Management question

I know this might be hard to gauge without actually stepping foot on the ranch but i wanted to get a general feeling. We hunt on 10,000 acres in Val Verde County and have a nice number of deer. You always see deer when driving around and i would say you typically see 10-12 when sitting in a stand. I thought we had been good at deer management but the last couple of years the quality of the deer has come down and it is starting to worry me. We are many taking mostly 125-130 class deer but in the last we would at least get 4-5 150 class a year. My question is how many deer do you think we should be taking a year to keep a healthy heard? I just got the count from this year and we took 65 deer and the split was 26 does, 20 bucks, and 19 cull/management bucks. I now that there are many other factors besides the management part that goes into this but figured this was a good start. BTW, we corn feed from Oct-Jan and feed alfalfa hay just about all year.

10K acres, even if the deer density/carrying capacity is as low as 20 acres/deer, should maintain a population of 500 deer. I don't think the CC would get much lower than that, but even assuming a 50 acre/deer density you are still talking 200 deer. lets say the split is 2:1 doe:buck and you have 500 deer over that area, then you would assume an age stratification on the bucks which would be heavy younger and less older, but around 166 bucks of which 60+ would be yearling, 60-80 in the 2.5-4.5 age bracket, and 30-40 5.5 and above (probably less but that accounts for the really old ones you never see too). If you shot 20 trophy bucks in the 120-130 class, those are your 2.5-4.5 ages most likely, so you are shooting quite a big percentage of that age class. add in the 19 culls which are also in the 2.5 and above range and you are taking out another large part of your older bucks.

So, if you are shooting 39 bucks in a population which only holds maybe 60-90 bucks, that is taking quite a large chunk of your good bucks away and I would think you would see a decline in the quality of deer left over. You have to assume that in these numbers there are deer you will never see, so you may be shooting above what your numbers could carry.

Now if you have a higher CC or deer density, or a better doe:buck ratio, these number may work. I am going by an idea of what deer density may be down there, but I have no idea really, just throwing out some numbers for you to see the point.

How many deer per acre do you have and what is carrying capacity? Don't you need to know that first before knowing what you should be taking? Normally it is less bucks than does. You did the opposite and took way more bucks.

Buddy of mine as 10,000 in brush country. They don't supplement feed except food plots. They do their heli survey each November for their MLDP. They try to keep it a deer for 20 acres CC. So they manage to that and a 1.5:1 ratio. Management is any main frame 8 or less over 3.5 yo, spikes, and does. Only a couple trophies are taken total a year. Normally 40 to 60 buck tags to 80 to 120 doe tags depend on count. They rather see less deer but more quality.

A much better management plan would be to take out more doe. you need to shoot at least 1 doe for every buck shot, and maybe even 2:1.

Again using the (flawed) numbers from above, if you have 500 deer on the place and it is 333 doe vs 166 bucks. If you shoot 26 doe and 39 bucks, that leaves 307 doe and 127 bucks (and you are already at 2.4:1 doe:buck ratio). I know doe will repopulate but the ratio will get more out of whack the longer than practice takes place.

Shooting doe will help bucks by allowing more food sources, bucks become stronger and more able to survive the rut and cold snaps, and make hunting more enjoyable as bucks will be more responsive to rattling and calling if there is more competition for them. Its a win win.

So bottom line is shoot less bucks and more doe.

This...also talk to the local biologist, they will have some ideas, but I can guarantee the first thing they will say is shoot more doe.

First off, you say you took 20 bucks and 19 culls. Is that 20 "trophy" bucks? If so, I'd start right there by killing no more than 10 trophy bucks per year. How old are these "trophy" bucks? Also, don't forget 2011-2013 drought. Lots of ranches missing entire year classes of deer. So the mature deer you see today have had a tough life and may never reach the potential that the drought took away.

Someone has 10K acreas and thinks they can shoot a bunch of trophy bucks every year...but the numbers don't add up, esp in tough country like Val Verde. The 10K acres may only hold 30 bucks that are considered trophy and the rest may be culls anyway (depending on your def of trophy vs cull)...but in an age class where there might only be 40-60 animals, if half of them are trophy and you shoot those every year, it doesn't leave much for next year.

