We picked up a lease last year (3700 acres) that was hit pretty hard with anthrax.

We knew going in it was going to be an investment and would take some patience as the herd rebuilds.


2021-2022 Season we saw excellent numbers of deer. Predominantly 1 1/2 - 3 1/2 year old bucks, very few does, and 4-5 4 1/2-5 1/2 year old bucks.

We had 8 blinds/feeders on the lease and it was pretty common to see anywhere from 8-15 deer a hunt from each blind. Often times you wouldn't see any does, or just 1 or 2 does.

I had a doe and fawn along with 13 bucks out one particular hunt last year. So we know we won't be shooting does for quite some time.

We are on the MLD Harvest Option and were given 5 tags last year. My daughter killed a 4 1/2 year old 6 point, and that was the only deer taken.


The 2022-2023 season was pretty similar to last year, but we did notice a few more does. Had a couple of blinds where 4-5 does would be seen per hunt, but always outnumbered by bucks.
This year we were given 8 buck tags, and we shot 3. We killed a 4 1/2 year old 5 pt, a 4 1/2 year old 4x1, and a 4 1/2 year old 8 (that shouldn't have been shot IMO - as we agreed to target culls only).

We did see multiple 4 1/2 year old 8's and 9's this year, a couple 5 1/2 year old 9's and 1 - 5 1/2 year old 11 pointer.


The thing is our 2 oldest bucks last year had very unique brow tines. We aged 1 at 4 1/2 and 1 at 5 1/2. We didn't have a single picture of a deer this year that remotely looked like them.


Got me wondering if we are doing ourselves any favors by being so restrictive. Any chance our older bucks are moving on looking for more does? Is there such a thing as having too high of a buck:doe ratio in an area rebounding from anthrax? Would we be better off shooting our full allotment of bucks and taking out more management type 8's once we've harvested the culls we have targeted?



Just curious what others think. We are working with the landowner and will try to move to the Conservation Option.

What was the deer count yall submitted this year and last year?

absolutely you can have too many bucks - we cull a good number of our 4 year and older bucks each year - our rule of thumb is 8 points and under (that do not show potential) - been on the ranch 15 years and it has paid huge dividends for us (we also cull a good number of does each year depending on range conditions and survey results)

If you are worried that you have "too many" bucks on 3700 acres and are given 8 buck tags then why didn't you shoot 8 bucks? Only shooting 3 when you think there are too many makes zero sense. Fill the tags and trim the numbers, there is no other way. Do you think the deer are going to just wander away?

Agree x100 with this....

Do you have corn and protein feeders at the blinds? Do you feed protein year round? With that many young bucks it is not uncommon for them to keep the does away from the feeders IME. The younger bucks are constantly checking them and running after them looking for that first one to come into estrus. What did your fawn numbers look like? If you had 75 bucks on the ranch then you have to have had that many does or more. Fawns were born at 50-50 ratio of bucks to does and if you did not kill any does then you have them. If you numbers are still below carrying capacity then your does are just tired of getting harassed at the feeders and eating away from the feed locations. You mature bucks went were the does are plain and simple.

We certainly don't have "too many" bucks for the 3700 acres. The question is if the buck/doe ratio can be too high.

I dont remember the exact numbers but our spotlight count was somewhere around 50 bucks/10 does after 4 counts covering roughly 900 acres of visible area.


We know the herd is recovering so we agreed to only shoot true culls. We did not feed protein last year as we fought trying to keep goats out our feed pens and I didn't want to be feeding goats. Also didn't pick up this lease until late Summer. So we were a little hesitant to run out and start shooting 8's both years, that may have some unrealized potential.

We WILL be feeding protein beginning in February of this year.

But reflecting on the year, we are wondering if we are doing ourselves any favors by not filling the 8 tags.

50 bucks to 10 does.

Your ratio is way out of wack.

I'd fill every tag you can get you hands on, concerning bucks.

Bucks is like money; you can never have enough.

I would only shoot the bottom bucks of the age classes that you do not like. You have more does than what you counted I would assure you. I would never believe spotlight count numbers or helicopter counts with data like that. They are trend data only for me from year to year. Trail cams would be better but not at corn feeders. Did you keep any blind counts this year at the blinds? For the last 25 yrs I have managed ranches where we kept more bucks than does.

as long as you do not want to grow big bucks - if you are day hunting a place and killing everything that walks then that works - if you want to manage and grow trophy bucks you can certainly have too many bucks

Stonewall county we are covered up in young bucks. In September they completely displaced the does at the feeders. We had a few does coming in October - December but not that many Tonight I went through the pics on all 12 cameras for the last 2 days. I saw only 3 does and lots and lots of young bucks.

