A June-August spotlight survey would be much more accurate than counting deer at feeders. I find the 1) more bucks come to the feeder than does, and 2) bucks are generally more dominant and can chase off does from the feeders.

2:1 buck-doe ratio isn't terrible, 1:1 is preferable but not always attainable.

I think that many people worry about spikes too much. Getting your ratio as close to 1:1 as you can & keeping deer numbers down are more important IMO & will have more of an impact on improving antler quality.

quote:

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A June-August spotlight survey would be much more accurate than counting deer at feeders. I find the 1) more bucks come to the feeder than does, and 2) bucks are generally more dominant and can chase off does from the feeders.

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Well even in my 3 hunts this weekend, I saw roughly 10 bucks to only 2 does, and none of the 12 were at feeders. I really think we have significantly more bucks than does right now. So we are wondering if we should start thinning out the males, regardless of the whole spike issue.

[This message has been edited by watty (edited 11/6/2007 4:25p).]

I've always been told to shoot 'em on sight

I'll throw myself to the wolves here.

I killed a 3-pt this weekend had ~9-10 inch horns.

We had gamecam pics and the people we hunt with and our lease neighbors agreed that the we needed to remove this deer.

Did I make the right choice?

Here are pics of the deer dead and alive:







[This message has been edited by deatsman (edited 11/6/2007 4:33p).]

[This message has been edited by deatsman (edited 11/6/2007 4:36p).]

One has got to be careful when listening to Dr. "Deer." His whole point is a spike can grow into a shootable forked horn deer. Kroll's own slide show confirms that some of his shootable deer are culls anywhere else. The King Ranch research goes a long way in showing that the percentages of spikes growing up to be big deer are very small. TPWD has shown the same results. And I think deer management is about growing superior deer, not "shootable" deer.

As your buck/doe ratio approaches one to one, the does will be very hesitant to come to the feeders. They don't want to get hassled by the boys.

As your buck/doe ratio approaches one to one, the does will be very hesitant to come to the feeders. They don't want to get hassled by the boys.

We see alot more bucks than does at our feeders, and our surveys indicate about a 1 to 1.5 ratio. That's using helicopter, game cams, hunter counts, and running corn strings to count the deer. Our MLDP tags are based on these surveys.

Be careful just using feeders/feed pens as your guide--I think Pam is correct in that the males run the females out of the feeders...we see alot more doe/fawns on our corn strings.

These are just our field observations, and the thoughts and opinions are derived from these in conjunction with input from the game biologist, so dont take them as absolute gospel. It is also our opinion that it is darn near impossible to get a 1 to 1 ratio--just try to get it as close as possible.

I think a 2-1 ratio will give you a quality deer herd with a good age ratio of bucks with harvestable trophies and plenty of does and cull bucks to go around.

Watty, in regards to your ratio of bucks to does being skewed in favor of the bucks, your problem is good and bad. The good is lots of potential trophy opportunities. The bad is a higher mortality and broken tine situation do to increased fighting. Of course, my property is high fenced....your large low fenced property will take care of the imbalance in most cases.

When I started my management program 10 years ago, I think I made two errors. 1) I was too quick with the "culling". I now wait until a deer is 4.5 before he is "culled". A rare occasion to this is if a buck lacks brow tines as a 3.5 year old or some other anomaly. 2) I miss calculated the fawn survival rate much too high. Even on a high fenced property, protein feed, and carrying capacity constantly monitored, etc., I was surprised by fawn mortality rates.

My opinions.

[This message has been edited by Backstrapper (edited 11/6/2007 9:26p).]

