Central Iowa
Life Member
Observation Data
Many people loosely throw around numbers of what they believe the sex ratios are of their properties and the properties they hunt. Many times these numbers are from memory and not actual averaged and recorded data from their time a field. I would tend to agree you could get a fair estimation of the total sex ratio of the property but to get a true assessment of your management practices there are other factors to take into consideration. Other information besides total sex ratio that consistent data recording can tell you is amount of deer, adult sex ratio, fawn recruitment, and age Structure. It is also a good idea to compile this data with trail camera data collected as the mature buck data may be biased during daylight hours and ability to avoid human pressure. After hunting a friends property this past year that required this observation data I found it interesting what it can tell about your herd and management practices. This was brought up last night at the Central Iowa QDMA meeting and I thought I would share observation card that he put together.
Many people loosely throw around numbers of what they believe the sex ratios are of their properties and the properties they hunt. Many times these numbers are from memory and not actual averaged and recorded data from their time a field. I would tend to agree you could get a fair estimation of the total sex ratio of the property but to get a true assessment of your management practices there are other factors to take into consideration. Other information besides total sex ratio that consistent data recording can tell you is amount of deer, adult sex ratio, fawn recruitment, and age Structure. It is also a good idea to compile this data with trail camera data collected as the mature buck data may be biased during daylight hours and ability to avoid human pressure. After hunting a friends property this past year that required this observation data I found it interesting what it can tell about your herd and management practices. This was brought up last night at the Central Iowa QDMA meeting and I thought I would share observation card that he put together.