Thanks for Everything! | Understanding Mature Bucks

Steve Bartylla has been able to achieve and experience far more in the outdoors than he ever dared dream. He’s done the long-term, hands-on management work on a bunch of properties, equally somewhere north of 30,000 cumulative acres of true paradises. Guess who he credits for most everything he’s learned and experienced?

This is the final chapter of Steve Bartylla’s free online book, Understanding Mature Bucks.

Holy mother of Jupiter, we’ve made it to the last chapter of our book! I sincerely hope you all found a fraction of the value in it that your support has brought me over these many years. This truly is OUR book that WE wrote together in more ways than I could probably list. It’s been a true privilege and honor to write it with you all!

With that and all we’ve covered in mind, now go out and prove me wrong! Seriously. Don’t just take my word or anyone else’s for any of this.

The author credits this book to YOU, the people who have inspired him. Photo courtesy of Steve Bartylla.

Instead, merely view this as data to be added to the data you’ve collected while being in the deer woods, yourself. It’s not humility that drives me to say that I’d bet I’m horrifically wrong about something in OUR book. I can all but promise that something I believe today will humble me with my own foolishness at ever believing it, five years from now. I just have no clue what it is.

I sincerely hope you picked up a thing or two from this that you will use repeatedly over your hunting life. That said, please don’t try to emulate me or anyone else. Emulate yourself, period, and focus on finding the answers that work best for you.

One of the things I’ve concluded in this career is that some things simply work better for some than others. I’m not sure why, but I am sure that’s the case. All I can do is talk about what I’ve found that works best for me. I have no way of knowing how well it will or won’t work for you. Figuring that out is your job and trust yourself implicitly, as there’s no one on this earth that can be a better you than you are. So, only you can truly determine what works best for you, in your situation. Everything else is merely hints and tips, hoping to get you closer to your own sweet spot.

WATCH: GROW ‘EM BIG WITH STEVE BARTYLLA

With that, we’re now well over the 27,000 word mark for OUR book! 20K is the shortest I’ve ever written and right around 35K is the longest. So, as you can see, I honestly wasn’t exaggerating at all when I said WE were writing a book together.

As a side note, I do believe WE at least partially hit my goal of producing the best possible book on understanding Mr. Big. I sincerely doubt anyone will ever knock John J. Ozoga’s four-part series, “Seasons of the Whitetail” off that lofty perch it holds in my mind, as to this day the most masterfully written and meticulously detailed look inside the whitetail’s world, but I do sincerely believe this is the best hunting/understanding Mr. Big niche book I’ve done of the now four. In my mind, “White-tailed Deer Management and Habitat Improvement” is still my very best work, as I literally put over a year into it. Still, I do believe this has been my best of the four hunting/understanding Mr. Big books to date or at least the one I’d want to read the most.

With that most definitely in mind, I’ll start the wrap up by simply saying thank you. You all have empowered me to truly live my dreams. All I can promise in return is to always believe what I say, share freely, even when it makes me look bad, and never shove products down your throats that I wouldn’t be buying myself. I KNOW I’m getting the steal in this trade. I’m afraid that’s all I can give, but I can sure promise to at least always do that much!

Please, ALWAYS remember that, though I’m not sure any of us can really change the world by ourselves, each of us, assuming of sound mind and body, can make our world at least more closely resemble what we want it to be. We do just that every time we head out with a chainsaw in our hands or when on any other mission to improve our habitat or simply to do some scouting.

The sun has set on these chapters. Now it’s time for you to take what you’ve learned and do great things. Photo courtesy of Steve Bartylla.

In a weird way, the same just happened here. All over social media, people are passionately arguing/fighting over every issue there is. Heck, they’re fighting over hunting, what methods work, what’s “cheating” and everything else you can imagine. Unfortunately, you probably don’t have to imagine, as you’ve no doubt seen it firsthand.

My friends, together, and I do sincerely mean together (your comments were what gave me the idea to write it. Then, as we went along, the continuing comments honestly gave this “book” both its shape and direction, as well as making dang sure I remembered to include everything, which I otherwise wouldn’t have. WE wrote this together!), WE wrote an entire book, covering everything from some somewhat controversial stuff (controversial in the hunting community, at least) to my own opinions, which admittedly may be wrong, all with zero fighting, arguing or anything “icky.”

With that also foremost in mind, our book is still missing one thing. That’s the dedication. There should be absolutely no question that this book is dedicated to all of you. As I have said and could not mean more sincerely, NONE of this happens without your support, nothing. THANKS for joining me on this ride and ALL you continue to do, MY friends! They say one can be judged by the company they keep. You all MAKE me look WAY better than I am, simply by association. I will eternally be grateful for you not only allowing me to be proud of my own work, but ALWAYS being tremendously proud of my audience/you!

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

Read Chapter 6: Family Group Dominance

Read Chapter 7: Male Dominance

Read Chapter 8: Deer Population Dynamics

Read Chapter 9: Deciphering Deer Breeding Phases

Read Chapter 10: Big Deer Breeding Behavior

Read Chapter 11: Whitetail Rut Stress

Read Chapter 12: How Deer Deal With Winter Stress