I belong to a 1600-acre lease in southern Arkansas. Seven years ago I wanted to try a quality deer management plan but none of the members in the club wanted to do it.
Deer hunters are so skeptical. They are always skeptical of products. And they never want to spend the money for good products. They buy cheap annuals like ryegrass, wheat or oats and plant every year, and it ends up costing them more in the long run compared to planting a good perennial. I wanted to try Imperial Whitetail Clover but couldn’t get the rest of the club to go for it.
Deer hunters are so skeptical. They are always skeptical of products. And they never want to spend the money for good products. They buy cheap annuals like ryegrass, wheat or oats and plant every year, and it ends up costing them more in the long run compared to planting a good perennial. I wanted to try Imperial Whitetail Clover but couldn’t get the rest of the club to go for it.
So I planted a quarter-acre plot right behind an old farmhouse I own just a few hundred yards away from the club property line.
Deer would be in that clover field at all times of the day. We counted 17 deer in that little quarter acre one day.
After that, I planted some of the old logging roads that ran through “my” part the lease. I pulled in deer from all over the area. I had deer all over my area and the other guys weren’t seeing anything. And they were only 500 yards away!
I just planted the Imperial Clover to set an example and get them to follow me. I planted other stuff, and the deer wouldn’t touch it. We now plant Imperial Clover all over the lease.
Seven years ago, during the first season of the club’s management plan, we harvested 72 deer with an average weight of 85 pounds. Even mature does weighed less than 100 pounds. Before we started planting Imperial Clover, an excellent buck weighed 150 pounds. Last year a member of the club killed a 13-point that weighed close to 180 pounds. That’s the biggest antlered buck we’ve ever seen (net score in the 140s). We also got an 8-point that weighed 210 pounds. Our average kill is now around 130 pounds. And that’s great for Arkansas.
And all of this really happened since we started planting the Imperial Clover. It’s like we have a different herd. And every time a deer comes to the clover, it seems like it comes back with a friend. We’re pulling deer off our neighbors land like you wouldn’t believe. We killed over 50 deer last year! A 2000-acre lease that borders us killed six.