In that area I think you'd be doing well at 20 - 22 deer per section.
15.6 sections x 20 = approx 312 deer, of that only a small number will be mature bucks, taking 49 total bucks off seems excessive to me.

If it were mine to manage, 20 - 22 bucks total less would be better, 24 - 30 doe.
Actually I'd restrict bucks down to around 12 or less for two years to see what kind of improvement takes place.
8 - 10 protein feeders, filled at least from early to mid January to October.

---> TPWD Valverde deer population trends
---> TPWD harvest reccomendations

For comparison, we carry a deer to 25 acres on our place in Webb County. Pretty sure our habitat is superior to Val Verde Co. and we still feed protein. I know nothing about your sex ratios, but I can tell you you're shooting too many bucks and not enough does, just by the harvest numbers you reported. Also, I'd be careful feeding alfalfa hay as a primary diet. Way too high in fiber and can/will cause bloat in deer if they're eating too much of it, versus other forage.

Check the harvest reccomendations shown above. When it says 1 buck for 500 acres that's not one trophy and one cull. When I was feeding, out of Comstock, I was very familiar with everything west of 281, from the river to the county line up by Pandale. The northern part of that area gets a whole lot more rain than down around hwy 90.

Your native brush will start losing protein value towards the end of May (usually) and it will go down as the year progresses.

You should be doing protein, even whole cottonseed for a couple of months, the whole year.

Young bucks are like teenage boys, they do stupid stuff and end up getting themselves killed. That by itself will bring your buck numbers down. If you're killing 1.5 to 2.5 yo bucks, you are making a mistake.

Like fouz says, take more does and let the young stuff walk.

Management is not just feeding and killing. You need to manage the whole gamut of things because anything you do for one segment of the ranch/lease will impact other areas. Example, feeding corn year around, will bring in quail and turkey. They will nest close to the groceries which will bring in critters that feed on them and their nests.

Back off on the killing and pray for more rain. If you can't afford to feed all year, feed heavy in April, May and June, that's the most important trimester for you pregnant does to drop healthy fawns. Feed 18 to 20% from March through October. In the fall and post-rut you can go down to 16% (as an economy measure) to help them post-rut because the natural stuff is nothing but fiber then unless it's been wet and you are getting lots of forbs.

Sounds like solid advice by several above, I bet it will get you to better results in a few years.

Thanks for the input guys and i know i need to find out some more detailed info and maybe try fly the ranch. When i say we are shooting 125-130 class deer i would not say they are trophy deer. They are typically 3-4 year old deer that should not be shot but they were by customers or friends of people we bring out. Most of the what we consider culls were either 5+ years old and an 8pt, no brow tine deer, or screwed up racks that were not going to be anything. The reason our buck doe count is almost in reverse is b/c when sitting in s a stand you hardly saw any does at the feeders so we got a little worried when we had shot 15 in the first 2 weeks. Now driving around you saw them but i guess we overreacted a little and and maybe should have let some of the younger no brow tine bucks walk.

We are going to have a sit down with everyone in a month or to talk about the 2018 season and this will be a major talking point. Thanks for the help.

You're not going to kill many 150" deer if you're shooting your 3-4 year old 125-130 inch deer. Tough situation. Sounds like a corporate deal where you want your clients to get a buck, any decent buck. If that is your goal, then managing the ranch for true trophies will be next to impossible. 99.9% of your clients aren't going to learn to field age and score deer. Same goes for the "friends". I can tell by what you've said thus far that you are high-grading your deer herd. You're shooting your better bucks and letting a lot of other junk walk. Eventually, all you'll have is junk. I know that sounds harsh, but it's the truth. The only solution to the problem of bucks being shot that shouldn't is going to be for an experienced hunter who knows deer to guide your clients.

I can provide a first hand experience on the high-grading. Hunted a corporate lease as a guest for many, many years. The landowner got tired of the host's guests shooting young bucks, so he instituted a 10 point rule. To shoot, the deer had to have 10 or more points. Guess what happened after about 5-6 years? No mature ten points but plenty of other mature deer that were junkers, and very few 10's coming up in earlier year classes.

I think managing any kind of corporate place is going ot be tough. Everyone that comes out expect to shoot something, and many times they will shoot a younger 8 or 10 over a older funky 6 or 7.

Sounds like there needs to be some rules in place and not a free for all type shooting situation.

Funny you said that because the LO said that same thing about 2 years ago....

How many hunters hunt the property? That could be part of the problem. And how many trophy bucks are allowed/year/hunter? Where do you draw the line between trophy and management/cull? You may have to move your trophy criteria up the scale to allow the bucks to reach their potential. I ask how many hunters because, depending on what the cost is per member, many will justify killing a buck they maybe should pass because the money invested justifies it in their minds. Oh, and kill more does.

As hard as it is to hear and even more difficult to do something about, you are killing more than double the amount of bucks that should be if you want to reverse the downward trend or ever want to see an increase in antler size.
First item on the agenda should be reducing bucks killed, by a large amount, I think your are already well into the middle of a high grading problem.
By the time most folks notice even a slight decline it has been a problem for at least a few to several years before they realized it.

Feeding protein will help but it is a long term commitment, it takes years to see gains, it is far more reliable than food plots that depend on machinery, soil conditions & rain.

I'm one that has always believed in management starting with the soil up, do as much as you can to improve overall habitat first, after you have success with that then move to herd management.
One approached I've used in the past is disallowing hunting on portions of the property, sometimes rotating every year to minimize complaints.
No hunting on NW quadrant one year, next year no hunting on SW quadrant & so on.
2500 acres left completely un hunted out of 10,000 can be a good management tool.

I'm curious as to what part of Val Verde County you are in? Northern Val Verde was hit hard by anthrax about 8 years ago. The big fire a couple years later didn't help. There are quite a few genetics that are closer to "Hill Country" deer than some of the other ranches down around hwy 90. North end of the county has way too much cedar.

Let them get old.... bucks need to be 5yr old +

We are in the NE part of the county off 277 but north of Loma Alta Store.

I kinda like that idea about limiting a pasture a year. Will throw that out to the group.

How much does a helicopter survey cost and what is the best time of year to do them?

It sounds to me like your killing way to many bucks, way too soon.

I would switch to 1 mature buck per 1000 acres. And make sure mature means 6+ years old.

Without knowing history on your native does, culling bucks will not help unless your culling at maturity. Until maturity you have no idea what the buck will become.

See Fouzman's recent thread on this subject.

I also was on a lease in your area a few years back, 10,000 acres with 8 hunters. Down Dolan Creek Road. The terrain was rough and we actually only hunted what was easy to access, No deer stands allowed. Of the 10000. acres probably only hunted maybe 2000 acres. 120 class Bucks was the norm but I often wondered what we might of killed had we actually left our easy access spots and went hunting.

We have a ton of stands but dont hunt the very hard areas either and have wondered that same thing. I might start walking more next year to see what i find.

6 or 7 years ago we hired the outfit that is just west of Uvalde, on the northside of 90 to fly 6600 acres that bordered the west side of the Devil's down at Slaughter Bend. It was $3000.00 for the morning. We covered it all and found out we had more Corsicans and Texas Dall than whitetails.

The main ranches were west of Del Rio on 90, before you get to Comstock. One 12K ranch, one 10K ranch and one 5K. The 12 and 5 were contiguous. We started out with 120's and 130's. Fast forward to 10 years of consistent feeding and not killing young bucks and we were doing high 130's and 140's, with some 150's and a few 160's thrown in.

Feeding is time consuming and expensive, but if you aren't trigger happy it will pay dividends. Your growth will be slow and you have to keep measurements on every buck, every year and you will see incremental growth.

Feeding will NOT turn a 120 into a 140 in one year.

Put a burn plan in action and improve that habitat, and take some more doe.
Let those young bucks walk if possible.

A: Total buck harvest should be very similar to doe harvest. Your numbers are headed in the ring direction. Two simple solutions are to allow people who may not have hunting opportunities, or youth hunters etc. to shoot does, or to institute a rule that no one is allowed to kill a buck until they’ve killed a doe. Whatever the case, get your harvest ratio in check.

