MANAGING HUNTING PRESSURE

by Bill Winke

If you’ve managed the deer well where you hunt, there are now at least a few mature bucks on the property. Going after them is an exciting prospect, but unless you own the property and completely control who can hunt and who can’t, you won’t be the only one hunting on the property. Wildlife managers like to joke that managing deer is easy compared to managing people, and there is a lot of truth to that statement. How you cooperate when hunting a piece of property will have a large bearing not only on the numbers of deer that get shot, but also on the quality of the bucks.

Mature bucks are amazingly good at recognizing danger and avoiding it. To begin with, many are almost strictly nocturnal. A few may be seen of couple times as they feed on your lush Imperial Clover or Imperial Alfa-Rack plots during the summer, but once their testosterone levels start to rise they will mostly evaporate. This occurs around Sept. 1 in many areas, before the start of the season. And this is even with no hunting pressure at all. Hopefully, the mature bucks will be seen again when the rut arrives, but there are no guarantees.

I know of several bucks that live where I hunt that have very distinctive antler characteristics. If anyone saw them there would be no questions. We’ve found their sheds a few times and have even seen them very rarely during the summer, but no one has actually seen these bucks during the fall – ever. Not all mature bucks are this reclusive, but all have the potential to become so if not hunted very carefully. When you throw in some ill conceived or heavy-handed hunting pursuit it doesn’t take long before any mature buck becomes nearly impossible to see, let alone kill. 

Obviously, the goal is to find a way for everyone that hunts the property to have a quality experience without turning the mature bucks that live there into vapor that disappears into the woodwork when the first hunter steps onto the property each fall.  Here are some tips to keep the mature bucks from realizing they’re being hunted for as long as possible.

The Cooperation Method

This is the method we use on the property where I do most of my deer hunting and where I am most actively involved in day-to-day management. Let me put it this way, it sort of works most of the time but is tenuous, especially when everyone is hunting the farm at the same time. However, in our estimation it is the lesser of three evils.

The farm is set up as a subchapter S corporation and the hunters are all owners or a very limited number of guests. There is no built-in hierarchy in which some hunters have a higher status and more rights than others. Everyone is on an equal footing. This is as it should be, but it also introduces some problems – everyone has the same right to hunt anywhere they please. Boy, that can be a big problem at times.

Last year for example, I was excited about hunting a particular buck that I had a history with when one of the other shareholders decided he wanted to hunt it. I subtly mentioned a few times that I was looking forward to hunting the buck but the other person didn’t catch the hint, or didn’t want to. As a result, I stayed on the sidelines until he was done hunting because I didn’t want to crowd in on him. My friend saw the deer once early in the hunt, but after he had hunted the area for the better part of 10 straight days the big deer was never seen again. Life goes on, it was only a deer. But, I sure would have loved to have had the buck all to myself before anyone else jumped in there and potentially educated him. 

If you rely on the cooperation method for managing hunting pressure this is going to happen. Sure, I could have hunted right there alongside the other fellow, and maybe I should have, but that is not my idea of a quality experience. So I hunted other places and waited.

That’s the downside, now the upside: it’s the same exact thing. You aren’t restricted in where you can hunt. I like the fact that I can hunt all parts of the farm. I have good stands in every corner of the place. I’d hate to have to give one of them up even for a year. Also, when the cooperation method is at its best, I’m rewarded for hunting smart and working hard. Here’s what I mean.

Suppose I come up with a method for monitoring where the biggest bucks are living on the farm this fall. Maybe I’m studying tracks in feeding areas or at regular crossings. Maybe I’m out glassing a lot in the evenings during the summer to find the one or two bruisers that generally turn up each year. Maybe I’ve invested a few hundred dollars in a trail camera and move it and check it often to see where the biggest bucks are living. Not every buck will be so visible that the other hunters will know about it. There are going to be some bucks that I alone know about. And on top of that, not everyone else will go to this much trouble to find a buck to hunt each fall.  They will simply show up and hunt the stands they’ve always hunted. 

Using the cooperation method of managing hunting pressure I can probably find a way to hunt at least one, if not all, of the good bucks that I find without getting in anyone else’s way. Even if I throw out the one or two visible bucks other hunters are keying on, I’m still left with a good buck or two elsewhere.

Despite the potential problems associated with the cooperation method of managing hunting pressure, it is my favorite simply for the reason just stated.  I like to hunt anywhere I want and this is the only way I can do that. 

To make this method work you need to come up with a consistent way for everyone to know where everyone else is hunting and then work out a system for communication. 

The cooperation method works best when all the hunters get along well and are willing to compromise and cooperate. In other words, everyone needs to be looking out for everyone else’s best interests in an unselfish way. Here’s an example. I have a favorite stand on the farm and have hunted it quite a bit for the past seven years. I’ve made this apparent to all the other hunters and for the most part they have stayed away from it – not entirely mind you – but at least comfortably so. They do that not because they have to, but because they want to. 

If we had a particularly difficult person in our group that was grossly inconsiderate or always hogging the best spots every year or roaming around educating deer in all parts of the farm, I would be the first to promote a different system. In other words, if the group had said, “Heck no, we’re not staying away from your favorite stand,” then I would be strongly promoting a different approach.

