Should I harvest does on 400 acres in Louisiana?

By Grant Woods,

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← Grant's Answers — Deer Management
Question
Hey grant I’m a big fan of your YouTube channel and thought you might be able to help me with something. We have recently leased a new 400 acre tract in nw Louisiana. We see at least 6 doe every time I hunt and very rarely see bucks. When I do get pictures or see of bucks they are 1.5 old bucks. We were told that a group of guys used to run dogs and would kill 25 to 50 deer a year off of this place illegally. I’m thinking that we may have to many does on the property and was thinking about thining them out or should I let them keep repopulating the area because they do get breed every year due to all the new fawns. This is our second year on the property. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks and keep up the great work!! Jeremy from Shreveport, la

Jeremy,

Congratulations on having the lease!  

Wow – I can’t imagine anyone (legal or otherwise) taking 50 deer from 400 acres. 

If there is more quality food than deer (prefered forage isn’t browsed) then there’s no need to harvest does. If the body weights of deer harvested are above average there’s no need to harvest does.  

If prefered plants show a lot of browse and the average body weights are low I recommend you harvest enough does to balance the number of deer with the habitat’s potential to provide quality forage.  The quality of the habitat will tell you much about the local deer population.

The only way to improve the average age structure of bucks is to pass up younger bucks!  

You might watch our show on this website as there’s more information here than we can share on YouTube.

Enjoy creation,

grant

November 3, 2015