Big Bucks At Home

It was tough growing up as a whitetail freak-in-waiting in the Great State of Georgia--at least in the Piedmont. My home county was chronically overpopulated with deer, and bereft of any large-scale agriculture--save square mile after square mile of pine plantations. It was home to a lot of hunters who lived by the mantra, "brown is down." Shooting a mature buck with impressive headgear was only a possibility, in my dreams, the night before opening day. Some guys-- obsessed, wise, and patient--were able to pull it off. I was merely obsessed. I generally had my five tags punched well before Thanksgiving, and usually went on to leisurely pursuits such as duck, rabbit and squirrel hunting for the remainder of the season.

Some 20 years later, deer hunting has changed dramatically in Putnam County. There are fewer deer, hundreds of acres are plowed and planted specifically for whitetails, and--most importantly--hunters are much more selective when pulling the trigger. Bucks in the 140s and 150s were rare if not unheard-of when I started hunting, and we would ride a 120-class monster around until its hair fell off. Now bucks in the 160s show up with shocking regularity. Hunters, even those limited to hunting public land, have a good chance of shooting a mature buck if they are discriminating. Some of the changes in buck quality came through state hunting regulations--doe harvest is essentially unlimited for the average hunter, and a second buck must have at least eight points--but most of it is a result of hunters simply practicing voluntary Quality Deer Management (QDM) on a wide scale.

So what does this dramatic turnaround in my home county have to do with you and your hunting property? Applying basic QDM principles to your lease or farm will improve herd health, and most likely lead to bucks with bigger headgear. I spent three years working for the Quality Deer Management Association, and I traveled from one end of the country to the other: looking, learning and listening to different hunters' deer management stories. Every farm was different, but they all followed some pretty basic principles for growing big bucks.

Deer Hunting's Most Important Three Pounds
Three pounds is a pretty good pull weight for a hunting rifle, and there is nothing that can have a more dramatic and immediate effect on a deer herd than a dedicated and educated hunter with a good gun. Food plots are sexy--but lead clad in copper, moving several thousand feet-per-second, will do a lot for a deer herd. That same hunk of copper-clad lead, staying put in a chamber, can also have a dramatic and positive effect on a young buck: it lets him grow older and bigger.

In the South, many farms and leases are chronically overpopulated, with deer densities approaching 70 or 80 deer per square mile. With exceptions like corn- and bean-rich central Iowa or Illinois, most habitats simply cannot support these numbers of deer; no amount of plowing, planting or feeding will change that fact. If hunters shoot enough does, however, populations will change for the better--and it will change them fast. When you shoot does, the population is reduced over time, which frees up limited resources--most notably, food.