Turn
on hunting TV any night of the week, and most likely you will see a celebrity
hunter pass up a couple of 130- to 140-inch bucks before taking the 170-inch
Booner he was after. Often after doing a little touchdown dance, he will grab a
handful of antlers, look straight into the camera and tell you how you too can
be taking bucks like this if you’ll just buy whatever he is selling that week.
What
he should be telling you is bucks like the one he just took are as scarce as
hen’s teeth, and unless you are managing property located in just a few
specific regions of the country (with almost perfect conditions for growing
huge bucks), you had best forget about 170-inch bucks. While he’s at it, he
should add that good management can lead to a much better class of bucks on
your meat pole and increase hunter satisfaction immensely, but unless you set
realistic goals and expectations, you may make yourself crazy. As deer property
experts, we deal with clients every day who are actively managing property for
whitetails and hunting. They are pretty much a gung-ho group of landowner/
hunters who are willing to do most anything to create a great hunting property.
They create cover, plant food plots, pass young bucks and hunt intelligently.
They do everything by the QDM book and work hard to implement our
recommendations. Most see results almost immediately. Improved nutrition leads
to an average weight gain of about 15 percent. Harvesting more does and letting
young bucks walk lead to an improved buck-to-doe ratio and more and better
bucks. They set a shoot-don’t-shoot buck policy — like a 16-inch inside spread
or maybe a 125-inch minimum score — and by the third or fourth year, they are
taking some nice bucks. Everyone is happy. Then they start watching hunting TV
and their heads get all Boone and Crockett again. They raise the bar to 150
inches, and the misery sets in. They forget they are hunting Alabama, Georgia,
West Virginia, Pennsylvania or Michigan, and those states and another 30 or so
like them produce very few 150-inch or better bucks—much less many 170-inch
Booners. They forget that all properties have limitations (including theirs)
that will prevent them from growing deer like they see every week on hunting
TV. They have set an almost impossible goal for their property, and within a
few years, their hunting buddies are playing golf instead of planting food
plots.
Realistic Goals
This
is one of the most prevalent and debilitating problems faced by our clients who
experience initial success. Many draw a trend line and expect to be growing
world-class bucks in a few more years with a little more work. Sadly, it most
often doesn’t work that way. We send them back to their initial site evaluation
report and remind them of the limitations they face with their property. It
could be poor soils, property size or location, or maybe a neighborhood full of
yearling killers, or even a property plagued with swirling winds or poor
access. Virtually every property has limitations that will keep you out of the B&C
record book. But that doesn’t mean they can’t have the best hunting place in
the county. It simply means they need to establish a set of realistic
expectations. When it comes to big deer, the best way to set realistic goals
and expectations is to apply the 10 percent rule. That is, set a goal for your property
of producing the top 10 percent bucks in your area. Visit your local
taxidermist, and ask him what some of the better bucks coming out of your area
are scoring. Then get in touch with your regional deer biologist, and ask about
ages, weights and antlers. If big buck contests are held in your part of the
world, find out what kind of deer have been entered the past few years. Put all
this information into a hopper (add the top 10 percent factor), and if you push
the right button, a shoot-don’t-shoot bar will pop out. If you start
consistently filling your meat pole with the top 10 percent, you can move it up
to the top 5 percent or even 2.5 percent. And, if you have set it too high, you
can always lower it. The trick is to set goals that are ambitious enough to be
challenging and rewarding yet realistic and achievable. What follows is eternal
bliss. Understand, we’re not talking only antlers. Some folks, such as New
Englanders and Mainers, think in terms of weight. Others, like us and many
other QDMA diehards, are all about age. The 10 percent guideline works with any
and all. And one more thing: With the advent of trail cameras, it is relatively
easy to get a fix on the deer using your property during a given year. Some
thought should be given to putting the green light on a few bucks even if they
don’t measure up. Your bar just might be set too high. The goal is to have some
fun, and nothing acts like a wet blanket to a camp full of hunters like a “nothing-here-to-hunt”
announcement the night before the opener.
Getting To The Top
After
you have established a realistic set of goals and expectations, you can achieve
them relatively easily if you understand the three cornerstones of creating
great deer. Age, nutrition, and genetics are what deer are made of, and the
deer you see on TV have ample doses of each. Unfortunately, most properties won’t
even come close. That’s why you need to set realistic expectations for what you
can produce. That said, it is pretty hard to be disappointed when you are in
the 90th percentile or above (county wide).
