In today’s “information age” we have a wealth of data at our fingertips. Pop open the laptop, hit a few keys and links to resources, articles and videos fill the screen. Unfortunately, the only qualification needed to create any of these authoritative sources of info is the desire to create them.
We are certainly not immune to this in the hunting world. Compared to even 20 years ago, to say the number hunting “experts” has dramatically increased doesn’t come close to doing this explosion justice. Unfortunately, the qualifications of many of these experts haven’t come remotely close to matching their increase in numbers.
Despite having infinitely more info at our fingertips, there are far more hunting and management myths spread as fact than ever before. What I’m going to do is blow a few of them out of the water. After all, you can’t manage your grounds to the fullest while basing your practices on myths.
Management Myth No. 1: You Need Deep Pockets and Sprawling Acres to Raise Big Bucks
The idea that you have to spend a bunch of cash and have large properties to make habitat management worthwhile is the biggest and most damaging management myth out there.
Does it help to have unlimited cash and thousands of acres? Of course it does. Here’s the catch, though. Having been lucky enough to manage five large, well-funded properties over the years, I’ve found that it’s super easy to look smart on the big grounds, even when you make mistakes.
Those big grounds don’t need improvements to suck deer in. The deer are already there and it’s almost impossible to drive them off those huge acreages. Frankly, I’ve found that management has helped make a more significant difference on 40-, 80- and 120-acre properties.
At the same time, nothing produces as dramatic of an improvement on most grounds than simply creating an effective sanctuary. And it’s easy: Simply leave an area alone. That doesn’t cost a cent.
Sure, food plots, minerals and the right habitat-improvement equipment can help transform a property. But a chainsaw can be every bit as effective. Can’t afford a chainsaw? Here’s some good news! By selling the timber, you can actually make money by bringing in loggers to do the work for you. In fact, many beneficial improvements can be made without it costing a cent. Sweat equity is a powerful form of currency for improving habitat.
Management Myth No. 2: You Can’t Grow Big Bucks if You Let Others Hunt Your Land
Another management myth is that the key to growing mature bucks is to not allow others to hunt on your property. In fact, owners themselves should greatly limit the amount of hunting they do, or risk pushing all of the bucks onto the neighbors’ properties. I’m not going to lie. Barely hunting a property has its merits for growing mature bucks.
That said, every one of my long term and most of my photo based evaluation clients hunts pretty darn hard — most share their properties with family and friends — and they kill great bucks! You bet you can share and hunt your grounds hard. That does nothing but increase the enjoyment factor of hunting and management, which should be your primary purpose.
WATCH STEVE BARTYLLA’S ONLINE MANAGEMENT SHOW: GROW ‘EM BIG
The trick is laying the ground out to create low impact, high odds stand sites for each wind direction. Toss in some super low impact stands for when you want to hunt “bad” deer movement days, saving the higher impact stands for the “great” deer movement days. Then all that’s left is religiously playing the wind and having fun.
You can certainly hunt your property hard, share it with others and still experience great hunts. All you have to do is generate a plan that accomplishes those goals and implement it. You can then hunt it hard in a low impact manner.
Management Myth No. 3: Bad Neighbors = Bad Hunting
One of the most common complaints of land managers is, “If only the neighbors … .” I swear, “bad” neighbors have been blamed for more management failures than all of the other reasons combined.
The dirty secret is this: So long as they don’t trespass or break game laws, those “bad” neighbors can be the manager’s best friends. If you have a well thought out sanctuary and hunt your ground in a low impact manner, those neighbors are literally pushing deer onto your grounds.
Deer are every bit as trainable as a dog. Every time your neighbors drive through their property to get to their stand an hour before dark; each time they’re tracking that young buck you passed; every time they bring their three buddies with them to hang a new stand in November, they’re training deer that they aren’t safe on these grounds.
If you are simultaneously training them they’re safe on yours, through low impact hunting and sanctuary designations, your hunting is likely to get nothing but better with each passing day of the season.
Just that easy, those “bad” neighbors just became your best deer management friends.
Management Myth No. 4: Selectively Hunting Your Land Ensures Bigger Bucks
Another common myth is that all bucks need are age and nutrition to grow obscenely large racks. Pass that 120-inch 3-year-old and you’re likely looking at a 140-inch 4-year-old, then a 160-inch 5-year-old, 180-inch 6-year-old and so on.
Just like people, bucks are born with genetic caps. Sure, if my mom hadn’t smoked when she was pregnant and fed me the perfect diet growing up I might be an inch or so taller than the 5-foot, 10 1/2 inches I stand today. Still, I was never going to be an NBA center or have the speed to be an NFL defensive back. The genetic caps I was born with would never allow for it.
Similarly, bucks are born with a genetic cap that dictates how large their antlers can potentially become. A lack of age or nutrition, stress and other factors can stop them from hitting that cap, but they simply can’t naturally exceed it.