watty,

I am new to this forum, and it is great. I am a Wildlife Biologist M.S. AWB ('03), and I have managed and guided on ranch in South Texas for 5 years (6 seasons). Your post where you questioned the sex ratio at feeders is a great thought, you are thinking like a biologist. Your observed ratio is biased because it is not random. IMO, people put too much emphasis on sex ratio in most instances. If the actual ratio of your herd was 2:1 the real question you need to answer on whether this is a good ratio or not is what are your overall goals and what kind of bucks make up this population. Is your goal to have 1) frequent sightings of quality bucks, or 2)less frequent sightings but of absolute trophys? Is there a) a significant percentage of the buck popualtion which you deem cull buck? or b) are they mostly bucks out there ones you want breeding or to let grow.
If 1a, the you need about a 1:1, if 1b, then you are good, if 2a, then you are way off, if 2b, then you are good. (assuming you do have a 2:1 ratio)
Keep in mind density. If you do have a 2:1 what is your density? 1/20ac.? 1500acres means 75 deer, 50 bucks and 25 does. That would be great, especially if b. If you a more like 1/10ac.(150 deer, 150:100:50),which is suspect, then bring the ratio down to 1:1, which would give you 1/15ac.
As you can see, to really manage a population, it is a large investment of time and knowledge accumulation. My recommendation, buy a book, or contact a biologist - state, federal, or private, and obtain an accurate census if you are seriously comitted, which I think you are.
Harvest spikes or not. I could type a 10 page paper on the answer. But my short opinion, good years i.e., lots of rain March through august, yes. If the other, and especially if you dont know what you are doing management wise (specific goals and a plan) then no.

There was some study done a few years ago on a deer farm where there were a couple of yearling spikes. Both deer caught up with the other deer on the farm and one surpassed all the others by the age of 4.5.

I googled for it, but did not find it with a quick search.

Yearling spikes should not be shot. Older than that, and they probably aren't contributing to the overall quality of the herd.

Redass, welcome to the board. I'm one of the other wildlife biologists that hangs around. I like your response and couldn't agree more. I like your emphasis on having a plan.

As you and Pam pointed out, folks often put way too much emphasis on feeder observations (direct or with cameras).--Note to others--there is a systematic method for doing camera surveys that is more random in nature and will give a better representation than simply sticking it at the feeder.--Contact a biologist and figure out the best means of surveying your property--Again, no two properties are alike. Without a clear plan, including repeated annual surveys, you're not likely to get where you want (just emphasizing a need for a written plan).

Carry on, excellent thread.

"axe, cow, plow, gun ,and FIRE"--know them and use them

Thanks for the welcome ursus. I ran out of posts yesterday (rookie). Is aggiePam a biologist? Reason I ask is she seems well-informed on these subjects for a female if she is not a biologist (I'm may or may not be stereotyping, but I'm just sayin). But in the above post she mentioned spotlighting in June-August. Is there some new research I havent seen, or isn't September THE spotlight month (Texas). It seems that a June-August spotlight wouldn't reveal fawns well, not only in Texas, but for all of the white-tailed deer range.

I believe she is. There are some other natural resource types that post that come with pretty good creditials too.

Yeah, I noticed date recommendation myself, but like the premise so didn't say anything (want folks doing some sort of survey). You are correct, early-mid summer surveys tends to give biased fawn data (flat out miss). Most of my surveys get packed into mid August-September. A good number of the state run surveys are going to be in that time period. Some biologists may call for earlier data from landowners due to the shear number of plans they are dealing with.

I don't usually weigh in on deer management issues, but this topic peaked my interest some. I'm big on native habitat management and overall population management. The more deer management looks like livestock management, the less interested I get.

"axe, cow, plow, gun ,and FIRE"--know them and use them

Wally,
A 2:1 ratio on low fence is outstanding and 1:1 is dang near unattainable. As many have already pointed out, you have to do a ton of work to really get an accurate count. On my place we do routine spotlight surveys, feed year round with cameras in place and do a helicopter survey every year. Based upon all this input we determine our ratio. The point is if you don't count regularly and with different methods so you get a good average, you are basically counting at random and your results will be just that.............random.

With regard to culling spikes, IMO Redass hit the nail on the head. It largely depends on weather. Another thing I would strongly suggest you consider is your optimal deer/acre ratio. If you have too many deer/acre for your land to support, then I would cull the spikes. If not, you might consider laying off them. Just something to consider, last year one of my hunters shot a 5 year old 8 point with 5 brow tines that scored 149 and was a spike as a yearling. To be fair, he was slightly below our average 5 year old, but the total difference was less than 5 B&C points and he was a damn fine deer as a mainframe 8.

One last issue that you will find people firmly entrenched on both sides of the fence is if culling changes genetics. In my opinion, it doesn't. While there are many that will disagree, the King Ranch did a ten year study in a controlled high fence environment and found there were no conclusive results to suggest culling altered genetics in that period. There are other reports that differ in their findings, but none that I'm aware of that were performed over as long a period or under high fence range.

