The Perfect Deer Management Plan

Scott from Pennsylvania asks,

Hi Bill, hope all is well. I’ve believe I have watched nearly every episode of Midwest whitetail. I was rewatching the 2011 season and got to thinking what an amazing line up of bucks to had to hunt that year. The Double G-4, Big, G-5, The Mills buck, and Bubba among others possibly. I know you’ve touched on the subject some in your blogs and videos, but I was wondering if you had anymore theories or insight as to what made this time frame so special on your farm? The second part of my question is why do you think the farm was not able to get fully back to pre EHD levels of monster bucks? (Not that you weren’t killing great bucks, Lefty, Skinny, The surprise bean field buck, and others were all incredible deer.) Was 2010-2012 a culmination of great age structure and primo habit coming to a climax or was the post EHD years just a numbers game of less bucks overall and less bucks with superior genetics reaching full maturity? Would love to hear your thoughts and you go into detail about it! Thanks, Scott

Bill responds,

Topic: The Perfect Deer Management Plan:

Scott,

I have asked myself that question a few times. You overlook Daggers, another 180″+ buck that was on the farm in 2011.  Our son killed the buck we called Flyers that year too – another buck over 170″.

I remember that I had 11 bucks on trail cams prior to the time I stopped running them (mid-to-late October) that year that would have grossed over 170″!

Interestingly, there was more hunting pressure in the neighborhood back in 2011 (and prior) than at any other time since.  Some of the neighboring farms were just getting pounded.  So, it was not lack of hunting pressure that led to those bucks. I think it was a combination of three things: numbers, habitat and food.

Numbers: We had been very aggressively shooting does in that neighborhood. That started around 2004 or so.  But, despite that, there were still tons of bucks.  I remember one time in 2004 or 2005 counting 25 different 2 year old bucks in one small food plot at the same time.  As long as the overall numbers in the neighborhood stayed high, my farm seemed to be a big importer of bucks from all around. There were just lots and lots of deer in the general area.

Habitat: I had done a very aggressive timber stand improvement campaign on the farm in 2003-2007 that resulted in hundreds of acres of thick underbrush and that means lots of browse. The deer had plenty of security cover and lots to eat without ever leaving the woods.

Food: I used to plant the whole farm to corn and then not harvest it until after the hunting season.  That way I held a lot of deer for a good part of the season and could selectively remove does without killing button bucks or shed bucks.  My neighbors (who also hunted my fields at times) and my friends killed a lot of does and very, very few bucks.  After the commodity prices started to go up, it got too expensive for me to do that (I lost too much money on crops) and I started to cash rent the farm.  The cash rent farmer took the crops out as soon as possible and I do think that influenced deer behavior in that area. We also had a number of really bad droughts after 2011 and some years my farm had very little food on it.  I am sure that also contributed to the drop off in bucks.

So, I think it was the combination of all three factors – the perfect storm. There were some really nice up and comers in 2011 also that would have been special so I do think that quality of hunting would have been sustainable if not for the EHD that really pounded that area in 2012.

It was bouncing back pretty well when I sold it last year and the guy that bought it planted tons of food so I am sure it will return to former glory if he can control the doe numbers – a huge challenge – and keep improving the habitat.  Timber stand improvement has about a ten year life cycle before you have go back through and cut out all the junk again that has had time to canopy and shade the ground eliminating browse.

Managing a farm that big and keeping it on the razor edge of quality production is a ton of work. I spent all my free time out there working on it during those glory years. I admit that I started to get burned out along the way and didn’t do as much habitat work as I should have toward the end.

There was no magic formula, just the perfect combination of all the factors that contribute to big bucks coming together at once. Like I said, I think it can be reproduced but it takes tons of work and a fair amount of money invested in food plots – not to mention an area with at least a few good neighbors. Good luck. (6/13/21)