this can't or don't know how to target and kill a mature buck . Not saying you can't just have met the nay sayers and seen their approach to deer hunting. This is and always will be a heated debate. But "trophy" is in the eyes of the beholder. I call a "trophy " deer any deer that has meaning whether it's B&C or just the fact you killed it with your grandpa's gun. OR killed it out of a tree that has a memory tied to it. Trophy class deer don't come around my hunting places very often. Too much hunting pressure. So to me a trophy is the biggest buck I know is using my hunting areas. IF I kill it I feel like I have accomplished something. Yes bigger deer have shown up after I used my one buck tag. But I just say hope he is around next year .

Who wants a corvette or a picture in a magazine of a big buck? Corvettes dont have enough ground clearance on these sandy roads down here and a pic of a mature buck is only appealing to me if one of my trail cams took it.

Taking a mature buck is NOT about impressing anyone or prestige. Its about the challenge of the one on one hunt. Someone has mislead you about why people hunt.

You can kill 11 deer legally in WV. No one in the state did it last year.

I feel that if antlers don't matter to a person then it's better if they take does

If I need meat I shoot a doe.

Lol you sure ? Lot of poachers in them hills

That is my thinking. It has worked two years in a row now. Go booming and the big one goes the other direction. The landowner is the one who told me to be patient and let the does pass and then shoot them later. He knows his land. I don't have a issue with shooting does. I shoot my share. But with this particular property. The buck first and does later works. I have a 1.5 acre foodplot located between two stands of mature oaks, a lake 200 yards behind my stand and a old creek bed that runs parallel to the food plot heading to the lake. So the deer have to cross the foodplot to get to the other side of the oaks. Another word. They have cover, water, plenty of food.no hunting pressure. So, I see the same does over and over. The does won't leave as long as they have all of that. The bucks will come to them.
The deer on this property use the dry creek bed(overgrown with brush)as a secure route to the lake for water and to the oaks and foodplots. One of the best set up i have ever seen. That is way i work hard on keeping it. This is the property that was in question about hunting again this year. It had nothing to do with me. Landowner wanted to to mow down and clear out the under brush and open things up a little. The plan has been postponed. I will see what next season brings. Until then, I will enjoy this season. So, I work extra hard in making improvements to his land and he also said that is way he asked me to come back. He also stated, he doesn't want no one else on his land. So hard work and and being a man of my word pays off. Sarge

Good luck. Post pics when u get him.

I only shoot does. I leave the bucks for the kids because it is such a thrill for them. I usually grind 4-5 to five into deer-burger. I like to get them in a week so I can make one trip to the processor. We have plenty of space in our walk-in cooler to allow them to chill and age.

If I see a very large buck, I might be tempted to shoot it, but I might not.

Posted this pic for SgtC.




Nice 'un too!

Good ol grinder right there... congratulations

This the potential for the property I'm hunting. The landowner had been watching him and a ten for some time last year. The ten is still around, I'm sure there is another nice one in there.
Not the largest, but, for South Carolina. It would classify as a shooter. He was trailing a doe in my foodplot last year. We will see if events repeat themselves.

Thanks Swamp for posting the pic. Sarge

If that buck was on my place he would be in the shooter category for sure. Looks like he's at least a 4 year old, maybe 5 or 6.

The property hadn't been hunted in over 20 years. I'm the first to hunt it besides the owner. He gave up hunting( 20 years ago). Sarge

I met the owner through beaver trapping. Actually I do beaver work for him in the lake he owns half of.

This is also the reason for limited harvest.

What’s your definition of a big buck? Any deer over 5.5 is a trophy to me. My son is hunting one they believe is 8 years old, a 10pt that “might” score in the 140’s. Nothing huge antler wise, but dang it man, an 8 year old deer. He didn’t live that long being stupid. I really don’t see the correlation between a corvette and a big buck. I’d take a big buck over a corvette all day long.


And GREAT buck SGT C!!

Shoot a doe early.
Come late Oct, most older bucks will still cruise through as they already know from years past where the girls are.
And trying to hunt around a big population of does can suck.
They can hunt YOU down and hurt future hunts.

Around here I try and time it with the weather. I wait on a cool front to move in so I can hand them without a freezer.,then I process them as time permits. Pre Rutt and staging areas equal big bucks.

doe season here is a few days in january. guys who hunt antlers have several months of bow season and 10 days of rifle season. can kill does then too but jan is does only

I don't get the big buck thing either.