I harvest does for several reasons. 1) I like the meat. It's yummy. Plus jerky is good stand snacks. 2) I find if I take a doe early I am less likely to shoot a smaller buck because I have some meat already. 3) I am a deer hunter and still get excited when I know it's a deer I am going to shoot. If I ever lose that then I will revisit shooting does. Until then, mature does are fair game for me.
We fill the freezer with does from NJ in an unlimited antlerless area. There are way too many deer there and the Buck antler size has definitely been hampered by the overpopulation. Very few 150-160 " bucks around anymore. In VT I wouldn't shoot more then one doe off our property cause there are so few deer and according to the trail cams I have a 1-1/1.5 buck to doe ratio.
I've just always wondered how the DNR knows what we have as far as the buck to doe ratio. Sure I can see them getting it right in an area such as public ground where they monitor such things but on private ground how would they know. I would think deer population could change pretty dramatically from one area to the next. I for one have NEVER seen the DNR out scoping out any of the areas that I hunt in.
Tennessee, where I live. There is Unit A,B & L. In unit L you can kill 3 does per day from the open of archery in Sept. Till the end of Rifle season the first weekend of Jan. I live in Unit A...we don't have even close to as many Deer as they do in Middle & West TN.
I don't know about in your area but in Oklahoma on the WMA's they do a deer count with spotlights in August. They obviously don't count all deer but they get an idea of the population or health of the herd when they compare counts from previous years and harvest numbers year to year.
Im with you. Heres a theory...what if your property holds 3-4 mature does and there offspring every year. Would it be more beneficial to harvest these does or let them live? If the girls are there...wont the boys follow?
The other thing to understand is that if there are too many does, the bucks will not have to compete during the rut - sometimes they will simply move onto another doe. They are yummy and the goal ratio depends on what the state of the population is. If you need more deer then limiting doe hunting for a year or two might make sense. If you have too many or the ratio is way off, you need to kill some. Once you get the population to a manageable level and the herd is healthy, then you can keep it balanced by killing both does and bucks. Did I mention that they are yummy?
