Grow ’em Big: Improve Your Hunting This Season with Realistic Deer Management Goals

You won’t know how to get a big buck consistently if you don’t know how to grow big bucks. In Episode 2 of the new deer management show Grow ’em Big with Steve Bartylla, you can learn how to manage for deer sustainability while managing land and property for bigger deer. It all starts with you managing your expectations.

What kind of benefit do you want to achieve with your deer habitat management goals? Do you want to see more deer? Have fewer numbers but grow bigger deer? Do you want your friends and family to come and have a great time watching deer? What kind of habitat do you have now and what do you want to do?

WATCH: Episode 1 of Grow ’em Big

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Click to watch the show …

What are your budget and time allowances? Will you be able to put in the time necessary to meet your goals? Will you run out of money or have to cut corners?

Everyone’s ideas and goals differ, of course, just as properties differ. The best way to define your goals is to figure out what you want and then start asking questions. And answer your questions honestly. Don’t fudge on your answers.

Bartylla believes habitat management is a lot like being a carpenters who have big tool chest. But a carpenter doesn’t use a tool that’s not right for the job just to say he used it, and you shouldn’t try to do something that’s not right for your property just to say you did it. Figuring out what you want, what your property can handle best and whether you can achieve that goal is the best route.

Grow ’em Big episodes also will include top-shelf information that can be applied to any land management program. Topics such as food plot creation, design and sustainability; forest management tactics for big-buck bedding areas; mineral sites that deer actually use; scent control methods that fool mature bucks; and treestand and ground blind placement for optimal hunting success will be covered in detail during every show.

Bartylla is widely considered to be one of the top private-land whitetail managers in North America. His outdoor writing credits include hundreds of bylines in magazines such as Deer & Deer Hunting, North American Whitetail, Buckmasters and Whitetail Journal. He is also a co-host for Deer & Deer Hunting TV, the No. 1 rated prime-time hunting program last fall on NBC Sports.

To watch the first episodes of Grow ’em Big, click here.

MORE VIDEOS FROM D&DH:
WATCH: Why Hunters Are Needed in Managing Deer Herds
WATCH: 5 Things Every Deer Hunter Should Know

PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT
Grow ’em Big is brought to you by:

Wildlife Research Center’s Magnum Scrape Dripper Combo   This is one of the coolest, easiest hunting tools you can use and you should probably have several of them on your property or even if you hunt public land. Bucks are attracted to new scents and having a new buck or hot doe in their wheelhouse gets them fired up. This Magnum Scrape Dripper and 4 ounce bottle of Active Scrape scent works to get bucks to your mock scrape during daytime hours. The dripper can work up to 2-3 weeks with four ounces of Active Scrape depending on temperature swings. This combo is easy to use to get your mock scrape started, can be refilled or moved, and works great. www.Wildlife.com

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Antler King Power Rack Mineral  Antler King has researched deer nutrition for more than 25 years. In the past couple of years, research has pointed to the vast importance of certain special trace minerals that greatly enhance overall health and antler growth. Antler King’s Power Rack is loaded with these special trace minerals and in the proper proportion. Power Rack may be used as the sole source of your mineral feeding program or for maximum antler growth, mix one bag of Power Rack with one bag of Antler King’s Trophy Deer Mineral. Power Rack is loaded with special antler and body boosting trace minerals, includes Vitamins A, E and D, and is easy to use. www.antlerking.com

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Reconyx WR6 UltraFire White Flash 
You’ll find a host of features in the Reconyx WR6 UltraFire White Flash game camera, including Micro HDMI and USB output connections that let you play back images and video with sound directly to a high definition televisions or transfer data to a computer. High sensitivity image sensors coupled with the latest generation high energy color LED Illuminators provide exceptionally clear color night time images, even at extended ranges of up to 60 feet. The camera has two dedicated camera lenses: one specifically designed to provide rich daytime images and the other to provide clear color night time photography. No moving parts means more reliability and totally silent operation in the field. 
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Heater Body Suit  If you got so cold during deer season that you sat there shivering and thinking, “This is idiotic. Why am I out here?” then you should be making an investment to stay warm so you can hunt longer and more comfortably. The Heater Body Suit is one of those “I should have bought this sooner” hunting tools that gives cold weather a kick right in the butt. It doesn’t have any temperature rating, such as “good to x-below,” because there isn’t one. The Heater Body Suit is guaranteed to keep you warm or you’ll get your money back. No joke. It’s designed with a noise suppressor, DuPont wind barrier and 300 grams of 3M Thinsulate insulation and finished with a water repellent coating. Heater Body Suits are available in five camo patterns so you can hunt anywhere from snow to the Southeast, where on a damp cold day in January you can rattle your teeth shivering in the stand. Get a Heater Body Suit. It’s an investment that will pay off with years of hunting comfort. www.HeaterBodySuit.com

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