So why do you think coyotes are the reason your not seeing any deer?

[C.Killmaster]

Predation is much like habitat, if you have a problem on your property then you manage it. Here is how you deal with coyotes:

1. Monitor fawn recruitment. Evenly distribute trail cameras across the property at the rate of one per 100 acres (1 per 150 on larger properties is sufficient). Between November and January, leave the cameras out for two weeks over corn. Tally up all the fawn occurrences and adult doe occurrences. Divide the fawns by the does to get your recruitment rate. Excellent recruitment would be 0.75 and up. Between 0.5 and 0.75, reduce your doe harvest or cut out doe harvest for one season. Below 0.5, reduce/eliminate doe harvest and consider removing some coyotes.

*If your doe harvest exceeds 1 doe per 150 acres, you are reducing your local population. Combine that with a predation issue and things go down hill fast.

2. Managing coyotes. If your recruitment is low, coyotes may be the primary issue or they may not. Habitat can also impact recruitment; monitoring deer health parameters, such as body weight and antler measurements by age class, should tell you if habitat is a problem. You can contact a State biologist for local data to compare yours with (this will also be available on the web within a few weeks). Once satisfied that habitat is not the primary issue, you should consider coyote removal. To improve fawn recruitment, coyotes must be trapped starting a few weeks before peak fawning and throughout fawning. Your local fawning dates are 6.5 months or ~200 days after peak rut ( www.georgiawildlife.com/rut-map ). Shooting or trapping coyotes earlier than this will have no impact on fawning. Unless you're an experienced trapper, you should hire a professional. An inexperienced trapper can educate coyotes so that even a professional may not be able to trap them that year. If you're learning to trap, do it in a season or on a property where coyotes aren't currently impacting fawn recruitment.

3. Continue to monitor fawn recruitment and collect biological data from the deer you kill. This not only tells you when you have a problem, but what the root cause of the problem is. State biologists are available to help you learn to collect these data, analyze data, and make recommendations on how to resolve issues with habitat, harvest, and predation. Also, don't overlook the negative impacts of hogs that out-compete deer for many of the same resources.

 

[T.P.]

Crazy thread of the day award.

 

[Hammer Spank]

This thread is funny

 

[fireman32]

Wouldn't an actual study of predation be warranted for each hunters land. There are many factors that affect deer population, how's the hard mast this year, how many deer were killed last year, was there a drought that limited food sources for young deer, nursing does. What did the farmer plant this year, sufficient cover. While coyotes certainly do their part, there are many natural environmental shifts from year to year that play their part in herd reduction or surge.
Spoke with DNR the other day, His words; " coyotes aren't as detrimental to deer as some think, buzzards do more damage than coyotes."
He also stated that feeding deer with corn piles, tends to make them more nocturnal. I'm sure some will disagree, and I can't prove it one way or the other, but there it is.

 

[Stonewall 2]

What I don't understand is if all your deer are gone and your neighbors still have plenty of deer why haven't the coyotes moved to their land? What is the food source holding the coyotes on your property?

 

[j_seph]

The most was 11 total one year. Last 2 years we took 4 or 5 total. Means Nothing yotes killed probably 50 and the guy next door probably shot 15. My point is the yotes are a factor I can adress on my land.

375 acres = 0.58 square miles even if you had a 22 deer per sq mile you wiped half out the year you shot 11, then 4 or 5, sounds to me like you need trigger control not yote control.

I see, we see deer on our club of 500 acres and have yotes. In 4 years there have been 4 bucks, all quality bucks and 4 does killed total. Hence why we still see deer

 

[dawglover73]

Yotes took their toll on us over the years. As of about four years ago we were depleted, and the ones we had left only moved at night, including does. Completely took out the quail population and almost did the same to the turkey. We have trapped over 200 since then and the numbers of deer and turkey are coming back. If concentrated, they will destroy your herd.

 

[Nicodemus]

Personally, I don`t think coyotes nor any other predators will make an impact on a healthy deer herd. Just my observations on two separate pieces of land about 100 miles apart. One for 21 years, the other for over 50 years, long before coyotes were even a factor here.

 

[Hammer Spank]

If you guys really believe that deer numbers are way down, where do you find the gall to EVER shoot a doe?

And please dont say "my family needs the meat".

 

[Ariel05]

The reason I believe our deer numbers are down has to do with the farmers. They are killing a lot of deer, they shot them the whole year. Every year I hear them bragging about shooting 100+ deer a year. All you need is a couple of farmers in a few counties to do that, and there goes the population.

 

[Strickland1984a]

What exactly do you think the DNR should do? Mash the coyote destruct button they have in the main office?






Coyotes will not end deer hunting. The early explorers of the southeast described a land teeming with many times more predators than we have now. Packs of wolves everywhere, panthers by the thousands, all of which ate deer. They also described a land teeming with deer. Deer and deer-eating predators have existed together for tens of thousands of years without the predators ever wiping the deer out. The trouble is combining natural predation with the most efficient, bloodthirsty, abundant predator on earth: hundreds of thousands of humans with rifles.

