Let him go so he can grow…
- Thread starter Howboutthemdawgs
- Start date
In my own home state, there is probably more management effort and expense on the lesser soil areas because folks know they have to do more to produce bigger deer on those areas. A lot of our state’s truly big deer come from smaller wood lots among intesively farmed expansive row crop acreage. A lot of these big deer come from ground that is not even managed for deer. Tens of thousands of acres on lesser ground is intensively managed, because most folks dont have the desire or time to drive five or more hours to the fertile ground - so they make the best of it where they are. Even these lesser grounds are seeing dividends by utilizing intensive protein feeding programs. I dont consider that part of the habitat - but it is proving to somewhat close the gap in the playing field.
BenA
5 year old buck +
A lot of the management done has been in the form of foodplots or supplemental feeding. From listening to Drs. Harper and Lashley, this doesn't do as much as managing your entire property. Squeezing out every acre's potential by doing larger landscape management practices can provide more at less cost according to their work.
Lets say you own a 1000 acres of bottomland hardwood in the middle of the rich soils of the Mississippi River Alluvial Delta where row crop ag land is prevalent, or 1000 acres of bottomland hardwood surrounded by commercial timberland in the pineywoods. And do no land/deer management other than trigger restraint. There is no doubt, on average, the deer in the Mississippi delta are going to have higher body weights and larger antlers. Most folks would probably assert that the deer in the delta are going to utilize the crop ground - eating soybean vegetation in the summer and waste beans and corn in the fall and winter - and they would probably be correct.
The question I ask, is why is there cropland adjacent to the 1000 acres in the delta and commercial pine timberland adjacent to the 1000 acres in the pineywoods. It is because the soil is more fertile in the delta and can support row crop utilization and the soil is less fertile in the pineywoods and not economically feasible to rowcrop. So the reason you can have better habitat in the delta is because the soil supports it.
The question I ask, is why is there cropland adjacent to the 1000 acres in the delta and commercial pine timberland adjacent to the 1000 acres in the pineywoods. It is because the soil is more fertile in the delta and can support row crop utilization and the soil is less fertile in the pineywoods and not economically feasible to rowcrop. So the reason you can have better habitat in the delta is because the soil supports it.
BenA
5 year old buck +
Yes, I don't think that's what Dr. Harper or Lashley have said. They're just saying the traditional management of those poorer soil areas isn't conducive to producing bucks that express their full potential. More quality forage grows in the Mississippi River bottoms by default, I can attest to that. I hunted some whoppers in the Louisiana river bottoms.
That may or may not be the case - depending on a number of considerations - but typically management activities, if not expensive are at least labor intensive or time consuming. Supplemental feeding might be expensive, but might not require much labor. A realistic approach has to be considered, also. I have never heard of a B&C buck coming off Dr Woods property - even though it is very intensively managed. Most of us - even if we owned the same sized property - would not have the finances, time, or knowledge to manage the property like he has - and he has still been unable to produce a B&C buck. Unmanaged lands in more fertile ground produce many more trophy bucks.
Howboutthemdawgs
5 year old buck +
I forgot I had seen the. All about the fort bragg deer. Not a good plot or feed in sight and they were growing hammers by burning and cutting.
BenA
5 year old buck +
Having the most affect over the largest area you can on a property certainly doesn't have to be costly or labor intensive. Reducing the canopy to 50% in a closed canopy forest can provide alot more food on a 40 acre tract than clearing out your average food plot and putting up a feeder. It could even pay you to do that logging. Taking a large field and removing the cool season grasses and allowing it to grow up into early successional plants could also be less costly and less time consuming while providing more food than carving out a food plot into a corner of it. A lot of people go straight to the food plot or feeder or other micro type manipulation rather than doing a macro practice across larger areas that will have a greater effect.
And, I don't think Grant Woods believed he would be pumping out B&C bucks from the Proving Grounds. He wanted to show that you could produce top end deer for an area through different practices. If his goal was just to produce the highest scoring bucks possible, he could have high fenced the place. Providing that protection, then supplying the best food available, he could have grown B&C sized bucks and the soil would have nothing to do with it.
roymunson
5 year old buck +
Anyone know how to get this on youtube or somewhere? I don't have facebook and wanna watch/listen on my phone.
