By Scott Bestul
Finally, there’s this: I take my job as a deer manager seriously. Hunters sell this idea to the non-hunting public all the time. Not everyone believes us, especially when we pass multiple opportunities to shoot does in our quest for a nice buck. And I know there have been seasons when I’ve put off shooting does until my buck tag was punched, and then failed miserably when I finally got serious. I try not to fall into that trap anymore.
Given that background, I went into last fall’s hunt with an odd attitude. I was not going to kill a doe on any farm in my immediate area. No matter how empty my freezer. Regardless of the size of the doe or the proximity of the shot. And my reason was as simple as it was difficult to accept; deer numbers were down in my neighborhood, and they’d been that way for several years. I’m no biologist, but I live where I hunt. I can — and do — keep an eye out for deer on a near-constant basis year-round. I run trail cameras, I plant and maintain food plots, and I scout and observe deer constant-ly. All that woods-time had convinced me that we just didn’t have the whitetails that we had in the past.
So I focused my antlerless hunting on other areas, and let me tell you, it sure felt odd to have to travel to shoot a doe. But the extra effort and road time gave me time to wrap my mind around a relatively novel concept: Is it possible to overharvest does?
Where I live is some primo Midwestern deer ground. Abundant oak forests push up against corn and soybean fields that are some of the most productive in the nation. The soil is rich, our winters hard but relatively short. So the only explanation I could reach was that hunters — me included — had simply done our jobs too well. Our state agency had asked us to knock the deer herd back, and we’d responded. Not just for a season or two, but for several. And the result was something I once didn’t think possible; a deer herd that was below the habitat’s capacity.
A RICH IRONY
But the more I thought things through, my surprise weakened. Modern deer management is not a very old science, and for its first couple of decades, it largely had a simple goal: grow the herd. When I started hunting in the 1970s, drawings were held for antlerless tags. Hunting regulations often focused pressure on bucks because they were, like rooster pheasants or tom turkeys, largely expendable. The population could grow with very few males present.
Then a strange and wonderful thing happened. Deer herds not only grew but boomed. The expansion was a good news/bad news affair. Hunters enjoyed fantastic hunting, and deer sightings were commonplace. But the downside was there, too. Whitetails started eating crops, running into cars and, in some cases, destroyed the habitat that made them so abundant.
Suddenly, managers did an about-face and told us does were what we needed to kill. Bunches of them. As many as we could. “If you think you can kill too many, relax,” biologists chanted in unison. “Deer have incredible productivity. They will bounce back.” And of course this advice was largely correct, especially since it took awhile to change the buck-only mentality many hunters had adopted. An attitude, I might add, that was instilled by the deer managers — or their predecessors — themselves.
But hunters did change. As we’ve always done, sportsmen took up the challenge and did the right thing. We took advantage of liberal antlerless tags and participated in special doe seasons and shot antlerless deer we wouldn’t normally shoot and donated the meat to food shelves. And of course, outdoor writers like me spread the message and convinced others that shooting does was akin to public service.
We have listened to little else than this advice for at least the past 15 years. In many areas, it still holds true. Some hunters simply won’t shoot does, even if it is cheap and easy. In other spots and situations, there simply aren’t enough hunters to keep deer numbers down. Whenever those factors are present, the “shootall-you-can” mantra needs to be repeated again and again.
But in more locales, the paradigm needs to be reconsidered. The deer management pendulum — which started on an extreme that protected bucks, and then swung quickly to the other side of the curve — needs to be corrected. And it’s just not in my neighborhood.
After a disappointing season in which many hunters complained about low deer numbers, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is re-evaluating its population goals in many management units. At this writing, Montana is considering a no-doe season for next fall.
So the answer to the, “Can we shoot too many does” question is, in my mind, a resounding “yes.” But this answer spawns even more questions, and for help on those I turned to a hunter and friend I trust. Matt Harper is a southern Iowa native with vast experience managing deer across the country. He’s also a frequent contributor to this and other magazines centered on whitetail hunting and management.
DRAMATIC IMPACTS
Matt and I agreed that regulations designed to focus hunting pressure on does can often have a dramatic impact.
“We’ve had an antlerless-only rifle hunt in Iowa for the last several seasons,” he said. “At first, not a lot of hunters participated, but in the last couple of years, it’s been a very popular hunt. It comes at a time of year (mid-January) when most deer hunting is over, and it’s popular for that reason. Also, rifles are not allowed for other deer hunts (Iowa is a shotgun-only state) and guys enjoy using them for that hunt. Also, tags are relatively cheap. Finally, I’m convinced the economy has put more guys into the field then. More people are laid off and have extra time. Plus they need the meat. I know of one group of 20 guys in my area that killed 120 deer during the last antlerless hunt.”
Harper stressed that hunters aren’t the only factor affecting deer populations in some areas. There have been severe outbreaks of EHD in many states in recent years, and these disease outbreaks not only have the potential to take out a lot of deer, they do so at a time of year (summer) when many state game agencies have determined harvest goals for the upcoming hunt.
