Most all serious deer hunters talk about dominant bucks, and for good reason. They rule the deer world. What may surprise many is that there is a dominance hierarchy within the family groups as well. Understanding it can help take our hunting game up a level!
This is Chapter 6 of Steve Bartylla’s free online book, Understanding Mature Bucks.
As discussed last chapter, we’re now ready to start jumping into exploring my understanding of dominance within the whitetail world. Perhaps surprising to some, dominance occurs within family groups and between family groups every bit as much as it does with mature bucks.
They’re all fighting for essentially the same things — the best of what they want. The wants may vary, but satisfying them is the gas for the vehicles driving them.
Jockeying for dominance within family groups — typically made up of a matriarch, at least some of her surviving daughters and their offspring, often even including theirs as well, with bucks sticking with them up to 1.5 years of age — is generally the most peaceable struggle for dominance.
There still is jostling within them. The matriarch generally seems to be left unchallenged, until/unless there’s legit reason for her to be due to overall health declines. However, attitude, experience, temperament and overall muscle mass sure seem to all play a role in who generally gets what they want and when within the group. By all appearances, the higher a deer is in the family group’s pecking order, the more likely they are to eat their fill, even in leaner times, claim superior fawning areas, lay where they want within the family group bedding area, and so on.
The competition between different family groups can be considerably more intense. Again, the fight is for the resources they covet. Because of that, the higher the deer numbers along with the lower the quality of habitat is, the more intense the fight is for dominance between family groups competing over those same resources.
Even in overpopulated, low-quality habitat, generally speaking, the most dominant family groups will be OK, as they will literally drive other family groups from the bedding and feeding areas the most dominant groups claim as theirs. It’s the lower groups and single does that typically have it the worst, and it can be really bad. The social and physical stress they endure, being pushed from area to area as they try to steal some food where and when they can, is actually pretty brutal. Their fawning success rates can be virtually nonexistent as they’re left with whatever scraps for fawning areas were left unclaimed.
An interesting phenomenon I’ve noticed in some of the more extreme cases is amazing levels of daylight feeding. After studying it for a few years, I believe it’s really inspired by desperation. When food is limited and competition is high, the more subordinate deer/family groups must feed earlier and earlier in the day, as they will be run off by the next more dominant family group that arrives, which will be ran off by the next more and so on. Frankly, it becomes painfully obvious on smaller, prime food sources, such as those less than 2-acre plots, offering more limited food and “elbow room.”
Those that read “Big Buck Secrets” already know that I use that to my advantage, when in those situations, by setting up on the more dominant family group bedding areas early and late in the rut, as they’re the healthiest and will typically have the first does enter estrus. Their doe fawns are most likely to hit estrus that first year, later, as well.
Next, we’ll get into buck dominance. Don’t trick yourself into thinking understanding dominance within and between family groups isn’t important, though. For those managing their dirt, it’s extremely important, as minimizing the stress levels between those family groups is a big key to helping raise the healthiest deer. For hunting, I just touched on one way I use it every single chance I get when in the right situation and under the right conditions. More than a couple mature bucks were tagged by targeting those dominant family groups during the mid-October cold snap and on December mornings, all banking on that dominance making them the healthiest does and doe fawns in that area, giving them the best odds of having the first does entering estrus, and of those family groups, having doe fawns that will enter estrus their first year, both keyed by superior health.
Read Chapter 1: Whitetail Tendencies
Read Chapter 2: Whitetail Home Ranges
Read Chapter 3: How Deer Use Core Areas
Read Chapter 4: When Core Areas Shift
Read Chapter 5: Seasonal Shifts