I have a couple of questionable bucks. Huge body with tall, thick tines that aren’t wide enough to legally shoot. They have to be breeding. Next year, if they haven’t improved………

Older than 4.5 years old and 8 point or less should be killed(unless he shows true trophy potential for the area), 2.5 or older and less than 8 should be killed. Y’all could probably shoot 8-10 bucks a year the next few to get your numbers right. Let that 11 point live until he’s 8.5. Obviously don’t shoot any does for a few years. Let them breed as long as they can throw a fawn.

Got a budy with a place out there. Place is about 1/2 the size of yours HF. They do lots of surveys and helicopter counts. First year they shot the number of deer they were given tags for and flew the place again and came up with almost the same count again. I’m betting your surveys are not accurate.

We did not get accurate doe estimates until we started doing helicopter surveys. Others you would think we had a 10:1 plus buck:doe ratio. The doe are the first deer to get pressured out of a food source, so if you have high buck numbers you could very well not see an accurate representation of your doe.

What does your biologist say the average ratio is for your area? If y’all haven’t done extensive management it will likely be in line with that number.

You learn something every day. I always heard and thought that it was the carrying capacity of a place that dictated the number deer that should be on it. I never realized that it depended on the sex of the deer. I also always thought that a trophy was in the eyes of whomever took the animal, not on its B&C score. Thanks for straightening me out.

I'm glad the deer on places I managed did not know this.......I manage for a total number of deer on a place. No matter what that ratio is I keep enough does to do that. Nothing worse than have to shoot a lot of does every year to keep the herd in balance. Running 80%+ fawn crops for one or two years will make you change your thinking on it after you have to shoot a high % of your deer numbers off to maintain you numbers goal.

I've not had to worry about having to harvest a large amount of does .....my neighbors have done that for me most of the time in the last 12 years. However, if I lower the average doe age to something like 2.5 years old, I would have to harvest about 8 does this would keep that from happening as I too had does average 3.0 yr.s old(which would cause the harvesting of 20 or more does at 80-90% fawn crop) . When we were putting out large bucks with large racks we hated to harvest the does that gave us the big ones.
I also run my lease according to density as I try to run my density around 9 to11 for us. We have a healthy heard for us, giving a few big ones from time to time.

Agree, we are certain we have more does than we are seeing. We have a couple of feeders that we move around the ranch to get an idea of what is in an area before going all out with a blind and feed pen. I put one on a ridgeline around Thanksgiving and we are seeing around 5 does every morning and every evening there.

I knew the spotlight counts wouldn't be accurate, but I figured after going out 4 times the buck/doe ratio would be fairly close. We follow an 5-6 mile path that meanders through the lease and we only pass by 1 feeder. In fact i don't think we counted a single deer anywhere near that feeder each time we counted.

Last year the landowner hired someone else to do the spotlight counts and we were never given that info.

We did not keep blind counts this year, but we did last year. We were averaging ~40 bucks and 8 does/6 fawns for the 7 blinds we had going the entire season. We did have 1 blind that for some reason the guys that hunted it the most did not record their counts. That blind was almost always good for 6-8 bucks and 1 ear tagged doe, and occasionally a doe and a fawn.

Almost all of the does we saw this year had fawns with them. We saw a tagged doe last year and had 2 more show up this year. They are definitely older than the rest of the does we have on our property and we have never seen them with a fawn.


We definitely won't be shooting any of the better deer we have on the place for a few more years for sure. We are just on the fence as to whether we should be killing only culls or start shooting some of the management type bucks as well as the herd grows. Wondering if our better deer will continue to leave if there are so many more bucks than does.

Filling or not filling 8 tags on 3,700 acres will not make much if any difference at all, regardless of how many you lost to anthrax.

Our hunters reported 15 bucks at 4 locations this morning….0 doe.

Use the tags the biologist gives you and you will be fine.

15 Bucks is no problem.
25 Doe is hard to come by.

Agreed, harvesting the bucks is never an issue. The doe harvest "always" is, at least where I hunt. If the hunters don't do it, nature eventually will. Then you have to start over, because the ole gal doesn't discriminate.