Second, the cooperation method works best in places where you have plenty of room between hunters – where you aren’t always vying for the same stands. It would be tough to make it work if the property had only six good stands sites and eight hunters.  It could be done, but it would definitely require a lot of patience on everyone’s part – probably too much to expect from guys who can’t wait to get into the action each year.

The Exclusive Stands Method

Here’s a method one of our shareholders suggested that was voted down. Dan thought it might be a good idea if we had a rule that stated that each hunter could have only a certain number of stands (maybe 10) and no one could hunt within a certain distance of anyone else’s stand (maybe 100 to 150 yards). I could foresee problems in this approach immediately and was against it from the start. Here’s why.

In some locations 100 yards is a long ways and in some it is not. For example, suppose you are hunting the back of a bedding ridge 300 yards from a field where the deer feed heavily at night. You like the spot because the deer don’t show up until after sunrise and you can slip in the back door (opposite direction of the field) without spooking any deer. Another hunter notices the same pattern and respects your 100 yard cushion by setting his stand along the same ridge only 200 yards from the field. Ugh. Under this management scheme he has every right to hunt the spot as much as he wants.  You can bring it up to him, but hey, rules are rules.

Another drawback to this method of managing hunting pressure is the matter of access. Some stands are only good when you approach them and exit them a certain way.  If another person is hunting reasonably close by but hasn’t learned the importance of their entry and exit route – or don’t care – they can really mess you up. Let’s use the bedding ridge example again. You take the long way and come in through the timber in the direction opposite the stand. Sure, it is more work than riding your ATV to the edge of the field and walking a short ways into the woods, but it is the only entry strategy that makes sense. 

Now, what if the other guy sets up his stand 100 yards away during the summer when you’re not around. He doesn’t see the need for working out an approach lane from the opposite direction and opts for the obvious route in and out. It doesn’t matter how careful you are, when he comes tooling up to the edge of the timber on his ATV he pushes all the deer off the field in front of him and they don’t come anywhere near his stand – or yours. Sure, education will help solve the problem, but he doesn’t have to work with you. Hey, he’s 100 yards away. Rules are rules. It should be pretty obvious by now that I don’t like this method.

The Restricted Zone Method

Another of our hunters proposed a different plan during the most recent off-season. While it wasn’t a bad idea, it was also voted down. But, if we end up having specific problems with hunters not cooperating well in the future, this is the method I’ll promote. Here’s what he proposed and why I think under certain conditions it is the best choice.

Jack wanted to partition the farm off so that each person got exclusive rights to approximately 100 acres, more or less. We would use a box, a rectangle, an oval or a circle all of equal area to overlay the aerial photo to determine each person’s 100 acres.  The many possible shapes would provide the flexibility needed to properly deal with various terrain and cover features. No one could enter another hunter’s area or even cross it without his permission. If you brought guests, they had to hunt your 100 acres with you rather than mess someone else up. Each spot would be thoughtfully set up to permit reasonable access from trails, field lanes and county roads. 

The farm we hunt is big enough that there would be additional land left over outside of these restricted areas. It was decided that anyone could hunt this overflow area without restriction using the cooperation method. This provides exclusive areas and a level of flexibility.

There are several reasons why this is a good solution. First, it is fair. We would all sit down and put our heads together to come up with boundaries everyone could live with. Then each person would get to choose the one they wanted. If more than one person wanted the same area we would draw straws. Every year we would either keep the same areas or reshuffle depending on each person’s experience.

Second, such a system would promote good hunting practices. If one hunter was heavy-handed and had a history of burning out hunting areas by hunting them too much or incorrectly, no one else would have to pay. In fact, because he pushed the deer out of his area, others would actually benefit. Each person would then have to live with his own decisions without forcing anyone else to deal with them. 

Third, it was promoted that beyond the farm’s normal food plot program, each shareholder could do as much work or as little work within his area as he wanted in an effort to further improve the food and the habitat. The corporation would provide the equipment and pay for the additional raw materials (seed, fertilizer, lime, chain saw gas, etc.) but the individual shareholder would do the work or pay for the work to be done from his own pocket. The competition this spawned would improve the entire farm.  Also, by being personally responsible for the management within each area, shareholders who normally didn’t participate much would be forced to share in the management and benefit from a greater sense of stewardship.

All in all, the idea was not a bad one at all. I could have lived with it, and if problems ever come up, this method for managing hunting pressure would definitely get my vote. 

Ideally, your hunting property doesn’t have any human conflict issues – everyone that hunts it works together for the common good. Each hunter is looking out for the best interests of every other hunter. That is ideal, but unfortunately, that is not always reality.  But before you go making a bunch of rules, do so with a heap of discretion. Once you make rules they can just as easily work against you as they can for you. 

If you don’t have a problem don’t make any rules. Then only make rules to deal head-on with specific problems as they occur and none beyond. Not only does over-legislating unnecessarily tie everyone’s hands and reduce the pleasure of hunting, it can actually produce more conflicts and hard feelings because everyone looks to maximize their benefits within the rules. The rules then become the factor that dominates behavior rather than common sense and a spirit of mutual cooperation.