READ: FACTS AND MYTHS ABOUT DEER ANTLER GENETICS
Based on anecdotal evidence gathered from doing long-term management on many properties, I can tell you that nowhere close to every buck has the potential to make the Boone and Crockett record book. In fact, I’d say most land managers are extremely lucky if 10% of the bucks on their grounds ever can. And that’s with prime habitat, great genetics and allowing them to eventually die of old age.
Do most bucks sport larger antlers at 4 1/2 years old than at 3 1/2 years old? Yes. However, a surprising percent don’t add more than 10 to 15 inches over their 3 1/2-year-old rack, no matter how old they get. On the grounds I’ve managed, considerably more fall into that group than the ones that are capable of grossing the B&C minimum.
Management Myth No. 5: Culling Inferior Bucks Will Improve the Gene Pool
Which brings us to the myth that removing bucks with these “inferior” antler genetics allows land managers to significantly improve the antler genetics on their grounds. In my view, common sense demands that it does more good than the studies claiming it does absolutely no good, but even I have to concede that the impact is minimal.
There are two factors that make this a myth. One is that the doe is half of the equation. I’m unaware of a method of gauging antler genetics in free-ranging does. No matter how many bucks with “inferior” antler genetics are removed, the doe half of the equation remains unchanged.
The other complicating factor is yearling buck dispersal. At either 1/2 or 1 1/2 years of age, the overwhelming majority of bucks shift their home range, with most telemetry studies showing the shift average is between 1 to 10 miles away. It’s nature’s way of ensuring genetic diversity.
In other words, the buck fawns produced by that 250-inch monster are very unlikely to be sharing their daddy’s home range once they reach 2+ years old. Shooting the birth mother ups the odds of them sticking, but good luck determining which does he impregnated.
WATCH: STRATEGICALLY HARVEST DOES FOR FANTASTIC RUT ACTION
Killing “cull” bucks can increase the average antler size of his age class on that ground, as well as create holes for the up and comers to fill, but really does little to improve the quality of the unborn bucks the manager hopes to hunt in future years. After all, they likely came from 1 to 10 miles away.
Management Myth No. 6: You Can Stockpile Bucks
Speaking of creating holes, that can be important on properties that are pushing the upper limits of how many bucks they can hold. The idea that it’s possible to stockpile nearly unlimited bucks for future years is a myth.
Each free-range property has a max number of mature bucks it can house. That number can be inflated a bit by dividing up the property and offering bucks everything they could want in each section, but there’s still a limit to how many a property can hold.
Social stress is a rarely discussed issue in deer and habitat management. The more bucks there are on a property the higher that social stress becomes. Sure, having multiple areas offering everything they want helps reduce those stress levels. Still, bucks don’t always stay in their designated areas and they’ll tolerate only so much social stress. When they hit that point, they’re very likely shifting to the area of their home range that falls on that hard-hunting neighbor’s, where they have far less competition from other bucks.
Management Myth No. 7: You Have to Shoot Does
Speaking of stress, it’s a massive myth that tight buck:doe ratios are healthy for deer. In fact, though tight sex ratios make for exciting hunting, they’re actually both unnatural and induce way more stress on both bucks and does.
Bucks literally kill themselves each and every year, due to the rigors of fighting and running themselves ragged during the rut. In fact, a mature buck commonly loses between 20% and 30% of its body weight during the rut. Now add the higher risk they place on themselves by traveling more during the rut, and the result is a higher mortality rate for bucks, naturally skewing doe numbers higher.
In populations with tight ratios, the bucks must fight more and generally work a lot harder to breed does. At the same time, does are harassed far more by those bucks, which increases their stress levels as well. Sure, it makes for great hunting, but there’s nothing healthy about tight sex ratios for deer.
Management Myth No. 8: Too Many Does Drive the Bucks Out
My closing myth is a fairly new one. It’s the idea that if you improve your grounds to meet the deer herd’s year-round needs you draw in a bunch of does. In turn, they drive the bucks out and you’re left with a dreaded “doe factory.” Instead, land managers should focus on improving their grounds for the rut period, sucking the deer in when they are most vulnerable and making them the neighbors’ problem during the rest of the year.
Though that’s certainly a method you can use, and can even be the best approach for some specific situations, to say that meeting the whitetail’s year round needs drives bucks away is pure hogwash. I can tell you in no uncertain terms that all of the long-term management and most of the photo evaluation clients I’ve had ended up with better year-round habitat and a higher concentration of does than their neighbors. They all also had way more bucks. Bucks really aren’t afraid of does.
Conclusion
There are many more management myths circulating these days, but these are some of the big ones. Hopefully, this helps you avoid believing them. Don’t feel bad if you currently do. There are several I used to believe, as well. Luckily, reality has taught me better.
— Longtime Deer & Deer Hunting contributor Steve Bartylla is one of North America’s top deer hunters and private-land deer managers. Contact him at bowwriter@yahoo.com.
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