Greetings all,

I am on a small piece of property with 2 of my other buddies and we are, or were, complete rookies when we started nearly a year ago. We have learned a great deal tending to the lease all year and work hard to ensure we can make the most out of our relatively small piece of property (about 80 acres).

On opening day my buddy took down his first deer, it was a nice size doe.

We really would like to take down a nice buck during the rut and want to know if we should continue hunting does, or should we leave them alone. I should also mention that there is only one high game fence on the north side of the property so I am not convinced any deer are really making a home on our property-I believe they pass through quite frequently. My thought is that since most of the properties in the immediate area are similar sized, they are probably taking down everything so we should too.

What will give us our best shot at getting a buck?

Are you seeing any bucks on your game cams at feeders or travel corridors? I would not just shoot everything in sight for sure. Deer attract other deer. If you put too much pressure on them, you won't see any. One thing is a guarantee, if you have some resident does that are on your property every day.....you will eventually have bucks on your property.

County location of ranch? What amount of deer are you seeing when sitting in stands per hunter? With that many hunters you can shoot out the doe herd fast without some sort of game plan and numbers to go by.

What you should do depends on what your neighbors do as far as managing deer. If they shoot everything they see then you are SOL. If they are thinking like you there may be hope. Good Luck

thanks for the tip, we only have one camera near my feeder on the property and I haven't seen any bucks on it. I have really only seen a couple of does periodically feeding. It is not an every day thing, it is more like once or twice a week. We have 2 other feeders with out cam on it so I don't know what is happening over there.

I understand the logic of not shooting everything on sight. My issue is that since the property is so small, should we really expect the deer to not migrate across neighboring properties on a frequent basis?

You are at the mercy of what your neighbors do or don't do IMO. How large are the neighboring places? Decent size ranches or is this a large ranch split into a subdivision tracts? That small of property if you have low deer numbers it can be shot out fast. If you are living off of deer migrating across then you are living off what the neighbors management goals are.

I'm hunting a small lease (less than 300 acres) too. Per my camera images, I seem to have only 2 does and 1 little 6-pt that regularly visit my feeder. Since my goal is to kill a nice buck, I'm holding off taking any of these. No better attractant for bucks than does. I don't believe the deer management recommendations of killing as many does as you can applies to the small acreage lease with small deeer populations.

on 80 acres most of your deer will be on and off the property, so it is you and your neighbors that share the deer. If your place has good bedding cover and or great food sources like food plots and acorns then I would expect to see more deer on it depending of course on location.

Most of the deer are probably spending much more time on your neighbor's land than yours.

If you want a buck on a place that small, I wouldn't shoot the does. Gotta have something to bring the bucks in, and does >>>> corn during the rut.

The lease located in Brooks County right off of HW281 in Encino,Tx. The doe was taken down on crossing the snake like road in the middle.

http://goo.gl/maps/95kHm

Lease that small I wouldnt shoot any doe. Use them to bait in bucks.

My advice would the same at what txbobcat posted do not shoot any doe and keep them for bait. The area your are hunting is not that thick or brushy so I am guessing it is low deer numbers compared to other areas. If you have a deer to 20 acres then 1000 acres would have 50 deer. With that open of country I would think it would be less deer than that. Three hunters on 80 acres is a lot of pressure on that size deer herd. If you are selective in what you shoot then it can work for you in the long run. It will take time to get deer used to staying and using your property. Everytime you shoot one there is one less to see.

The rut is almost in full swing here in Mills. Watched a mature buck breed a hot doe this morning why checking cattle. A doe killed is one less to keep the bucks around. The major rut only lasts a short period. There is plenty of time afterwards to shoot your does.

I think someone asked if there were any bucks showing up on the game cameras. On our place I don't see a lot of bucks in game camera shots. I did move a couple of cameras further from the feeders and started seeing bucks then. They aren't going to the feeders. The last couple of days I have been hunting one of my box blinds up in the woods, and I've seen the same thing each time. Does are at the feeders, but the bucks stay back from them. The 4 point and the 8 point come out of the woods about 60 yards from me (between me and the feeder), look for possible ladyfriends and if they don't see any, they cross the lane and wander off to their respective scrapes. I don't know why the bucks don't go to the feeders, but if I didn't have a lot of does, I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't see any bucks. If there aren't any girls in the singles bar, the guys wander off.

Isn't the most important thing to figure out what the neighbors are doing?

Whats the point in not shooting a doe if neighbors are taking down anything that moves?

also could i use code blue or code red to attract the bucks? I suppose there is no substitution for the real thing though..

A heat cycle comes on slowly in does. It generally takes a buck a day or two of chasing and flirting before a doe is receptive to mating. Looking at girlie magazines can't hurt but the real thing is the best alternative to hold the boys close by.