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2024 antlerless bag limit

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Veracity35

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Joined
Oct 30, 2024
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15
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Tennessee
I'm sure by now everyone knows the limit on the Doe's this season being three a day per most the state so how many of y'all are going take it seriously and do best ya can to harvest three a day till either you're tired of hunting or have no more room for meat? My question is why are the doe limits went through the ceiling? I hunt a property in Overton county and it's rather large and if my son and be three more of us and set out to harvest three doe a day for say five days well I'm being serious in two days we be done because there isn't that many and twra biologist need to get some boots on the ground before state of TN hasn't got enough of deer to hold a season!!! Yeah some of y'all have way to many doe there running everywhere except how many times are ya counting same doe or same heard of does?? We has hunters owe it to the game we pursue and love to watch need to really look at this because from my view of three counties on the whitetail heard health isn't that grand. Now if the heard was healthy and abundant my mind and heart would have a different thought on this but seriously to all that read this thread remember this day if the bag limit on doe stay like this for another season our deer heard will be nothing shy of being a thing of the past.... So what's your thoughts and views on this subject and to how many hunters these days don't eat what they harvest?
 
The three a day doe limit wasn't set in hopes that hunters would actually try for it every time out. It was simply to encourage us to take a doe whenever we needed or wanted one. I do wish the limit didn't apply on public land that follows statewide regs and bags.

I've done it once when I was way behind on stocking my freezer. I never want to have to process three deer at a time again. That's the one gripe I have against HFH. Even though it does a lot of good, it also enables the trigger yankers by giving them an out under the guise of "feeding people."
 
It's been 3 per day for years in middle tn. Noone is shooting 3 does a day the whole season. We have a great deer herd. We use it to our advantage for management as do most. We kill our does at the end of the season besides I'll kill one or 2 during bow season sometimes. Twra has done a great job with that particular rule and needs to leave it alone. I don't want to hunt 12 to 20 days just to kill one doe a day to get our doe numbers where they need to be depending on the year.
 
I've said it before and I will say it again… It's not how many deer you can kill… it's how many can you do something with?

When every processor is full and the weather is too sketchy to hang them, it's hard to put 3 on the ground.
 
Lost Lake said:
I do wish the limit didn't apply on public land that follows statewide regs and bags.
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I think 3/day is quite high anywhere but I would never want to see it apply to private and not to public land. Everyone should play by the same rules.

Plus I can't imagine killing 3 does in a day on public land happens often. That's hard to do even on private. But I can tell you if I moved back to TN, I'd love the opportunity to occasionally kill more than one doe on a cold day when I can hang them.
 
I heard of people trying to kill 3 a day as many days as they could. Takes just one of those types to really screw up an area. Also heard that processors were being left with unclaimed deer from them. I did use to kill a doe or two every year, but quit after the 3 a day limit started and we saw our overall deer sightings and camera sightings drop dramatically. Fortunately one problem property has switched hands a couple times, and things have gotten better to some degree.
 
Veracity35 said:
I'm sure by now everyone knows the limit on the Doe's this season being three a day per most the state so how many of y'all are going take it seriously and do best ya can to harvest three a day till either you're tired of hunting or have no more room for meat? My question is why are the doe limits went through the ceiling? I hunt a property in Overton county and it's rather large and if my son and be three more of us and set out to harvest three doe a day for say five days well I'm being serious in two days we be done because there isn't that many and twra biologist need to get some boots on the ground before state of TN hasn't got enough of deer to hold a season!!! Yeah some of y'all have way to many doe there running everywhere except how many times are ya counting same doe or same heard of does?? We has hunters owe it to the game we pursue and love to watch need to really look at this because from my view of three counties on the whitetail heard health isn't that grand. Now if the heard was healthy and abundant my mind and heart would have a different thought on this but seriously to all that read this thread remember this day if the bag limit on doe stay like this for another season our deer heard will be nothing shy of being a thing of the past.... So what's your thoughts and views on this subject and to how many hunters these days don't eat what they harvest?
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I would still bet that when season is over, there will have been more bucks harvested than does! MOST hunters will shoot less than 2 does no matter the limit.
 
Veracity35 said:
I hunt a property in Overton county and it's rather large and if my son and be three more of us and set out to harvest three doe a day for say five days well I'm being serious in two days we be done because there isn't that many and twra biologist need to get some boots on the ground before state of TN hasn't got enough of deer to hold a season!!!
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I'm not saying the following is true everywhere, but this happened to my brother and me a few years ago. He said not to shoot any doe on his land because the numbers were down. He had very few doe showing up in his yard to feed. He usually would see 8-12 feeding at any given time. He was only seeing 2 or 3 at a time that year. So we passed the doe. Then right after hunting season ended the herd came to feed. There was 32 doe in the yard or woods at the edge of the yard. The moral of the story is there are more out there than you may think.
 
I am seeing a little over 1/2 the state not most of the state, that's a large round up. 2 deer is a lot when you process your own much less 3 lol
 
The 3/day gives you the flexibility to manage your land however you see fit.

Hopefully the ones pulling the trigger are responsible enough to know how many (if any) does need to be removed from an area.

How many I put on the hit list is strictly determined by fawn recruitment percentages based on 1000s of trail cam pictures to keep the population stable. For years, we shot 15 to 20 per year. Once coyotes exploded and ate all the fawns, we quit shooting any does. Past 3 years with the reduction in coyotes and increase in fawn recruitment, we have increased our doe harvest. Killed 4 2y ago, 6 last year, and have 8 on the hit list this year. We have only killed 4 so far, so will take 4 more when I come back up for 2nd rut.

We try to target the medium sized dry does, but this year, all are fair game except for the largest does.
 
TNLynn said:
I would still bet that when season is over, there will have been more bucks harvested than does! MOST hunters will shoot less than 2 does no matter the limit.
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That's a safe bet; as it's almost a 2-1 ratio for bucks to does killed state-wide (64,950 bucks to 35,482 does; with an additional 1096 antlerless bucks taken as well)
 
We all have a doe hunt and kill 6-8 in a few days span. Then make all our sausage and jerky etc while everyone is pitching in. It's work it's not fun but it's the best meat a fella can eat and with good company. There ain't a real deer hunter alive that wants to deal with 3does a day for 3months straight.
 
Snake said:
I've did it before a few times but it's really ridiculous... and it's more work than fun .
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It is more work then fun for us also. But when trying to manage properties it does need to be done. And the 3 a day make it where we will get it done in 3 days rather then who knows how many. For us this year we will kill 15 that's the most we will have killed in several years. But we will keep 3 for us maybe 4. We have 2 families that want 2 a piece. And the hunters for hungry will get the rest. And that to me is a great program as well.
 

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