Managing For Fully Mature Bucks

[STEROIDCHICKEN]

we have 7000 acres that is qdm managed and has been for the last 15 years to some degree. two bucks per year can be taken, 1 must have a 12" inside spread where the other has to be 14" inside, both have to have 4 points on one side. we do manage to take some 4 year olds off of it but not every year. my sons very first buck ever was a 143 class 4 year old.   

[EatDeer]

I'm passing up young bucks everyyear, the problem is getting the surrounding properties to click with QDM. All I can do is hope someday I'll see the bucks I pass now grow into older age class deer. Maybe if I have enough cover for the bucks to hide in, the hunting pressure will help them stay hid during the daylight. More like wishful thinking, but we do harvest a few booners around here anyway.

[msbadger]

I manage 50 we own and 24 I have control ofthat adjoins us here at home....camp is 68+ acres....... the 24 is steephill with 6 streams and a swamp at the bottom...I leave mostly as santuary...my  acres..well I posted pics of how I manage it....nice buck and afew bruiser travel through but heres the problem...One day on stand I got to thinking and tried to count all the hunters I KNOW in a one square mile area around me....it was over 100 hunters and many of them bow and muzzle hunt as well....I honestly don't know everyone around here so add that to the count...and if it's moving it's being shot AT.....Doe permits were given out like candy and we have a few lrg farms south and west of us with nuisance permits...I'm all for shooting doe BUT...whole family units have been taken out here a few times and it takes alot of time for the herds to recover...many fawn are shot by ppl here ...deer wounded and never tracked...bucks taken at night before season opens..ect..ect.....so I hope for the best and work hard to try and get it. 

[Sailfish]

The article about deer "walkin" pretty much summed it up.
 
The deer move.......far. ......some very far.
 
Truly unless your fenced in the deer are going to move and someone else who doesn't practice QDM will harvest the animal.
 
I could perhaps imagine that there are always exceptions to the rule.
 
And perhaps areas like the UP of MI and Saskatchewan, etc that there are some 4/5 + yo that roam without QDM, but the woods have slowly shrunk over the years, and equipment is getting better, hunters are getting better, and deer are going to be hard pressed to make it to 5 IMHO.
 

[mhouck06]

yeah unless you are out in the middle of no where or you have a fence. its tough to practice qdm.. we hunt in a reasonably populated part of PA on our farm. We have 250 acres and have been trying to practice qdm for the past couple of years but havent had much success because the neighors practice if its brown its down and there is public land surrounding the back side of the farm so its tough. but we love hunting and seeing deer, so as long as we keep seein them, thats fine with us. someday one of us will get a crack at a big daddy.

[JPH]

ORIGINAL: mhouck06
yeah unless you are out in the middle of no where or you have a fence. its tough to practice qdm..

 
I respectfully disagree. QDM is about much more than growing 4.5 year old bucks. QDM is about knowing the deer herd on your property and how it interacts with the habitat. It is about a deeper hunting experience.
 
If killing 4.5 year old bucks is the only measure of QDM success, then it will fail but it is about something bigger and more important than antlers.

[mhouck06]

im just saying its tough to manage deer when all the people around you do is slaughter them, we finally helped the PA game commission catch poachers in our area. I know its about something deeper, but at the same time its frustrating to let a small 6 point walk in hopes of him getting bigger and finding out a neighboring farm has been shooting deer year round, not even in season. We found a pile of cut up deer carcasses including 2 bucks 6 does and a fawn near a creek on the property line of the farm. 
 
quote:

ORIGINAL: mhouck06
yeah unless you are out in the middle of no where or you have a fence. its tough to practice qdm..
 
 
 
Thats my view.

[EatDeer]

That's all the more reason you should'nt start hunting like them. If everyone would pick up on passing young bucks,and harvesting more doe's we would for the majority all be better off. This is why I think 4 point rules really help to manage the herd ,and help all hunters out in the long run. 

[msbadger]

I agree with JPH..it is more ..BUT..mhouck06 ended his statement that as long as they keep seeing deer thats OK so at the risk of nearly speaking for some one else(sorry) I think he agrees as well....I went to school for recreational land management....so this is well something I almost need to do.... obsession ..maybe....as important to me as the hunt yes...yesterday I walked the property and on 50 acres I kicked up 2 single fawns...a set of twins and a set of triplets ...had close encounters with a young buck and 3 differant doe....found bear dropping and watched several hawk hunting...perhaps striving for QLM is what we are really about...if a great wall mount happens bye so be it( I don't have heads mounted)...pics are my thing....At least we know we did something to help that happen

[mhouck06]

we dont hunt like that eatdeer.. thank you msbadger for knowing where I am coming from. all i was trying to say was its hard in our area to make any progress with qdm. we alternate shooting does every other year we go by at least 8 points to the ears, but then you have neighbors like we do who dont give a crap. im not going to lie.. it would be nice to see some of the bucks we pass on to grow into some nice hangers, but the way people hunt around us its almost impossible. we try talking to the neighbors every year, try expanding sanctuaries and we follow our plan to the T, but the biggest buck someone took out of a 1000 acres of farms last year was an 8 point with a 14 inch spread. All I was saying is that in my particular senario, we practice qdm and see nothing to show for it. Like I said before, and what msbadger commented on, I love seeing deer and being in the woods, year-round scouting and shooting and everything else that goes along with hunting. As long as I see them Im happy, but it sure does suck when only a 1/4 of the total area (our 250 out of the 1000 acres) shoots deer in season, let alone practices qdm