Cherokee County - Buc / Doe ratio

[Masmak]

I hunt in Cherokee County not too far from Jacksonville. On camera, I am seeing about 2 does to one buck ratio. I would have thought it would be higher than that - does to bucks.

What is everyone else seeing? Is that about normal?

[MtnMike]

I hunt in Cherokee County not too far from Jacksonville. On camera, I am seeing about 2 does to one buck ratio. I would have thought it would be higher than that - does to bucks.

What is everyone else seeing? Is that about normal?

I am a few miles North of Jacksonville. I am eat up with hogs so deer sightings are not good right now but I am working on that problem. But if a 1 to 2 Buck to doe ratio is what you have, I would say that is good. I think that it is going to vary from property to property, but the ability to harvest does during Archery along with doe days during rifle has brought the Buck/Doe ratio down. Plus 13" inch rule on bucks allows more bucks to walk as well.

[Muskles]

I hunt 1000 acres in northwest Jacksonville. All I have on camera is bucks and one very old doe. Everyone is always saying shoot more does, but it doesn't make sense to me when I see more bucks than doe. Typically, I have several does on camera, but this year is different. Last year I had a group of 5 pretty regularly, but I haven't seen them yet this year. I run cameras and feeders year round. There's a lot of deer tracks on the lease roads, but I guess they're not hitting the feeders yet, or they're camera shy.

Edit: of the bucks I have, only one is legal... barely!

[Drycreek3189]

I’m NE of J-ville near Troup. I don’t think you can use a camera count to determine buck/doe ratios. I know TPWD uses it for MLDP but I don’t think you get the whole picture, especially not the way they recommend. I think you’d need a fairly large property and lots of cameras to do that. I live on 80 acres and as far as I can tell no bucks “live” on my place, and very few does. Eighty acres means nothing to a deer, especially a buck. Besides that, although different bucks can be identified, does are much harder to identify, unless they have distinguishing markings, which are fairly rare.

Having said that, a buck/doe ratio of 1/2 wouldn’t be a bad thing, it would make your bucks work a little harder and move a little more.