Lots of does mean bigbucks!!

Ok tired of corona, politics and germ warfare.
So, Tons of land managers and "big buck" factories tell of how you need a 1 to 1 buck doe ratio to have big trophy deer. Thru my experience and what I have seen in last ten years I feel the other way around. First if you have neighbors on all sides that are hunting it is a good chance that a trophy deer on your farm will wonder over the line looking for ladies. UNLESS you are covered with does and he has NO reason to wander That's why I refer to does as BUCK BAIT . The 191 12 point I killed had spent his last 2 years on the farm I was hunting because( in my opinion) He was in a thicket that NOONE ever went thru all year except opening day of gun season. No trail cams in his bedding area or tractor activity. How do I know he didn't wander off. NO neighbor had ever seen him . I had pics on 2 cams around the 25 acres of thicket he was in for 2 years. He had no reason to leave. F C F : food , cover , females. 3 things a big buck needs. this farm was 100 acres and no woods cover or other thickets with in 500 yards.
Ok there has been a GIANT deer here on a similar farm in the city limits of my town. DOES every where. Pond in the middle. He has been seen hundreds of times. Over the past 3 years always in the same field on one end of the farm or other. Buddy Of mine had permission to bow hunt so I wasn't able to hunt him. I turkey hunt and trap the same farm. Well he killed him last December and finally got the mount back . Nice deer but I don't care to much for the poise....

Oh yea several on here where saying last fall that I needed to kill my does early so it would be harder for a big buck to find a doe and he would be walking around. OK that is why he may go over to the neighbors farm if he can't find a doe at his house he will cross the road !!!! LOL

No does = roam the roads LOL

That's a great buck anywhere on the planet!!
I think some bucks will wander regardless as it's in their individual nature, others will stray less. That's an entire other discussion I guess, and a good one compared to politics, covid etc.
I love talking whitetails,......and killing them.

Yea I read an article once that older bucks seem more to reduce their range. Mine and the one in pic were 6 1/2 years olds

I'm lucky enough to live where access to large amounts of land are easy. What that means is that I am able to hunt different landowner pieces but all in all some stretches are 5-7 miles of continuous access. Some bucks I will see all over that space throughout the year and others only ever in a smaller, say 1 sq. mile area. These are bucks of all age classes too. Good topic.

I'd assume the amount of human activity and pressure plays a role too.

Do you have the link to the post where some one said kill the does early so it would be hard for a buck to find the does? I sure thought they said kill them early so you aren't shooting des during the rut, which might be the best time to get a nice buck.

Your bucks will roam. Extremely rare that a buck will stay in the same area year after year unless he’s fenced. If bucks didn’t roam the herd would diminish with interbreeding. Bucks are going to be where does are in estrous, whether it’s your Farm or the neighbors. The best time to find a buck is during the Summer months and kill him the day season opens because once the velvet comes off it’s only a matter of time before he’s gone. Bucks down here can be one one property Oct 31 and 2 miles away Nov 1.

The purpose of the buck to doe ratio isn’t to get your bucks moving as much as it is providing the optimal habitat and food to maintain a healthy herd. More food equals healthier bucks...healthier bucks equals larger antlers. If everyone tries to keep as many does on their property all you end up with over time is smaller bucks weight and antler wise. Sorta like not keeping fish out of a pond...eventually their growth gets stunted.

I could show you places down here that take an average of 100 does a year and still kill record book bucks every year. (Record for our area) and up to 250-275 pounds at that. No, I don’t get to shoot bucks at these places, but I e been invited on their doe shoots and have seen these deer in person.

Different strokes for different folks, but killing does produces big bucks for this area.

X2 Wanna Be:

I recall when I was still in school in CA. The CA deer herd was estimated right at a million animals.....900,000 of which were estimated to be does. Needless to say the hunting was awful !