B: The majority of your management bucks should be from the yearling class, at least until it’s difficult to tell the difference between the good one and the bad ones. If you set a number for your total buck harvest, then every spike or barely forked 4pt means a 130” buck gets one year older.

I’m going to give an oversimplified, but otherwise correct way to view management. You will then have to get real information, and make real decisions that include a lot variables not mentioned and the reality will be much more complex, the principles will put in the right direction. Then, because you won’t want to actually micro manage, you can come up with some simple rule to guide your harvest in the general direction that more intense management would. Assume that the population is currently at the ideal number. Assume that does over 1.5yr average one successful fawn(obviously this would be adjusted and accounted for in reality). Assume that mortality only occurs as a harvest. You want a 1:1 do buck ratio. We don’t want to harvest deer prior to 1.5yrs. Now, if we examine the assumptions you will see that the age at which you desire to harvest a non-management deer controls how many management deer must be harvested every year. I could use percents, but I’ll just use 200 deer so that I can use really easy numbers. In our scenario we have 100 fawns each year, 50 are bucks, and we don’t want to harvest any deer until 1.5yrs, so each year we have 50 new bucks that are now 1.5yrs old and 100 older bucks. As I said. Your desired harvest age now dictates your management strategy. You want 100 total bucks at the end, some will be the target age and the rest will be management. So, if our target age is 5.5yrs, there are four age classes above your yearling crop, each containing 25 deer. If we moved this to 6.5yrs, there would be five age classes, each containing 20 deer. So if we harvest the entire trophy age class that’s 25 for 5.5yrs or 20 for 6.5yrs, which leaves 25 and 30 deer respectively that still need to be removed. Your yearling crop has 50 bucks and the rest of the age classes have 25 or 20 depending on target harvest age. While many are tempted to let yearlings walk, that means harvesting deer from your age classes that are already smaller in number, and it means fewer 5.5-6.5yr old deer next year. You cannot harvest 25 5.5yr old deer every year if you are harvesting from the 2.5-4.5 age classes as management. Pretend that you harvested your 25 5.5 yr olds and tried to take your other 25 management bucks from the 2.5yr age class....now you have no 2.5yr age class left. You harvested it all. What about 10 from 2.5, 10 from 3.5, and 5 from 4.5? Well, next year you’ll have only 20 5.5 year old bucks, 15 4.5yr old bucks, and 15 3.5yr old bucks, 50 2.5yr old bucks and still need to harvest 50. Now only 20 can come from the trophy class, you’re down five trophies. If you manage none from the 4.5 and 3.5 classes, you’ll be down to only 15 the next two years, and you’ll be taking a whopping 30 management deer from the 2.5yr age class. Notice again, that you’re never able to get back to 25 bucks(or 20 if harvesting at 6.5yrs)per age class above your management minimum. However, if you go against the resistance of harvesting yearling bucks for management, you can harvest your 25 or 20 from the top class(5.5 or 6.5) and harvest the bottom 25 or 30(depending on trophy age) from the yearling class(50 bucks) and then you will b able to continually harvest 25 or 20 trophies at the target age every single year. Remember we are assuming that you are at the ideal population, therefore it is fixed, and if you raise the target trophy age, you increase the number of age classes and therefore decrease the number of deer per age class. This means more harvest from the yearling class, and fewer trophies. If you decrease the target trophy age, you decrease the number of age classes, therefore you increasing the number of deer per class, which increases the number of trophies and decrease required yearling harvest. 4.5yrs is below the ideal target age because most deer will peak at 5.5 or 6.5, but you would only have to cull 20 of your 50 yearling bucks and would get 30 trophies. 6.5 is pushing it because you have to cull more than half of your yearling bucks and that makes them much more difficult to judge, many deer will be on decline by 6.5 and you only get to harvest 20 instead of 25.