Troubles Trees
5 year old buck +
I just clicked on the video at the bottom left there is a play button. I am on my computer at work, not my phone, but I don't have any social media on this computer.... just habitat and deer porn
BenA
5 year old buck +
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
I think pine plantations can really be key. If managed poorly with only timber value as an objective, they can produce a large food desert. However, if managed for deer, they can be outstanding and provide a net profit rather than being a cost. Many pine plantations contain thousands of acres of pines all the same age class. Like much with deer management, diversity and edge are key. There is also government support for much of this. First, from a water quality standpoint, we leave stream buffers of oaks untouched. This provides an acorn boost of fall/winter energy for deer in good mast crop years. Second, manage pines in smaller management units, 100 acre block or even less. Yes, you may get a few dollars less to have a smaller block cut, but it makes a big difference to wildlife. Within those blocks, create and maintain wildlife openings. We are starting to include micro block of timber within our ~100 acre management units. We will take several small, 5 acre sections and clear-cut during a thinning. We will replant these small sections in pines. Soon after they canopy we will clear cut them for paper and replant.
Scale is still important for total acreage. We do have a food plot program as well. Some of our clearcuts we will maintain in early succession as long as possible but regularly setting them back with fire.
You make less profit on the pine sales this way, but some of it can be offset by USDA programs. The net cost of managing this way is less expensive than most other ways.
Thanks,
Jack
Yes, sir, I agree with what you are saying. I have done several of those large scale management activities myself. I even have a couple of neighbors who recently cut/thinned 200 acres that join my property that didnt cost me a cent.
However, my point being - as in Grant Woods case - he probably incorporated more management techniques, activities, and expenditures than most of us ever will - and that was on a decent sized acreage - more than most of us will ever own - and he didnt produce B&C deer - yet 150 miles to the east in the Delta, they grow them by accident. Dr Grant’s property is not located in prime fertile soils. Just how much habitat work would have to be done on grounds of lesser fertility to produce the quality of deer that are produced with no targeted habitat improvement on highly fertile lands.
I understand what some of these guys are saying in theory - but in reality - at what expense and effort? Our state maintains a record of antler data, by geographical area - and the differences in average antler measurements mirror the fertility of the soil in that area.
To be fair, we are seeing more and more big deer produced in non-traditional area. I think this is a function of hunters in general practicing trigger restraint and more widespread use of supplemental feeding. Even in your home state of Louisiana, there are some monsters being killed in some non-traditional areas - and those folks have enough sense to be tight lipped and stay off social media.
BenA
5 year old buck +
I agree.
This is what a lot of their work areas are geared towards. They are conducting native vegetation management practices to eek out the most high quality food they can achieve. They readily admit that acre to acre isn't the same by location. Just based on the fertility of the soil, the forage yield will be greater on those highly fertile sites. That's why our agricultural areas are where they are. You can produce more per acre on those highly fertile soils. And, by default, those ag areas or highly fertile areas are going to produce bigger deer because they can produce more food. But, what they are doing, is doing habitat manipulation at such a scale, that they can produce literally tons per acre of extremely nutritious food in low soil productivity areas. Just by changing management practices, and implementing them on a higher scale, they have produced some remarkable bucks for the areas.
And, I believe, Dr. Woods has killed 2 bucks that push B&C on his Proving Grounds. I think they were 168 and 169, but not sure exactly. In either case, those are good bucks across the whitetail's range. Granted, Grant does have more acreage and resources than me, but it does go to prove, that large antlered bucks (while not Booners on a regular basis) can be produced on poor soil areas. Of course, it is much easier to produce them if you have lots of highly fertile soil just because those can grow more food per acre.
Hoytvectrix
5 year old buck +
It's easy enough to intuit that better soils produce bigger antlers. I look at it slightly differently though there is overlap. Age, nutrition, and genetics as so often has been said are the variables effecting what a whitetail looks like. My situation may be unique in that we have most of our bucks dieing of old age or natural mortality. Thus I watch first hand what role age plays. To me without reservation, the key element in managing whitetails is nutrition!!! Good soils bad soils...doesnt matter as I have both. Raise the nutritional plane to exceed all the deers needs 365 days a year and all age classes get better. And over time [ generationally ] you see the epigenetic effect where the entire bell curve improves.
