Deer business wars?

[Hoytvectrix]

The humorous part of this is you can tell most of them listen to each other and are constantly jostling to come up with a way to be considered the true expert. I know which one you are referring to. If you want to listen to hypocrisy and a couple of guys contradicting themselves every week on a podcast thats the one to listen to. There are self proclaimed experts , BS'rs and snake oil salesmen in every industry and the deer business is no different. There are also plenty of honest people making products that help us enjoy our hobby as well. The individuals you refer to are really worried about regenerative guys because when it takes hold (and it will) with the guys with the expendable income to pay for a consultant, the koolaid wont taste very good anymore. My guess is when that time comes they will say they have been doing it all along and spin it in their favor. When someone tells you over and over they are "telling it like it is" and "looking out for the average guy" they are doing anything but! Especially when they share an opinion as "Fact" on something they have never even tried themselves ! The kind of people on this forum typically see right thru that type of thing but there is obviously a pile of people that dont. If they were really telling it like it is, they should just state " im going to help you kill a deer regardless of who or what else it messes up along the way". There is a bunch of people that would be fine with that. I doubt any of those people are on this forum much. I love to hunt deer as much as anyone. The older I get the more i enjoy managing my habitat for all wildlife. If i had to choose between deer hunting and managing my property for all wildlife including my pollinator plantings it would be a tough decision and this is coming from a guy that derives almost 100% of his income via the deer business over my entire 30 + year career.

Could you guys just do the rhymes with game for naming them? I feel like I'm pretty well tapped into what's out there and I feel like I'm missing out on some great off-season drama. At the very least I would like to know who to avoid if I don't already know of them.

 

[Foggy47]

I think Dale Carnegie summed it up the best: "They do not erect monuments to critics". Most of those folks have not done their homework or tested the theories they will criticize....and that goes for most of us. The public is slow to change. Always been that way....and sometimes it's hard for a free thinker to understand how naive folks can be.

I like a cartoon that depicts an 18th century battle going on.....and has a General telling an inventor "don't bother me now....I have a battle to fight'.....as the inventor has a Gatling gun behind a curtain. Grin. Sometimes it goes just like that. The pic below is not the one I was thinking of....but its close. I have sent a pic like this to a few "wanna be customers" when I had trouble getting to see them. It worked a time or two. Grin.

OKay....I found the one I was thinking of......still is good one.....should have this on the back of my biz card....back in the day......lol.

 

[Bill]

It took me a long time to realize why I was receiving so much backlash to my food plot experiments on the old forum. I guess I was naïve to how things work.

I have a plaque in my office “honoring” me for my commitment to the cause. Bet they wish they could get that back.

I can’t comment on the current events, I’ll be honest. This place and my farm are the only places I look for or about deer and habitat. I’m certainly no where close to an expert about anything.

And For the record I have a fancy degree in Marketing. My old professor’s would probably fail me today ‘:)

No way we ever have to sort through ads or assholes while I’m around.

 

[TreeDaddy]

Could you guys just do the rhymes with game for naming them? I feel like I'm pretty well tapped into what's out there and I feel like I'm missing out on some great off-season drama. At the very least I would like to know who to avoid if I don't already know of them.

I have no idea

I dont read or follow anyone on media/you tube,etc

bill

 

[TreeDaddy]

Could you guys just do the rhymes with game for naming them? I feel like I'm pretty well tapped into what's out there and I feel like I'm missing out on some great off-season drama. At the very least I would like to know who to avoid if I don't already know of them.

Not sure

Some of the fellas here mention Steff Jurgis

bill

 

[TenPoint]

Wiggins and Wurgis

 

[sandbur]

I only pay attention to one deer manager and that is Steve Bartylla. I know he works in some environments similar to my part of the country and I just like the guy.

I have not listened to any other experts for years other than a few habitat videos. I see some of these guys making the same mistakes we made years ago.

I seem to have very little interest in food plotting and magic beans at this point. I just don’t have the interest and live in a heavy ag area with corn, beans, alfalfa, sweet corn, and edible beans all around me.


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[Wind Gypsy]

Higgins is the only whitetail podcast I listen regularly. They’ve always thrown some barbs at others so I haven’t noticed a big increase? He’s been steady making fun of the “doe factory” concept and tree saddles since I started listening. Nocked crimpers recently seemingly because he’s focused on corn and beans and not the rye focus that seems to accompany crimpers but did make sure to mention that the deadly dozen they’ve been using for years is a lot like the new “soil building blends” and seemed to allude to vitalize in particular.

Haven’t watched sturgis in a while but know he advised for brassica plantings to be alone and over-seeded with rye later if at all so you could get more brassica biomass than you would if it were competing with grains upon germination. By mid Nov in central to northern MN, brassicas seem to be the biggest draw (for us without beans and corn) and can get wiped out if there isn’t a lot of them so that seems to make sense to me.

 

[PatinPA]

I listen/watch a bunch of them. I think there are some good things to take from what they say, especially for an inexperienced habitatter. The biggest thing is that it's just not going to be one size fits all like they make it out to be. You have to see what will work for you. And once they start talking about specific products or "their" proprietary techniques just stick your fingers in your ears.

 

[BenAllgood]

These guys get into trouble when they start turning deer, or big mature bucks in particular, into specialist species. They aren't. Deer are generalists. They can eat alot of things, use many types of things for cover, don't require a certain type of water, and can adapt easily to different environments. It's not rocket science. Big, mature deer can be in vastly different areas; from suburbs to wood blocks in the middle of vast crop fields. What these guys have found is a sure fire way for them to get the mature bucks they are after, and want to make others think that is the only way. Each of them has a right answer, just not the only right answer.