Age
If
you are managing a property of say 200 to 300 acres, raising the age structure
of bucks using your property can usually be readily accomplished. The easiest
way is to live in a state that protects young bucks with antler restrictions,
brief buck seasons or some other program designed to reduce the number of young
bucks taken by hunters. If the program is sound and everyone complies, you will
see results almost immediately (year two). The second easiest way is to get a bunch
of neighbors together, form a QDMA co-op and agree to cut back on the young
buck kill. The larger the area, the better. The results will come slower, but
in most cases they are seen in two to three years. The third easiest and yet
most difficult way is voluntary restraint by you and the hunters hunting your
property. If the neighborhood is not hunted to death and you have a sizeable
property with plenty of food and cover, and you practice low-impact hunting,
you should see results in two to three years. Age will do more to put extra
inches on your bucks than anything else. Any fool can see that a 3-½-year-old
buck will out-measure a yearling any day of the week. It would be great if all
bucks could live to be 7-1/2 and express their full antler potential, but that
is an unrealistic expectation. If you can get them to 4-½ to 5-½, you will be thrilled
with the antler results and achieve a significant age accomplishment as well.
Nutrition
Nutrition
can be significantly improved on properties, too. Experts agree that good
nutrition is a product of good soils, and good soils can be in short supply.
However, you can always do something to improve the nutrition on the property
you manage and hunt. Food plots are probably the most popular and effective
method of improving nutrition. A good food plot can produce tons of highly
nutritious forage per acre. We like to see our clients plant three percent to
five percent of their property in food plots. The planting ratio should be
about 60 percent perennial plots versus 40 percent annuals. We like to see plenty
of nice nutrition-rich green stuff pop up in early spring, when does are close
to birthing fawns and later lactating. Winter-weary bucks also need good
groceries in spring to rebuild their bodies and for antler development. Annuals
are fine for attracting deer for fall hunting and pre-winter nutrition, but the
best food plot programs show a balance between annual and perennial plantings. Enhancing
and even planting native vegetation can also move the nutrition needle in the
right direction. On the planting side, you can plant all kinds of hard and soft
mast species and see results in a few years. Native vegetation can be enhanced
with judicious use of a chainsaw and pruning tool to release mast-producing
trees and shrubs. Timber cutting works wonders. Any time you use a chainsaw to
bring sun to the forest floor you have done well by your whitetail herd. A good
nutrition program will add weight to your deer and inches to your bucks. Does,
fawns, and bucks on most managed properties that we work with are typically 15
percent heavier than their counterparts taken on properties with poorer
nutrition. Bucks seem to produce about the same amount of extra antler. Supplemental
feeding can also be used to improve nutrition. It can be extremely costly when
compared to planting food plots or enhancing native vegetation, and we do not
often recommend it to clients. It is also illegal to supplemental feed in many
states.
Genetics
Unless
you are working behind a high fence, genetics are virtually impossible to
affect. According to the QDMA, the average size of a property managed by its
members is slightly more than 200 acres. There is no such thing as a resident
deer herd on 200 acres — or even 500 or 1,000 acres. Sure, some bucks are
homebodies and tend to hang around certain areas, but if you think you are
going to buy a half dozen $5,000 breeder bucks and turn them loose on your place
to improve the genetic composition of the herd, you had better think again.
Chances are, half of them will be three properties away by morning, and the
rest of them will die of natural causes such as cars, disease or rival breeding
bucks within a year. And if any of them manage to breed with wild deer, by the
time their antler genes are passed on through a few generations, they will be
so diluted they will make very little if any difference in the wild herd. The
gene manipulation business is definitely a high-fence game where you start from
scratch with breeder bucks and does.
So What Do You Do?
Assuming
you have set sensible goals, how do you achieve them? For starters, you can
purchase a property in an area known for producing bucks with sizeable antlers
or heavy weights. There are soil and mineral belts across states capable of
producing deer 20 percent to 25 percent larger than surrounding areas. Working
with ground like that can make life easier. You can also buy into an area
(neighborhood) where QDM is practiced, and that will help you with the age
equation. Some areas also seem to contain deer with better antler genetics (or
maybe it is just the soils). This is an option well worth consideration if you
are in the market for property. But most have already bought in and already own
or lease the property they are working with. In that case, the most direct path
to the 90th percentile is age, nutrition and hunting smart. But — no matter what
— have fun!