If anything ends deer hunting, it will be the same thing that ended it a couple hundred years ago: Us.

Greed for money wiped out the deer the first time. Greed for antlers is wiping them out this time. The concept of never shooting young bucks, but killing truckloads of does year after year after year for meat is not sustainable and goes against every principle of game management except for the ones that have big antlers as their ultimate goal-that's what's killing the deer population, in combination with the conversion of half the state to sterile pine forests.

Cross the river into SC, which is also infested with coyotes just as much as Georgia is, and there are still plenty of deer. Their regulations make a little more sense, though: no limit on antlered bucks-you can kill fifty a year if you want to. No stupid antler restrictions. But they control the doe harvest strictly, and the deer population shows that it works.

To bring back the deer population in overhunted areas, what has to happen is for people to change their way of thinking from the latest buck= sacred, doe=meat mindset. If everybody in an area quits shooting two or three or five does a year off every small lease, the population will rebound and become balanced again, and the coyotes will just take the excess.

Reason no hunters is because they know they have killed out the deer. You CAN NOT have a 10 doe limit. All yr. Yr after yr. Some oeople dont have enough smarts to control themselves. They killed all the deer. Ive been as guilty as anybody on some lands. We killed everything we saw without horns. We were told then. That would help have bigger bucks. What a lie it was. All we did was kill all our brood stuff off. Just like they wanted. Now one one property. Ive killed may be 5 doe in 30 yrs. I saw 17 last night. No hunters around me much. Ive saw a coyote each trip to the woods this yr on this land. Its not all the coyotes.

You are right about to many doe tags but dnr needs that fat "donation " from the insurance companies for thier bonuses . They justify leaving it at ten by saying harvest numbers hasn't changed that much. They don't realize only a fraction of whats is killed is turned in.

 

[Strickland1984a]

Personally, I don`t think coyotes nor any other predators will make an impact on a healthy deer herd. Just my observations on two separate pieces of land about 100 miles apart. One for 21 years, the other for over 50 years, long before coyotes were even a factor here.

I respect your opinion but I'm not saying that coyotes alone are going to wipe out all deer just saying with all other things deer have to worry about coyotes is one problem we could take part in remedying . Underestimating this problem could have dire consequences to all our hunting area as it has mine I'm just trying to make other ppl realize they can be a bigger problem than some think

 

[LTZ25]

How does killing more doe's make your bucks bigger ? There's plenty of food for all the deer .

 

[C.Killmaster]

You are right about to many doe tags but dnr needs that fat "donation " from the insurance companies for thier bonuses . They justify leaving it at ten by saying harvest numbers hasn't changed that much. They don't realize only a fraction of whats is killed is turned in.

Wow, I think you're a little misinformed.

 

[Triple C]

You are right about to many doe tags but dnr needs that fat "donation " from the insurance companies for thier bonuses . They justify leaving it at ten by saying harvest numbers hasn't changed that much. They don't realize only a fraction of whats is killed is turned in.

Insurance companies making "donations" to DNR??? Don't think so! Pretty sure DNR has nothing to do with the number of tags issued. Better check with your local legislator. Think you'll find out they control length and date of seasoon and bag limit.

 

[Killdee]

WOW,Hey Ckillmaster, what you gona spend your doe bonus on?


If folks would realise that killing 1 doe per 150= decline in your deer population/ sightings, we would have less threads like this.

 

[MIKE RAINEY]

Yotes are a problem, but you can hunt them all year! They just don't show up at your club on opening day! They are there all year, so hunt them! Hogs showed up on our club this year in herds! We have had them over the years, afew here and there! We have killed 25 in 3 weeks! You can't kill them all, but you can make them not want to be there! We are still seeing big deer this year!

 

[C.Killmaster]

WOW,Hey Ckillmaster, what you gona spend your doe bonus on?


If folks would realise that killing 1 doe per 150= decline in your deer population/ sightings, we would have less threads like this.

The only bonus I've ever gotten is a little appreciation from some fine Georgia hunters. Hard to spend something priceless!

 

[DEERFU]

The only bonus I've ever gotten is a little appreciation from some fine Georgia hunters. Hard to spend something priceless!

Mr. Killmaster I could have sworn I saw you pimpin round the woods in that big green state of Ga. Escalade paid for outta the fat pockets of the insurance industry no doubt

 

[Hammer Spank]

Let's all say this together because it is true:

"The random killing of coyotes does NOTHING to their numbers except possibly INCREASE them".

All you are doing by shooting the ones that walk by your deer stand is possibly scaring deer.

There is also some evidence that coyotes may actually be a benefit to turkey populations.

Okay, let the internet biologists tear me apart.