What About Doe Harvest MDF Podcast

[dr.mooseknuckles]

The other thing to consider, which I have to remind one of my uncles of, is that if there's tons of gals running along on the landscape, Mr. Big isn't going to push his luck and head out into the open during shooting hours.

Though much of the environment/setting is different that East Alabama pines and hardwoods, I would imagine the principal generally holds true.

 

[robby denning]

The other thing to consider, which I have to remind one of my uncles of, is that if there's tons of gals running along on the landscape, Mr. Big isn't going to push his luck and head out into the open during shooting hours.

Though much of the environment/setting is different that East Alabama pines and hardwoods, I would imagine the principal generally holds true.

Agreed, when buck/doe ratios get really skewed because there’s no doe harvest, yeah it’s easier for a buck to find does. He definitely doesn’t have to travel as much.

 

[wildwilderness]

Yes, this makes a lot of biological sense

I know this is the Mule deer forum but I would argue this is also very applicable to Arizona and coues deer!

I hunted a few times on Fort Huachuca Army base, and would see 100s of does all over. I asked the base biologist why they stopped issuing doe tags- they said well, the AZ GFD no longer issues doe tags so we didn't think it was good practice to be the only ones.... so much potential, and that was for whitetails

 

[Scottf270]

Doe tags are really simple to manage. If the herd numbers are below objective, no doe tags. Once the overall herd numbers are at population objective, you start to manage for buck to doe ratio and age class.
As usual people make things harder than they are.

 

[Aeroflot81]

Why feed the doe that are not productive, take them out of the population and help the others. Healthier population with more fawn recruitment.
Forage is going to be an issue this year without more moisture, would you rather see them starve to death or get taken by a hunter? Hard choice for sure.

I understand where doe harvest can be a tool. I’ve just never understood comments like this and the other from the livestock guy tho. Do we have data on which does get killed (tooth age)? Are old unproductive does the ones getting taken out? Or is the young dumb ones? Or the fat productive ones? It’s not necessarily like a cow herd where hunters can monitor and see which does are consistently nonproductive and then harvest them.

Or does it not matter because you’re decreasing overall populations and getting things closer to healthy carrying capacity?

 

[robby denning]

I understand where doe harvest can be a tool. I’ve just never understood comments like this and the other from the livestock guy tho. Do we have data on which does get killed (tooth age)? Are old unproductive does the ones getting taken out? Or is the young dumb ones? Or the fat productive ones? It’s not necessarily like a cow herd where hunters can monitor and see which does are consistently nonproductive and then harvest them.

Or does it not matter because you’re decreasing overall populations and getting things closer to healthy carrying capacity?

I know what you mean I have to think this stuff through too, but your last sentence is what you’re looking for. By simply harvesting does, when appropriate, you’re lowering the age class, it’s not so much that you’re targeting the old does specifically, just less of them are getting older

But the main effect is that you’re lowering the population of “mouths to feed”

 

[AHayes111]

I understand where doe harvest can be a tool. I’ve just never understood comments like this and the other from the livestock guy tho. Do we have data on which does get killed (tooth age)? Are old unproductive does the ones getting taken out? Or is the young dumb ones? Or the fat productive ones? It’s not necessarily like a cow herd where hunters can monitor and see which does are consistently nonproductive and then harvest them.

Or does it not matter because you’re decreasing overall populations and getting things closer to healthy carrying capacity?

When Doe hunting first started region seven wide in SE MT in the 90's, I thought it was going to be a great deal on the Custer. My thinking was that hunters would shoot a few does early in the season and by the rut the does would have moved away from the roads and this would save some bucks from the army of road hunters. During the 80's I found many nice bucks in the road less parts of the forest, only to find out later some one shot them miles away during the rut from the truck. I was wrong. Does do not like to leave their home range and that faithfulness is passed from mother to daughter for generations. What happened was the doe family groups close to the roads took a beating. When you give out multiple doe tags to hunters easily accessed doe groups can be wiped out. To make matters even worse, in general the roads are also in the most productive land on the Custer. To answer your question. Hunters are going to shoot the does that are the easiest to access first and when those does are gone we will move on to the does that are just a little harder to access. Since in general we also built the roads to the more productive land, we are shooting the most productive does first. Lowing the number of mouths to feed is the reason for doe harvest. The hard part is getting the harvest evenly spread out across the landscape is the hard part.