Its fascinating and humbling to watch the impact of nutrition in the semi arid country along the Rio Grande. Timely rain trumps anything we do despite our best efforts. In a severe drought lasting years we grow many of our best bucks because the consumption of high protein pellets increases dramtically. This year we received the most rain in years but it didn't start till May The deer pulled off the feeders and overall quality is down in spite of lush conditions. Had the same rains started a couple months earlier the results would have been much different. Even with the majority of the bucks on the ranch being fully mature quality goes up and down annually based on rain and its impact on nutrition. That with an extensive supplemental feeding program.
My farm in La. has lousy soil yet we grow some of the biggest bucks in the state.Age, Nutrition and over time we have shifted the genetics with nutrition. . We supplement with high protein pellets during all the stress and growing periods and have an extensive network of diverse food plots. While the woods are very well managed it does not create enough high quality nutrition to optimize deer quality. Hard to get there with smilax and beauty berry.
Why do the best soils produce the best bucks. I believe it has been said above. Better soils can support a higher density of deer on a high nutritional plane than poor soils. Top quality bucks are rare anywhere and its a numbers game to produce more of them.
Its fascinating and humbling to watch the impact of nutrition in the semi arid country along the Rio Grande. Timely rain trumps anything we do despite our best efforts. In a severe drought lasting years we grow many of our best bucks because the consumption of high protein pellets increases dramtically. This year we received the most rain in years but it didn't start till May The deer pulled off the feeders and overall quality is down in spite of lush conditions. Had the same rains started a couple months earlier the results would have been much different. Even with the majority of the bucks on the ranch being fully mature quality goes up and down annually based on rain and its impact on nutrition. That with an extensive supplemental feeding program.
My farm in La. has lousy soil yet we grow some of the biggest bucks in the state.Age, Nutrition and over time we have shifted the genetics with nutrition. . We supplement with high protein pellets during all the stress and growing periods and have an extensive network of diverse food plots. While the woods are very well managed it does not create enough high quality nutrition to optimize deer quality. Hard to get there with smilax and beauty berry.
Why do the best soils produce the best bucks. I believe it has been said above. Better soils can support a higher density of deer on a high nutritional plane than poor soils. Top quality bucks are rare anywhere and its a numbers game to produce more of them.
“In the Ozark Mountains, not row country, this deer is world class” - Dr Woods said after taking that buck. That is a heck of a nice deer anywhere, in my book. There are deer pretty much everywhere that are a true anomaly - that are a lot bigger than even the normal big ones. Where habitat, genetics, nutrition, and luck all manifest at once. I have seen it a couple times on my place. Upper 150’s is about what I reasonably expect to see on my place every few years. That is about normal size for the big deer folks occasionally kill in the area. But, I have had a couple giants show up over the past 20 years on my place. First or second year I had my place, back in the days of film game cams - I had one food plot, and got one picture of a mainframe - 12 pt I estimated mid to upper 170’s. Never got another pic and never heard of anyone killing him. Six years ago, I had a really nice main frame ten point - about a 150 class deer. The following years, he had added eight stickers, four on each side. I hunted that deer hard. I actually hunted him everyday for two weeks when he was dead. Neighbor had killed him two weeks before and I didnt know it. He scored 174 4/8. That is an absolute giant for our area. They kill them bigger than that every year in the delta in our state - but not where I live
jsasker007
5 year old buck +
I think you left out a comma between the R and P.I just clicked on the video at the bottom left there is a play button. I am on my computer at work, not my phone, but I don't have any social media on this computer.... just habitat and deer porn
Mortenson
5 year old buck +
That's an interesting graphic. I'd be interested to hear Sligh's thoughts on that. He owns the Iowa forum but also infrequently has spoken here. Without putting words in his mouth, I gather his group thinks that 6.5 to 7.5 is the age where they are biggest. They got 1 this year that was a 7.5 230's whereas it was only a 6.5 170 the prior year. I think his deer probably have adequate nutrition.
6-7 isn't a reasonable goal where I'm at - is my current thinking. We have too many 5-40 acre neighbors with multiple hunters per parcel, and public and DNR snipers. I'd like to wait on 5 yr olds, but with the pressure I think I'm settled on 4 yr olds as a goal. Our DNR does not want bucks reaching maturity. "Too much chronic waste spreading"
6-7 isn't a reasonable goal where I'm at - is my current thinking. We have too many 5-40 acre neighbors with multiple hunters per parcel, and public and DNR snipers. I'd like to wait on 5 yr olds, but with the pressure I think I'm settled on 4 yr olds as a goal. Our DNR does not want bucks reaching maturity. "Too much chronic waste spreading"
