Hi guys I’ve been watching bhod for a long time now but I’m new to the forums. So, let me tell you a little bit about my property and why it ties into the title I put and see what you guys think. My property borders a gas company and combined it is about 450 acres. There is one other guy that occasionally hunts the gas property. There are two corn fields that border the property, I have a food plot, and there are many many oak trees within the property. I have seen many deer this year hunting, atleast one every hunt but out of all of them only two were doe. There are a lot of buck on my property, actually in the teens with buck that I see regularly. Through trail cameras and hunting I have noticed that there are little to no doe on the property, I just can’t find any. And I have noticed the last couple years almost all the fawns have turned out to be bucks. In the past years I would see 5 doe a night on a normal hunt and now I don’t see any. So now here we are with the rut kicking in and on the past 5 hunts I haven’t seen one deer.. so my thinking is that all the buck are running else where to find doe? Has anyone else encountered this problem on their properties?
I guess it’s possible that you have no doe on 450 acres...not likely though. Maybe there’s a doe sanctuary that you haven’t hunted or set cameras.
The only place I haven’t hunted or set cameras is the bedding areas which I try to stay out of but could be possible that they are bunkered in there. I’m hunting all food sources so it would be crazy to me if no doe are making it over to them
Why would that change though? I saw deer all early season, i do my best to keep my gear and me as scent free as possible and not to spook deer after hunts. So I’m not sure why they would all the sudden go nocturnal
Well if you in fact has a high buck to doe ration I would think it would be a great spot to do some calling. Estrus bleats and maybe some rattling
Deer patterns change as they switch from the summer pattern. On our property our deer move quite a bit during early season in daylight hours and then go somewhat nocturnal until our rut kicks off. I would guess somewhere on that 450 acres there are some does.
Might be time to bust out the bleat can, and if its legal where you are estrous scents to mimic some does that are ready to breed being in your parcel of land. One of my properties has the same issue, minimal doe numbers for the last two years now out of no where. Last hunt I lathered some estrous all over my tree and a couple drops on the trail in front of my stand cuz the wind was swirling too much and it brought in a buck downwind on a string.
