WTNUT
5 year old buck +
I probably heard the management phrase “high grading” over 25 years ago. It was sometime in the early 90s that I started to become intrigued with managing habitat and ultimately deer. I didn’t have a pot to piss in or a porch to throw it off back then, but I was dreaming big. Dr. Kroll had started his series in North American Whitetail called “Building a Deer Factory” - as near as I can recall.
I was all in! As I look through my cell pics this morning from nearly 100 Browning cell cams all of which synched and sent pictures at 6 AM this morning (just as they do at 11AM, 3PM and 8PM every day), I am almost all out.
High grading in its most basic sense means if we continue to let all the young bucks walk and only harvest the mature high scoring bucks (lets say 4.5 here, but 5.5 at my farm), then eventually we will have a lot of bucks that are inferior doing most of the breeding. Statistically the inferior bucks do most of the breeding due to there being far more of them, than those that top out in the B&C range.
Over time the quality is depleted. I am a firm believer in the dangers of high grading at this point. This point is after 20 years of active management following the “experts” and lots of data at this point.
I have more bucks this year than ever that will age out at 5 year old and older. I have a buck to doe ratio that is closer to 1:1 than ever. That comes from many years of shooting 7-12 does for every buck we shot. However, after 20 years of “management” I have a s_it ton of 130 inch 8 points running around and fewer bucks over 160 than ever. I believe (which means I may be wrong or right) we have built a deer factory and high graded our bucks along the way so that we crank out a lot of sedans, but very few sports cars these days.
The hunting industry and technology have caused problems as well. All but one of my farms are in states where it is legal to bait. That means bags of acorn rage, orange crush, corn, and whatever else can be bought to dump on the ground. When you combine that with crossbows (also legal in most of the states where I have farms) and cell cams that allow you to sit at the house and wait until “your target buck” is hitting the bait pile during daylight, you are going in the wrong direction my friends.
The youth think “hunting” means shopping at Wal-Mart for the best bait, and have no idea what “scouting” is or I should say was. The family, sense of community and togetherness that was once peaking during the week of gun season is dying. Yes, we use to bow hunt in the 80s, but we bow hunted with primitive bows for weeks and sometimes we got one, but most of the time we waited for that magical week where we could “even the odds” and get out the shotgun or rifle depending on where you hunted. Today, crossbows and blinds have brought down many, and I mean MANY, of the good bucks before gun season arrives. Therefore, a few folks hunt the first day or two of gun season, but it really is a boring week these days.
So, I ask you are we going in the right direction? Or, are we traveling down the wrong path.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
I was all in! As I look through my cell pics this morning from nearly 100 Browning cell cams all of which synched and sent pictures at 6 AM this morning (just as they do at 11AM, 3PM and 8PM every day), I am almost all out.
High grading in its most basic sense means if we continue to let all the young bucks walk and only harvest the mature high scoring bucks (lets say 4.5 here, but 5.5 at my farm), then eventually we will have a lot of bucks that are inferior doing most of the breeding. Statistically the inferior bucks do most of the breeding due to there being far more of them, than those that top out in the B&C range.
Over time the quality is depleted. I am a firm believer in the dangers of high grading at this point. This point is after 20 years of active management following the “experts” and lots of data at this point.
I have more bucks this year than ever that will age out at 5 year old and older. I have a buck to doe ratio that is closer to 1:1 than ever. That comes from many years of shooting 7-12 does for every buck we shot. However, after 20 years of “management” I have a s_it ton of 130 inch 8 points running around and fewer bucks over 160 than ever. I believe (which means I may be wrong or right) we have built a deer factory and high graded our bucks along the way so that we crank out a lot of sedans, but very few sports cars these days.
The hunting industry and technology have caused problems as well. All but one of my farms are in states where it is legal to bait. That means bags of acorn rage, orange crush, corn, and whatever else can be bought to dump on the ground. When you combine that with crossbows (also legal in most of the states where I have farms) and cell cams that allow you to sit at the house and wait until “your target buck” is hitting the bait pile during daylight, you are going in the wrong direction my friends.
The youth think “hunting” means shopping at Wal-Mart for the best bait, and have no idea what “scouting” is or I should say was. The family, sense of community and togetherness that was once peaking during the week of gun season is dying. Yes, we use to bow hunt in the 80s, but we bow hunted with primitive bows for weeks and sometimes we got one, but most of the time we waited for that magical week where we could “even the odds” and get out the shotgun or rifle depending on where you hunted. Today, crossbows and blinds have brought down many, and I mean MANY, of the good bucks before gun season arrives. Therefore, a few folks hunt the first day or two of gun season, but it really is a boring week these days.
So, I ask you are we going in the right direction? Or, are we traveling down the wrong path.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk