KEEPING DEER AT HOME

By Bill Winke

Regardless of the setting, one of the primary goals of any deer manager should be to keep as many nice bucks as possible on the property he manages. This is not a simple project. It takes an aggressive doe harvest program, an aggressive habitat enhancement program and an aggressive food plot program. Here is how the three parts work together to make your hunting area the neighborhood’s most popular buck hangout.

SLOWING THE DISPERSAL OF YOUNG BUCKS

As soon as the bucks on your hunting property jump the fence, they are beyond your control and are much more likely to be shot elsewhere before they reach maturity.  The first step in holding bucks is to keep them from dispersing during their second fall season.

Research done by R.E. Hawkins into the dispersal of bucks from Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge showed that 4 percent of fawns disperse, 7 percent of adult does disperse, 10 percent of adult bucks disperse, 13 percent of 1-½ year-old does disperse and fully 80 percent of 1-½ year old bucks disperse. That’s right, 80 percent! It is fairly safe to say that the majority of buck dispersal takes place during the buck’s second fall, and more specifically, during the rut.

Think about that for a second: 80 percent of all your young bucks may be leaving each year to take up residence somewhere else. That’s shocking. You and your friends sacrifice by letting them walk during the early bow season only to hand them over to someone who may have much less restraint. Sure, you can hope to gain a few young bucks that disperse onto your hunting area from nearby ranges, but in most management settings there will be far fewer bucks protected at 1-½ years of age on the other side of your fence than on your side. As a result, you become a net exporter of bucks and your neighbors come to think that young bucks grow on trees.

Rather than simply shooting the small bucks before someone else does, it would be wise to learn why they are leaving. Maybe there is a way to keep them at home.  Through study and numerous conversations with leading deer biologists such as Harry Jacobsen and Karl Miller, it was determined that buck dispersal starts with the doe. Here’s how it works: Most wholesale buck dispersal takes place in 1-1/2 year old bucks just before or during the rut. For sure, the small buck will face hostility from older breeding-age bucks, but that isn’t the main reason he leaves. He gains a taste for the nomadic life after his mother kicks him out of the family group. Presumably, this is nature’s way of assuring a greater degree of genetic diversity. The greatest pressure from the buck’s mother comes right before breeding begins, adding even greater credibility to this notion.

S. Hölzenbein and R.L. Marchinton conducted a very interesting and important study in 1992.  Fifteen male fawns that had lost their mothers (orphans) and 19 male fawns that still lived with their mothers were all radio-collared. Of the 15 orphans, only one had left his home range by age 2-1/2 years and as it turned out, an unrelated doe harassed him into leaving.  Of the 19 bucks that grew up with their mothers, fully 18 of them had dispersed from their original home range by the time they were 2-1/2 years old.  Eighteen out of 19 bucks had left before they reached 2-1/2 years!

How far bucks travel when they disperse is also interesting. It may not be your immediate neighbors who are reaping the rewards of your diligence. Putting the shoe on the other foot, just because your neighbors are letting the little bucks walk doesn’t mean you will become a net importer of bucks anytime soon. In other words, the distances the bucks will disperse can be dramatic. In the study performed by Hawkins at the Crab Orchard Refuge, yearling bucks were killed an average of five miles from the refuge (where they were originally captured and tagged before dispersing). Only adult bucks have been known to disperse farther, but because they move a much smaller percentage of the time, the effect is less significant.

Maybe you are thinking that a dispersed buck is likely to return to his original range during the rut to breed. Sorry, but he’s probably dead. Dispersing bucks are much less likely to survive to maturity than bucks that don’t disperse. As they travel into unfamiliar ground they are vulnerable to many forces: cars, hunters, fences, dogs, etc. In the study by Hölzenbein and Marchinton the survival rate of orphaned bucks was higher than those that grew up with their mothers and then dispersed. 

Dispersal, of course, has its greatest impact on buck-to-doe ratios. Marchinton and K.E. Kammermeyer documented this point through observations at a deer sanctuary.  Hunting is prohibited at the Berry College Refuge in Georgia. The ratio of bucks to does was found to actually be worse (more does for each buck) in the refuge than on surrounding lands that were hunted hard. In other words, because the does didn’t disperse from the refuge, but the bucks did, the refuge became a net exporter of bucks and the resulting herd had a fairly large population that was heavily skewed toward does.

REDUCING DISPERSAL

The obvious answer, and the right one, is to orphan as many buck fawns as you possibly can without causing your overall deer numbers to implode. By harvesting does aggressively you not only reduce the dispersal of young bucks but you also keep overall deer numbers in check. For example, which is a better management situation for a square mile of hunting property: 80 does and 10 bucks or 50 does and 30 bucks?  Obviously, having more bucks with a smaller overall herd has many advantages. 

Assuming you harvest the bucks conservatively, you will always have enough does to supply all the bucks you could want. Sure, at some point the mature bucks will start to disperse too, but that may not occur until they reach the age that you’re targeting.

The only potential downside to reducing dispersal is the genetic impact of keeping the buck in the local breeding pool. Since the mother is gone there won’t be any inbreeding in this regard, but if the buck has a twin sister there is some chance he might end up breeding her. From everything I’ve learned about genetics, there are a tremendous number of variables and factors involved in determining antler size and animal health. It seems that the outside chance of a buck breeding his twin sister has a very, very small impact on overall genetic quality. However, if that worries you, remember there is still some dispersal in and out of the area by deer of all ages and sexes (7 percent of adult does and 10 percent of adult bucks, 13 percent of yearling does) so there is some genetic turnover even if the young bucks don’t disperse in huge numbers.

HABITAT ENHANCEMENT

Through eight years of heavy involvement in the management of a midwestern hunting property for big whitetails I’ve become somewhat disappointed by the number of “super-dominant” bucks a piece of ground can hold. These are the big, fully mature bucks we would all love to shoot each season. Unfortunately, these kinds of bucks don’t tolerate others in their class very well and shortly after they shed their velvet in late summer they begin separating. You can call this dispersal if you like. I call it the orneriness factor.  They’re like the actors in the movie “Grumpy Old Men” – constant adversaries. Old bucks seem to know this going into the fall and simply spread out on their own. 

I remember the first time someone explained this phenomena to me. I was incredulous. I didn’t want to believe it. The time was the mid-1990s and I was fresh into the management of the property. I had just asked John Kube, the Illinois deer biologist, how many super bucks a piece of ground can hold. I was looking for something like half a dozen per square mile or maybe even more. When John reported, without much hesitation, about one per square mile my jaw dropped. I thought he had to be wrong. I hoped it at least. But my own experiences soon bore out his statement.

Granted, there are a number of lesser bucks in the 3-1/2-year-old range (maybe even some 4-1/2 years old) that fall into the sub-dominance hierarchy, but the truly mature bucks simply don’t tolerate each other. It became my mission to figure out ways to increase the number of fully mature bucks our ground would hold.

After discussing alternatives with some experts, it became apparent that thick cover is the best way to hold more super bucks. Thick cover will also serve three other purposes. Not only will it effectively make your property seem larger to mature bucks, it will also reduce the distance at which the same buck can see you sneaking through the timber to your tree stand. If fewer deer see you, fewer deer will be stirred up every time you pass. This will keep the local herd more relaxed and moving more naturally throughout the season. And if you hunt a small property, it will also keep them from running off the place.

Second, thick cover has the potential to contain more browse than a bare woodland floor.  This has obvious advantages.

Finally, thick cover is used as a sanctuary by bucks when the pressure of the regular firearms season begins. They will pile into the heaviest cover they can find within their home range. Ideally, that will be on your place where you can give them another year to grow larger.

CREATING COVER

The easiest way to create thick cover is to drop junk trees with a chainsaw during the summer. Their leaves will stay on well into the winter and this produces instant cover.  Work with a good forester to help you target the best trees for removal. By opening the canopy to let light hit the forest floor, you encourage the growth of more ground level vegetation that will begin to kick in by the second year. 

You can also fertilize your native vegetation to encourage super growth. I have a friend named Doug Mauldin who manages a deer property in Mississippi.  For a few years Doug used ATV’s and shoulder-mounted whirly-birds to spread a mix of 100 pounds per acre of triple-13 fertilizer on 40 acres of his timber. He did it in select areas in the spring each year for three years. By late summer the cover was twice as thick in each of these areas than he had ever seen it before. Fertilizing in conjunction with timber stand improvement (removing junk trees) is a great way to create a veritable jungle for your deer. It produces lots of browse and lots of security.

You can also plant cover, but this takes many more years to produce its desired effect. We have planted cedars and choke cherry trees in open areas of our land to produce cover in these places. If you go this route – and you ought to at least for the sake of your offspring (or theirs) – you may as well mark time with a multi-year calendar, because it takes at least 10 years to make a real impact.

BETTER FOOD PLOTS

Last but certainly not least, if you are serious about keeping deer at home it is critical that you provide the best source of nutrition within at least two miles of your property. That means having an ample supply of the food sources deer prefer at each time of the year. In the spring and summer, that means Imperial Whitetail® Clover or Imperial Alfa-Rack™.

The need for a preferred food source on your hunting land cannot be over-emphasized. Studies done on Georgia’s Fort Perry deer research facility have shown that most deer will reduce their home ranges to stay within a quarter-mile of their most preferred food sources. In other words, if you plant great food sources and take care of them properly the deer will change their movement patterns to accommodate your offer.

The final step in the food source solution is location. It makes little sense to put your best food sources just inside your fence line, regardless of how good the soil may be there. If you do that, nearly half the deer using your food plot will actually be living on your neighbor’s land. 

It is much better to place your best food plots toward the center of your land.  This will serve two purposes. Obviously, more of the deer using it will actually stay on your ground and under your protection, but also they will be less visible. Keeping your deer hidden is one key to reducing poaching and trespassing. The old statement, “out of sight, out of mind,” is never truer than when dealing with whitetail deer – especially multi-pointed rack-bucks.

Keeping your best food plots toward the middle of your land gives you greater control over how much they are harassed while they feed. Everyone likes to watch deer during the summer and early fall, but clumsy intrusion soon makes the deer wary of showing themselves on even the best food sources. By keeping the food hidden from outside eyes you provide a greater degree of security for the deer and this will encourage them to use the plots more regularly and more freely.

Managing deer is much more complex than most people realize. That’s why it’s so fascinating. Each year you will think you have the magic formula only to discover another challenge that must be overcome. One of the biggest challenges in managing your land for mature bucks is to keep them from leaving. It makes little sense to export them to hunters as much as five miles away.