It will take some looking and I'll do it tomorrow . But it was a question about to shoot or not to shoot lots of does. I said we NEVER shoot any does until the end of season after we kill our targeted buck. (biggest one on the farm) . Some years the buck is 120 inch some years 180 plus. (1 time LOL) I was told I was wrong because the bucks wouldn't move during the daylight because it was TOO easy for him to find a doe to breed. That we should shoot our meat deer in the hot 90 degree sept and OCT we have here in Ky . The one farm that the deer didn't roam hardly any on we only killed 6 does in 20 years. Go ahead tell me how bad that is. BUT what we found was instead of the resident bucks we saw on cam from august until December leaving we would have new ones show up !!!! Hence the term buck bait. Our farm was over run by does and the surrounding guys were shooting does left and right. The co it was in has unlimited doe tags. One 151 inch deer I killed showed up on the second day of gun season and the neighbor was crying I watched him all year. Ok stop shooting your does until after the rut. STOP running all over your land on a 4 wheeler. Just giving my experience in my little piece of heaven here in Ky !!!!!

Don't make me post pics of results from how I hunt LOL I don't like to as most know !!!!!!!

So you profit off your neighbors management practices.
That’s why before I ever get a place to hunt I make sure all the surrounding landowners are all practicing the same program to benefit the health of the herd, that way I don’t feel like I’m doing all the work for those that just show up to pull the trigger.
I do know of one landowner that said the heck with everyone else and threw a fence up around his place, lol. Believe it or not, surrounding landowners got ticked off. They could no longer benefit off his work and haven’t killed a deer over 120” in years.

I haven't found a way to get the antlers to be edible and bucks tend to taste like they smell. So I prefer to eat doe. It's an interesting topic I need to learn more about. But only having 96 acres management would be difficult.

OK How did I profit off his "work '" LOL His "work" consisted of only happening to "see " a nice deer he wanted to kill. If He didn't shoot every doe that walked across his property then his buck might have stayed on "his" proprty . One may look at it as I PROFITTED from my work by letting the girls live and feel safe on "my" property LOL

Heck please don't compare Ga deer herd to KY's . You guys get to shoot like 4- 5 a day for 6 months or something like that right LOL.

The property I was hunting was 100 acre. Lay out was the key Open pasture for miles around it . Flat land and little agriculture. Plus this farm had not had a bush hog on it for 14 years. Thick jungle and only paths where cut once a year with a DR trimmer. Deer walked in the trails. Around each field and one swipe across the middle. Too easy really . But why was it easy . MY HARD WORK !!!!. Running that dr trimmer thru head high blackberry briars in 95 degree heat in august is tough.

I don't think it's about how much a buck travels but rather having larger numbers of big bucks. If they are there some hunter will find them.

The biggest single factor in having big bucks is letting them get old enough to get big. Ky and Ohio both do that by having a one buck per hunter limit statewide. The number of trophy bucks killed each year in both of these states shows that it works. When hunters don't preferentially kill all the young bucks every year the population trends towards a 1:1 ratio. Here in Va we can shoot 2 bucks each year and the doe kill is limited by severely limited days when does can be taken. Consequently it's hard to find a buck older than 1 1/2 (at least in southwest Va) but we are overrun with does. The poor size and quality of the bucks also reflects this management strategy.

This is true.

1 to 1 buck doe ratio to have big trophy deer. Thru my experience and what I have seen in last ten years I feel the other way around.


1:1 the other way around is 1:1

For buck ratio is about making bucks more vulnerable by making them travel more. Not about making them bigger.

Sounds like a food wasteland

I think both theories have merit at different times of rut and different hunting styles or areas . If you are hunting an isolated and defined bedding area . Then the more does that ignore your presence the better , if you are hunting big woods where the deer bed wherever and whenever they want then there is merit to an even ratio causing them to move . The perfect situation is if the neighbors are trying to keep the ratio even and you have a small huntable doe sanctuary.

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

Read anything by John Ozaga He was a DNR biologist in Michigan and "Dr. Deer" long before Deer farms, QDM, Point restrictions Leave em Go Leave em grow and many self appointed experts were even borne He studied pen enclosed deer and collared deer from fawns to large mature bucks for 30+ years

To many does and the smaller bucks are breeding them.

Yea maybe but that 185 booner is still passing on the SAME genes if he breeds a doe as a 2 1/2 year old basket rack 8. It is reported that 80% of the does are bred by the teenagers because the big bucks can only tend one doe at a time. If he locks done with a doe for 2 days junior is having his way with the rest !!!