“In some areas, an EHD outbreak could thin a herd that’s too dense to begin with,” Harper said. “But the disease isn’t selective and can hit a population that’s already low. If you follow up an EHD episode with a heavy doe harvest, you’re only making the problem worse.”
Predators are another factor that, in my opinion, many state agencies discount as a factor. When modern deer management began, the whitetail’s major predators were largely a non-issue. Bounties, trapping, poisoning and other unregulated harvest had virtually eliminated the wolves, coyotes and black bears that historically had preyed on whitetails. Many of these predators have made comebacks bordering on the dramatic. I deer hunt frequently in northern Wisconsin. On a recent May turkey hunt with a friend who’s a full-time logger, Tom and I began inspecting bear scat whenever we encountered it — which was frequently. We were hard-pressed to find a pile of dung that didn’t have deer hair in it. Research has proven that black bears are a major predator of fawns, and that hunt sure proved it to me.
Now before you mistake me as someone who detests predators and wishes them eliminated, nothing could be further from the truth. I think they provide an important role in nature, and respect them for their hunting ability and desire to eat the same creatures that I pursue. But I also believe this: 1) It's critical that game agencies acknowledge predator impact on deer populations, 2) hunters should be allowed to manage predator populations adequately and 3) hunter quotas — especially of does — be adjusted in areas where predators have a significant impact on deer.
ASSESSING THE SITUATION
So how do you know if the deer population is down in your area? That’s the tricky part, according to Harper.
“Perception and perspective is everything,” he said. “Some hunters get worried if they’re seeing less than a dozen deer on the average afternoon sit. Another guy is perfectly content if he spots three or four. And the same holds true with farmers. One wants to see every deer shot off his farm. Another might be a deer hunter who appreciates seeing some animals and can handle losing some corn or soybeans.”
Harper stresses the need to spend time observing deer, noting general population trends, as well as how and when deer use a particular property.
“Casual hunters have a hard time making accurate judgments about deer numbers, mainly because they don’t spend enough time on the land,” he said. “Nothing beats being able to observe deer on a regular basis. Trail cameras are another good way to get a sense of how many deer use a property and the basic sex ratio. And it’s important to note that deer may use a property in response to available food sources. An oak-heavy farm will be loaded with deer in a good acorn year, yet have a fraction of that during a poor crop.”
SEASONAL CHANGES ARE ALSO IMPORTANT TO TRACK
“One of the classic mistakes is to judge a deer herd focused on a winter food source,” Harper said. “You may see 40 deer packed into a stubble bean field or food plot and think, ‘Man, there are a ton of deer here.’ But drive around the neighborhood, and you may not see an animal for miles. Once winter breaks, those 40 deer are going to leave that food source and disperse across a broad area. Suddenly that one farm with tons of deer only has a handful.”
FACTORING A HARVEST
So what is an appropriate antlerless harvest for a given property? As you might suspect, there are no easy answers, especially with the many variables that we’ve already discussed. But to get me thinking, Harper offered a glimpse at two properties he hunts. Each is unique in terms of habitat, deer numbers/use and hunting pressure, a situation that forces Matt to approach doe harvest very differently on each property.
“I hunt a place owned by my grandparents,” he said. “It’s a 240-acre farm that’s a mix of woods and crop fields. In a normal year there’ll be 20 to 25 deer that use that property on a fairly consistent basis. About half of these will be antlerless deer; the majority are does that are 1-1/2-years old, a few older does, and the rest this year’s fawns. The hunting pressure in the area has changed dramatically in recent years; there are now very few drives; most people stand hunt and are fairly selective on what they shoot.
“On that place I’d be hesitant to kill more than four does in a fall. Some guys would think, ‘Well, that’s barely keeping up with reproduction.’ But it’s important to realize that I’m not the only thing that kills deer. Other hunters will tag a few. Cars will get a couple. Coyotes are plentiful. And then there are those stupid little accidents that can kill a deer. You add a deer or two in for each of those categories, and suddenly you’ve knocked a population of 20 does back pretty hard.”
“The second farm is one that I own. It’s only 80 acres, but the habitat is good. In the winter, I can watch my food plots there and it’s common to see dozens of deer piled in and eating heavily. So with that kind of population, it would be tempting to think I could really lay into them. But there are other factors to consider. The hunting pressure in that immediate area is intense; many deer are killed during the shotgun and late antlerless rifle season. Knowing the population is already going to get pared down dramatically, and realizing that, come spring, the deer I see will disperse across a broad area, I’d never shoot more than two does on that place. And some seasons, I may not even shoot one.”
CONCLUSION
Becoming a good deer manager is an inexact science. Perhaps more important, being a good deer manager can never be defined too broadly. For many years, we’ve been told — generically or specifically — that killing too many does was nearly impossible. But in some situations that’s simply not true. Even in areas where whitetails are abundant, they still must be managed with intelligence and care. Hunters are responsible for keeping deer numbers at a level that’s in tune with the habitat and socially acceptable to our neighbors. But we should never forget that, in some cases “in tune” might mean more deer — and socially acceptable can also mean “acceptable to hunters.”
