While back the farmer who farms our tillable told me that in the early 2000s he and his son took something like 30 deer out of our fields on nuisance permits, between us and the neighbors let’s call it 200 acres and 60 tillable. My dad had never told me about this!… anywhoo farmer said in the years following that our place is where he saw the biggest bucks from the tractor.
Fast forward 20 years and I’m about 6 years into decent quality food plots, and the woods were selective harvested 3 years ago, I’d say the place is as good as it’s ever been. Through 2022 we’ve always had a decent buck around, sometimes four. But man this year does not look good. I’d say our numbers are higher than ever, but quality racks are at a low. A great buck from the past few years is around but past his prime. We do harvest does, but maybe not enough. Short story long have you seen great habitat lead to a property with too much social pressure, annoying the older bucks, and is there something to be said for keeping the deer herd numbers on the low side? Of course this could just be a bad luck of the draw year, but I’m trying to decipher if I’m just seeing one bad data point, or more like a trend…
Fast forward 20 years and I’m about 6 years into decent quality food plots, and the woods were selective harvested 3 years ago, I’d say the place is as good as it’s ever been. Through 2022 we’ve always had a decent buck around, sometimes four. But man this year does not look good. I’d say our numbers are higher than ever, but quality racks are at a low. A great buck from the past few years is around but past his prime. We do harvest does, but maybe not enough. Short story long have you seen great habitat lead to a property with too much social pressure, annoying the older bucks, and is there something to be said for keeping the deer herd numbers on the low side? Of course this could just be a bad luck of the draw year, but I’m trying to decipher if I’m just seeing one bad data point, or more like a trend…