Deerslayer,
I'm not trying to bite your head off, just trying to rationalize thoughts and ideas. Let's first define a deer problem, I've never seen a place with a 9:1 buck to doe ratio, let me ask you have you ever seen a field with a hundred deer in it consisting of 90 bucks and 10 does? I know the answer to your question is no, but I would bet every penny I have that, you have seen a 9:1 doe to buck ratio, so 90 does and 10 bucks out in a field. So therefore we do not have a
deer problem we have a
doe problem in
certain areas.
Now let's think rationally, lets say a nonresident a 1000 miles can come here and hunt a doe for resident fees a mere 26 dollars for the first doe and 11 dollars for each additional doe. However, the nonresident doesn't have any chance at shooting a buck, I want to know your honest opinion, will he come here and hunt at that price for a doe? A fact I do know, is he is not gonna come here just to get extra deer meat, I do not know of a state where a person cannot shoot a deer for the sole purpose of providing meat for the table. If you answered yes he would come, I guess our deer meat must taste alot better than other states. If a person is traveling from state to state, they really don't care about the meat, however a BIG RACK would be something to take home. I mean you can shoot a deer for meat way cheaper at your home state than you can here, I don't blame people for not coming, i sure the heck wouldn't. I really don't think most nonresidents come here with the sole purpose to help manage iowa's deer herd.
Another question I would like to ask is, are you really a hunter? May be kind of a silly question because i Know you are. However, you state seeing 100 deer in a field during a time when deer come for miles to congregate into big herds. If you are truly a hunter you would recognize this fact. Let me ask you this, I drive around every night looking at deer, I know what you see. This is what you do not see, you do not see a 100 deer in every field you drive by. In fact, most likely you see a hundred deer in one field, and slim pickings on deer sightings in the next few miles where you will run into another big group, and a few more miles of deadness. Now if you were to drive around in the summer, you would not see a 100 deer out in one field, you would see more than likely a 100 deer spread sporadically for the few miles, that you didn't see the deer during the winter. Think of it as shed hunting, where do you find all the sheds? Where they are all grouped up from the winter, each farm is not gonna have sheds on them, and you will notice that if you shed hunt often. If you do see a 100 deer in every adjoining field nonstop for many miles, yes we have a deer problem then.
Now let's think of that 100 deer that is grouped up in the winter. In the next few months that herd will break up dramatically and spread over miles of ground and many different landowners that will shoot them. If the deer get pressured alot, they will find areas, such as
your place where hunting pressure is minimal and they generally feel safe. This will create a
doe problem on your farm. You own 700 acres, most likely that farm should have at least 40 does a year shot off it to prevent the 80-120 does that would be there the next year. This creates your so called deer problem, because I highly doubt that even with the people you do have hunting it, they don't harvest that many deer to keep that property well managed.
Lastly, if you ever want to come up my way, I will prove to you that the whole state of iowa does
not have a deer problem. WE will drive around 40 miles of endless timber and maybe see a 150 deer, in fact I know what we will see, I see them every night. There are 2 big groups of about 50 deer, one group of around 25 and a few small groups of 3 or 4 inbetween those groups. That's rougly 3.75 deer per square mile, sounds like a problem to me
If what you are stating is true, I should see around 4000 deer on a 40 mile drive. AGAIN, if you are really really dying to prove me wrong, email me at
Mowens@iastate.edu, and I will come up around August and we will drive around and if you can show me one field with a 100 deer in it (that is not your place) and residents hunt it every year, I will buy you dinner
Thanks for reading this
Liv4Rut