 

[Derek Reese 29]

I agree with Pat and Ben...watching some of those "Experts'" videos to get some semblance of a foundational knowledge while already being skeptical when I was first starting out into habitat management was a good idea...I recognized right away that a few of the things that were being espoused might work well for me, but others would not (think "creating a waterhole" in an area with a ton of free flowing water already or hinging an acre of hardwoods in a spot that is already tough to walk in)...also I learned alot from trying (and failing at) some of their ideas and a bunch of my own. The "buck bed" idea was one of my favorite..I even hung a camera there to watch all the big mature bucks bed in that special spot....(nothing with hooves ever came near it...though the foxes loved it)...
I do very much hate that the people who need the best and most complete information the most (the newer, less experienced ones) are the ones who suffer the most..the little guy I mentored showed up for his first archery rut hunt with the biggest pair of plastic rattling antlers that I had ever seen...needless to say they stayed in the house and we still saw some bucks..

 

[b116757]

I don’t subscribe to any of them occasionally in my research on a topic I’ll watch a video but most of the time it’s useless information from the self marketing crowd.

 

[SwampCat]

Not sure

Some of the fellas here mention Steff Jurgis

bill

It seems to me, the folks up north get more wrapped up with the so called “deer experts” than us folks in the south. I dont know a single person in my neck of the woods that ever even had a passing thought about bringing in one of the so called “deer consultants” to lay out a management plan. Quite a few use the state provided, free Private Lands Biologist - but that is really not even the same thing.

 

[Tree Spud]

It took me a long time to realize why I was receiving so much backlash to my food plot experiments on the old forum. I guess I was naïve to how things work.

That's because you teach folks how to improve soil health without having to spend money on magic beans solutions. You also base your approach on real biology and soil science.

Just like Lickcreek, you lifted the veil showing folks how to do it themselves.

Pioneers get the arrows

 

[PatinPA]

I agree with Pat and Ben...watching some of those "Experts'" videos to get some semblance of a foundational knowledge while already being skeptical when I was first starting out into habitat management was a good idea...I recognized right away that a few of the things that were being espoused might work well for me, but others would not (think "creating a waterhole" in an area with a ton of free flowing water already or hinging an acre of hardwoods in a spot that is already tough to walk in)...also I learned alot from trying (and failing at) some of their ideas and a bunch of my own. The "buck bed" idea was one of my favorite..I even hung a camera there to watch all the big mature bucks bed in that special spot....(nothing with hooves ever came near it...though the foxes loved it)...
I do very much hate that the people who need the best and most complete information the most (the newer, less experienced ones) are the ones who suffer the most..the little guy I mentored showed up for his first archery rut hunt with the biggest pair of plastic rattling antlers that I had ever seen...needless to say they stayed in the house and we still saw some bucks..

Ya I really liked the buck bed idea first starting out. Cut a log as a back rest and put down some straw for them to bed in and just watch the huge bucks bed there. haha. I have a 50 gallon drum that I turned into a water hole too.

One thing I do like is the grape vine scrape although I don't see mature buck use them. It's all small buck and does. And they have to be placed perfectly to work. The deer don't go out of their way to search them out.

 

[Derek Reese 29]

Ya I really liked the buck bed idea first starting out. Cut a log as a back rest and put down some straw for them to bed in and just watch the huge bucks bed there. haha. I have a 50 gallon drum that I turned into a water hole too.

One thing I do like is the grape vine scrape although I don't see mature buck use them. It's all small buck and does. And they have to be placed perfectly to work. The deer don't go out of their way to search them out.

I dug through 18 inches of mountain rock to set a cedar post in the middle of a kill plot....in 2 years with a camera 15 feet away I have never seen a buck come near it, except to graze on the clover near it's base....and I had to talk my brother out of wasting time creating a "horizontal rubbing post" as well.....

 

[PatinPA]

I dug through 18 inches of mountain rock to set a cedar post in the middle of a kill plot....in 2 years with a camera 15 feet away I have never seen a buck come near it, except to graze on the clover near it's base....and I had to talk my brother out of wasting time creating a "horizontal rubbing post" as well.....

Haha I put up a horizontal rubbing post too. I had dreams of the local giant coming down off the neighbors hill to hit up the grape vine scrape and tear into the horizontal rub. I don't even think a deer sniffed it all year. That I got from Ted Miller on the Hunting Public. I watched his giant buck tear in to them. Anything cheap I'll try once. I think the only cost was some wire to tie up the white pine branch that fell off the tree at my house. Now I know that, that doesn't work at least for me.

 

[BenAllgood]

The whole "doe factory" thing will probably come back to bite Jeff Sturgis. The property he owns now (in one of the best neighborhoods in the country for big bucks), has summer food weaving in and out of it and all around the area. He may not be planting summer food on his property, but he's definitely summer food "adjacent". What's in the red outlines are his property. The fields in between are still owned by farmers.

I'm not saying you can't get big bucks the way he does it, because he obviously can. It's just not the only way.

 

[sandbur]

It seems to me, the folks up north get more wrapped up with the so called “deer experts” than us folks in the south. I dont know a single person in my neck of the woods that ever even had a passing thought about bringing in one of the so called “deer consultants” to lay out a management plan. Quite a few use the state provided, free Private Lands Biologist - but that is really not even the same thing.

We don’t have the equivalent in my state. Our area Wildlife Biologist is short of help(state’s view) and really seems to be more of an ecologist than a wildlife man.

I have a forestry consultant who is an avid deer hunter and I like the way he lays out timber harvest.

Part of the key, if you follow someone, is that they have extensive experience in your type of habitat and climate.


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[yoderjac]

The "Best" of the "expert" marketers have a lot of truth in what they say. That is why it is so tough for new folks to discern. The best liars take their cue from the devil. Just like the snake in the garden of Eden, they sandwich the lie between a handful of truths.