First off, excellent discussion guys.

RT, I wouldn't necessarily call your situation a non-typical thing.....plain and simple, that is piss poor management at best. VDNR needs to seriously look at how other states(mainly Ohio) manages their herd.

IMO, there is one major factor that makes some hunters believers that the ratio is bad.......set-ups......set-ups......set-ups!!!

Before I explain, let me just say that in no way do I consider myself a better hunter than anyone. Also, I do not consider myself to be a good hunter or an expert. I am just brining up a major factor that not many take into consideration. Also RT, I am not singling you out, your buddies maybe but not you!!!

With that said......So much and I mean a lot, depends on the hunter(s) and how he(they) hunt. Plain and simple if you are not hunting right or if in a group, the group is not hunting right, an accurate buck to doe ratio will never be achieved and what you assume is a poor ratio, is in fact a ratio that is good or not bad. In order to achieve an accurate buck to doe ratio, hunters have to think and hunt the exact same way a mature buck lives his life. In lehmans terms, you cannot always hunt where the deer are at.....sounds crazy but let me explain. I am a believer in the less deer that you see, the more accurately you can judge your ratio. Since I started believing in that, the qualities of my hunts have increased dramatically.

A lot of hunters hang a lot of treestand set-ups based on quanity, number of deer seen per sit. They want to go out and see deer, if not everytime to the stand then almost everytime. Now, put 2 and 2 together on that one, those types of set-ups are going to produce far more doe sightings than buck sightings. At the exact same time, these set-ups more often than not when they produce buck sightings, produce sightings of younger/immature bucks. These hunters think that a successful night in the tree can only be achieved if they see better than 5 deer and if they only see 1 or none, the hunt was a waste. Also, this hunter rarely takes into consideration that he might be seeing a lot of deer but a lot of the deer he is seeing, for the most part are the exact same deer night-after-night(especially the does) but he likely believes atleast half of them are different deer every night. So, with most the deer he is seeing likely being does, he easily assumes the ratio is ridiculous.

Now, with the right set-up, a set-up that is geared more towards quality(thinking and hunting like a mature buck lives) and you have a hunter(s) whose prediction of the ratio vastly differs from "the other guys". These hunters may not be seeing loads of deer every trip to the stand but they are seeing enough deer and a lot of the deer they are likely seeing are not all the same deer. This hunter is gonna see some bucks and a lot of them will likely be better quality bucks than the other guy is used to seeing. I'll use my rut hunting last year as an example for this one. I talked to a lot of guys last year that said they just weren't seeing bucks and that their does far outnumbered there bucks. I never once saw it that way. Over a 3 day period last year(Nov. 14-16), I seen a total of 26 bucks in those 3 days. 16 of those bucks were different ones and in those 3 days, I seen a grand total of 1 doe the entire time.....does that sound screwed up to you!?!? That is basically how my entire rut and for the most part my season happened.

I rarely set-up for quanity unless I am just after does, almost all of my set-ups the entire season, including the rut will be set-up for quality more than quanity. With the exception of acorns in the woods, it is an extreme rarity to see me hunt Ag fields or hayfields or any food at all, it doesn't do me any good to hunt these places and do my part to accurately judge my herd. I like places where I see less deer, these places are more likely to produce sightings of different deer when sightings occur. Yes, over food you can get a decent figure on your ratio but you have no idea exactly how many deer are using the plot that you don't see. You might see 5 bucks and 40 does on your food plot almost every night but that doesn't mean that there is not 10 more bucks that use it and you never see.

Buck to doe ratio is always gonna be area specific and management specific but for most areas(I'll even go as high as 90% of the state of Ohio) and given Ohio's management plan, the ratio is not as bad as people think that it is. As the study shows, even if the numbers are off a little, they are still very realistic and its just not possible for it to ever reach a point to be considered bad. Thats not to say that there are not pockets(small pockets) throughout the state where the ratio is out of whack but those pockets are just that.....pockets!!!