Hey guys, I haven't been active as I used to, but I just finished up school, and finally got to go check all of my trail cameras. Let me say first that when I started with this property 5 years ago, I was lucky to find a single buck. We had a lot of does, but my first year I didn't get a picture of a buck, or see one the whole season. The second year I did end up shooting a nice buck, but he was never on our trail cameras or had been seen on the property before. We've spent a lot of time working with creating good deer cover, safe transition zones, good food plots, and shooting a lot of does. Now here we are 6 years into it, and things are looking great! While I know these aren't the biggest deer, this is in southern Georgia, and deer tend to be smaller, so I'm pretty happy with what we have this year! This guy is a monster! Cannot believe he's hanging out ! Momma and 2 kids. They made it through so far! A bachelor group! First one we've seen on the property in 6 years! Young buck! Another great size deer! A smaller bachelor group we got a picture of on the other side of the property! I'm pretty happy with the results. We're tracking 7 different bucks right now that are staying on the property, we're pretty excited about that! Hard work pays off! I can't tell you how many hours I spent hand tilling food plots, or cutting down trails and maintaining the transition zones, but man, it was all worth it!
Well done! I finally talked my father into not shooting the first thing that steps out.. Management plays a great roll.
I've recently gotten access to my girlfriends family property for this year. I've only been able to have trail cams out for a few weeks but have only seen does. I found one scrape and a lot more tracks than I've seen deer. Do y'all recommend taking those does this year to help with the population or leave them?
If the does are bedding down in that area, during the rut, there will be bucks. The first big deer I took on this property was a deer that came over from a neighbors property chasing a doe. That being said, we had a real problem with does. My first year I saw 23 walking across the field and bedding down in a thicket, This meant no real completion for the bucks, and some bucks with screwy genetics were getting to mate, and the rut as a whole sucked a lot. Does are good, but too many is bad. So I'd suggest getting a head count, try to find markers on them, or , if your state allows, during the off season throw out some bait and try to get a good headcount. Killing a doe doesn't mean you won't have bucks next year, that's an old way of thinking, getting a good balance is essential to a healthy herd.