Conclusion.........if you are low fence, you will always have deer that are less desirable. If, like me, you believe culling doesn't change genetics, then your culling program should be established to achieve optimal deer/acre ratios and should depend on weather from year to year.

[This message has been edited by bdchorn (edited 11/8/2007 4:53p).]

ha ha, he called you wally

Ursus,

I see your point in a data overload with state biologists, I never looked at it from that stand point, I guess I've only been around "high priority" ranches.
I really dont want to get into this other topic that has arose but I cant help myself. Do ya'll have the same opinion over a 20 or 30 year period as opposed to the 10 year King Ranch Study?

Ha Ha!!! Sorry about the "wally".
Dang glad you asked that question RedAss because I'm really curious as to the opinions. I'm not a biologist like many of you, but have been personally involved in management for 12 years now and my opinion is low fence you can't change, but high fence you can. The thing that stumps me though is that after 10 years, I would have thought the King Ranch survey would have shown some appreciable difference as to genetics. Without turning this into a pissing match, there are clearly several posters on this thread more knowledgable than I, and I'd love to hear opinions on this.

I've always heard that a spike will always stay a small buck by antler size, but my views changed when I moved to my current location.

I've watched a first year spike from 3 years ago turn into a very nice 8 point with between 20-22 inch spread.

Having these deer come up each day to be fed, you can recognize each one and I know for certain this is the same little guy that I watched grow in his mama with his twin sister.

bcdhorn and redass03

That's a dang good question, and I'll be the first to admit I don't have a good catchy answer. So to some extent, this is more of an opinion than anything. And as a general disclaimer, as stated before, the more deer management looks like livestock management, the less interested I've been in following intensive deer management--So on to my general opinion on the matter.

Personally, I think antler improvement due to spike harvest has more to do with other factors than genetic improvement the herd (better deer/acre ratio, age structure within the herd, etc.). Spikes are a pretty common genetic trait, realistically, what are the chances you are going to remove that common a trait? While I was at A&M (and then Tech) this bothered me some so I hit up some of the mammologist and genetisist types. The basic answer was it would take over 20 years (there was some technicallity about 29 years, but at the moment I can't remember what that was) to "change" the basic genetics of an area. This was based on the native deer to the area being in question whether it was high or low fenced. So with that in mind, the results of the King Ranchn study don't surprise me at all. Now if you are going high dollar and introducing Kansas (insert your dream deer of choice) super deer genes, yeah you will influence things (but you lose my interest in the matter).

What this brings into question what I mentioned before--please remember that nature of the information coming to wildlife biologists is constantly changing. Many of our standard practices for years were based on basic observations with descriptive statistical analysis. In a push for better science in wildlife management, we've slowly been applying better actual experimental design and analysis. As a result, every once in a while we discover that what we've been traditionally preaching just doesn't hold up (example-the basic predator/prey cycle we teach in every basic biology class-I'll save that for another thread). This is where ecologists/wildlife biologists are hit with physics/chemistry envy. We can't control every variable in the system. This is one of the reasons we often have equally credible "studies" that have completely different results.

I know I was somewhat long winded, and didn't have an overly good answer or opinion, but hopefully I've opened some food for thought.

"axe, cow, plow, gun ,and FIRE"--know them and use them

Appreciate the insight Ursus. We seem to be likeminded from the "livestock" standpoint.

We've certainly found that the more we make decisions based upon managing the land rather than the deer herd, the deer and all other wildlife benefit. Practices like culling have become less necessary as our land has become more productive and we are able to comfortably hold more deer/acre. As a result, we've been able to watch several "inferior" 3 year olds turn into solid 140 and 150 class deer as mature 5 and 6 year olds and our quail and turkey populations have exploded.

Ours has definitely been a case of trial and error and constant tweaking, but it's always been interesting to me how most of our success came when we started focusing more on managing the land than the herd.

I have taken Boysville kids out to shoot a doe on a game managed ranch. It was hard to get a shot at a doe.

The bucks own the feeders, and if you are watching closely, you can see the does crossing around 200 yds away. The does always know where the bucks are and learn not to come near the feeder during feeding times.