Thread: My woodhill day.

Originally Posted by veitnamcam

This is the never ending management problem.
Want trophys shoot females and let quality AND Quantity of males increase.
Means that once system is in place very few animals can be harvested sustainabley.
Want plenty of animals to harvest.
shoot spikers and yearlings leaving breeding age females.
Everyone wants something different except that everyone wants the opportunity to hunt... and that means keeping female numbers high so that high numbers of animals are produced and allotted and harvested.

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We are damned if we do and damned if we don't.

Striking the balance between harvesting enough animals to allow hunters a successful hunt and still retaining enough deer to keep the herd numbers sustainable is difficult.
Bearing in mind that some deer are transient and spend time on the adjacent farmland where they are shot by hunters outside the ballot season, and the presence of 'poachers' in the forest, we err on the side of caution when setting the number of doe permits.

We have however increased the numbers of Doe permits this year compared with previous years but here is the paradox. Although the numbers of doe permits have increased, the numbers of does shot so far this year is only slightly higher than previous years.

The main factor in the size and condition of the animals is that the environment ( coastal sand dunes overlaid with pines) is not conducive to large fat deer. These same conditions also create 'scrappy' bucks with small antlers due to the lack of trace elements and good food sources. Its interesting to note that the bigger heads come from those blocks adjacent to farms on eastern side of the forest. These animals have access to better food and it shows in their 'quality'.

Having said that, most of the does I have 'inspected' this year while on patrol are in good condition. The ones that have looked a bit 'skinny' are normally the first animal the hunter has seen when on their balloted hunt. If you are prepared to take a chance that you will see more animals and let the first one go, the odds are that you will see a better conditioned animal later.

Chances are however that it may be the only animal that you will have the opportunity to shoot lol.

I know that on the rare occasion that I get a ballot, I will pass up the first animal if it looks a bit small and take my chances on seeing a bigger animal later in the day. Most times it means I want to kick myself in the butt when the sun goes down but that's why we call it hunting.

I will be hunting on sunday due to the good grace of one of my hunting buddies who was successful in the ballot and took pity on me. ( I haven't won a ballot for the last 6 years)

Hopefully I will have a successful hunt report to post up next week...............
Cheers
Allgood