^^^ The above example assumes a lot of perfection that won’t happen. You won’t be able to harvest every 5.5yr old buck. They’ll be sneaky. You can however harvest the target number of bucks that seem to be about the right age. You won’t get the perfect number of fawns each year, but you can get a good idea of how many you actually did get, and set harvest numbers based on that fawn crop. You won’t have every buck survive to the target trophy age, but it will still guide your target harvest number. This brings up another issue with targeting too high an age class. The older the target age class, the fewer deer can be in each age class and the more dear you will have die due nature. You can’t eat, sell or mount trophies that leave, get eaten, or die where you can’t find them. Even if you set the target at 5.5, you’ll have plenty of sneaky deer make it to 6.5 or 7.5. Heck, even if you set the target at 4.5, you’ll have older bucks slipping through the cracks, and you can manage your bottom 40% of yearlings instead of bottom 50%.

A very simple strategy is this

1: Get your sex ratio to 1:1 ASAP

2. Get your population to the biologist recommended ideal AFTER getting sex ratio in check

3. Get a deer count and set total buck harvest to maintain sex ratio and population.

4. Count yearling bucks and harvest accordingly. (For 4.5 trophy age harvest 40% of yearling bucks 50% for 5.5yrs or 60% for 6.5yrs...actually harvest fewer to compensate for unintended mortality)

5. Harvest the remaining number of total buck harvest to maintain sex ratio and population as free choice from non-yearlings. Your management happened already you so won’t be high grading, it requires no special instructions or guiding and everyone who gets to harvest a trophy is happy because they shot what they wanted.

Under that system, you simply set the number of does that need to go and allow he hunter to shoot whichever he wants until your quota is met. You also set your “trophy” buck number and allow the hunters that get to shoot a trophy to shoot the trophy that they want. A management buck is any yearling, or even any buck of any age, that has fewer than X number of points(4,5,6 whatever your seeing as being the bottom 30-50% of yearlings) until you hit the management number. You can micromanage and possible get and minutely better result, but you have guys hunting management deer that argue about which deer should be culled and which shouldn’t because they actually wanted to shoot a big deer that wasn’t quite a trophy, you have guys trophy hunting that get down to one or two bucks left on the hit list and they can’t get a shot at them and aren’t allowed to shoot any of the numerous good bucks that they see. Under this system you just say, you shoot a doe of your choice, you shoot a buck with four points or less, and you get to shoot any buck you want. The end. No guiding, no arguing, no worrying, and you’ll get way better bucks in only a few years.

This is what is known as "high grading". It's why point rules and grade rules don't work in long term, especially in limited areas. It's why AR's are helping in high density areas and hurting in low density areas too.

That said, unless you have a good solid knowledge of the D/B ratio, no one knows for sure what to kill. "experts" that say gotta kill does, or gotta do this, without that knowledge, are really not experts. I've seen the doe killers wipe out places too;

Get a real count, and a real biologist to help

^^^ And if for some reason you can’t get a real count and a biologist, you can get a lot better estimate with game cameras than by winging it. You can usually identify individual bucks that are not yearlings. Count non-yearling bucks. Count how many does are on all your different cams at approximately the same time and day so that you aren’t counting any does twice. Now you know you have at least that many does. Then count how many does you in the same picture as a buck and get a rough average. Now multiply by how many bucks you have identified. You probably do not have any more does than this. You now have a rough maximum and minimum for how many does you actually. Next count fawns. Fawn to doe ratio will help you figure out if your population is okay or too high. Does from 2.5 to 5.5 should impregnate with twins. Poor nutrition will cause them to selectively abort one fetus. It will almost always be a female fetus if she is carrying one. This is nature’s way of keeping population in check when range conditions are bad. A doe would breed and increase the population for every year of her life, but a buck will not. It’s better than not bearing a fawn also, because genetic diversity is preserved. Anyway, the point is that you should have 1-2 fawns per doe. Some does won’t have successfully bred, some fawn will have been killed by predators, but less than one fawn per doe points to some sort of problem.

Depends on what part of the county but a lot of it 20 older age class bucks on 10k acres is too many.

On the surface looks like you take too many of your middle aged bucks and not enough doe.

Call Mackey McEntire with Concho Aviation. He flies a lot of the area and knows deer management. Just the knowledge from him after flying your place will be worth the hourly cost.