Doe Management

[Soggy Bottom]

I hunt on a place outside of Alice. We have about 3200 acres we can hunt. We have an average deer herd I would say. There are no shortage of them. What I'm wondering is about how many does we should take a year off the place. Right now it looks like we have about a 3 to 1 doe to buck ratio. I thought maybe about 20 does a year. But Im sure if that's enough. Any suggestions will help.

[mhbaseball]

Talk to a biologist. 20 does is not enough for sure!!!! I took 20 last year off less then 500 acres, but then again we have a high deer population.

[Soggy Bottom]

Thanks for the info. Yeah we might need to talk to a biologist.

[Bear82]

Biologist recommended killing 50% of doe in our area, so you may give them a call. Depends on your deer population.

[mhbaseball]

our biologist gave us 9 doe tags for 250 acres this year if that tells you anything

[BIG D]

our biologist gave us 9 doe tags for 250 acres this year if that tells you anything

We have been getting 3 for 46 acres for the last 4 years.

[ttu1997]

it is more dependent on the total number of deer (i.e. mouths to feed) in a perfect world you would like to have a 1:1 ratio but that is very hard to do. On a Hill Country ranch of 1,200 ac. where they have done spot light counts for years and on average see only 115-120 deer during the count with approx 1 buck to 2.5 does, they try to harvest 80 does. Trust me that is killing just about every doe you see while hunting and it is virtually impossible but as you remove mouths from an area other move in due to lack of competition for food. The years when we get closer to that number of 80 the next year or we see a huge increase in quality of bucks and body weights shoot up also.

[leasecommander]

Call Texas Parks and Wildlife and they will connect you to the biologist that is in your area, you and the biologist and 2 other guys will do a survey and then decide what the deer density is and the buck:doe ratio, then he will suggest how many does you should harvest. We do the survey every year, it is done at night some time when the bucks have horns, it is easy but takes a couple of hours, but beer can be consumed.

[Soggy Bottom]

Thanks for the info. I will get in contact with a biologist and see what we need to take.

[sharpshooter1]

When y'all go down there bring me back some doe tendor loins and backstrap and tell Charolette to send some more bacon wrapped dove breast.