Buck Manager | Buck Manager

Deer Hunting, Management and Rattling

White-tailed deer hunting seasons are already going full bore in many states with good bucks already on the ground, but hunting is just beginning to heat up down at southern latitudes. Two things come to mind with the early part of the season upon us: rattling for buck hunting and selective harvest for the purpose of deer management. Both can take place on properties looking to ultimately improve antler quality in bucks, and these two tasks are not necessarily exclusive of one another. Managing a deer herd not only means shooting deer, but removing the right deer and at the right time.

The removal of unwanted bucks prior to the breeding season ensures that those animals do not participate; they no longer have the opportunity to pass on their genes. Earlier is always better when it comes to removing cull bucks. These management bucks, as many hunters so eloquently refer to them, often consist of middle-aged deer that show less promise than the remainder of their cohort (age class). Rattling while in the field prior to the rut ensures an active and hopefully exciting hunt, but also allows landowners and hunters the chance to fulfill management objectives.

Deer Hunting and Management - Rattling for Deer

Best Time to Rattle for Bucks

My experience has lead me to believe that rattling “horns” for deer is most effect earlier in the hunting season rather than later in the year. This may be contrary to what others have witnessed, but I don’t speak for them. My money is on the pre-rut period when it comes to rattling. Hunters can start rattling two to three weeks before the rut typically occurs in an area and have success. Days that have low, but sustained, wind speeds are ideal. Although I prefer to hit horns in the mornings, any time of the day will work.

Jeff M, Site Reader: “… for 2 consecutive seasons I have rattled in 2 shooters just as it was light enough to put my pin on them. One particular 5×5 came in hot looking in a 360 degree area for a fight or a competing alpha buck. Needless to say, his antlers are what I rattle with each season now. Last year, just as the sun was at the top of the lowest tree I rattled about 2 minutes and grunted a few nice tones and a 4×4 came in within 2 to 3 minutes. I wasn’t expecting him so soon, but he was delicious!

I have become paranoid about rattling with my decoy, thinking that once I’m settled in, they could be in range and rattling from a tree confuses them if watching my decoy. I now settle in, listen, and rattle if my buck bomb or decoy doesn’t bring some action first. I am a true believer in rattling. I know it works on the aggressive ones, even interested 1 to 3 year olds.

Use your senses of what deer may already be around before starting your cadence of rattling. Remember that sounds travel early in the AM if it’s still, and bucks will come from everywhere to see just what is up with a good rattling sequence. I start of lightly by tickling them together and then gradually move onto more heavy hitting at the end, followed by a few aggressive grunts.”

Don’t Wait for Deer Management

The management of deer herds varies from property to property. Objectives on one place will be different from another place down the road. Some want to shoot bucks found on their property at 4 1/2 years of age, some at 6 1/2 and so on and so on. There is no single management strategy that can be equated with success; there are many ways to get there, but it all depends on where you start. It’s kind of like all roads can lead to Rome, but your trip will different than mine.

One of the biggest problems that plagues many hunters interested in the management of whitetail deer is that they do not have clear-cut guidelines for buck harvest. What is the criteria on which bucks will be shot? When they are old enough? Only when they are spikes? When they are big enough? When they have missing brow tines? Managers must establish goals and guidelines and put them on paper before the shooting starts. As with everything in life, you’ve got to have a plan. Again, this plan will vary from place to place, but success in deer hunting is measured in a multitude of ways: age of buck harvest, bigger antler size, number of bucks harvested, and buck to doe ratio, for example.

An important thing to remember is that all bucks that you do not want participating in the rut should be removed as soon as possible. If this is done on an annual basis then improvement in the deer herd will be observed sooner rather than later.

Rattling and Hunting

One of the great things about deer hunting is that it can get exciting in a hurry when a big buck steps into the picture. This is especially true when it comes to rattling in bucks. Deer can often appear seemingly out of nowhere and have your heart just about pounding out of your chest. If you’re trying to manage a herd, then this is where a deer management program and a split-second deer hunting decision collide. The ability to age bucks on the hoof becomes increasingly important when time is of the essence, such as when a ornery buck is high-tailing it towards you and looking for a fight or maybe even a girl to steal.

At times like this, there is nothing better than having the skill to size up a deer in the field with regards to age, and maybe even antler score. If you are comfortable doing this then you won’t even think about it. It just takes practice. Also, if you run trail cameras leading up to the hunting season then there is a good chance you will recognize the deer, but there is also the chance that you rattle up something you’ve never seen before. That’s when it really gets exciting!

Just remember this when trying to rattle up a buck: start soft and slow and be patient. Sometimes deer will literally be just out of sight. Also, do not over rattle. On more than one occasion I’ve been “caught” by bucks while reaching for the rattling horns. If I’d waited just a few more minutes those deer would have worked their way in. A good rattling sequence is to rattle for 15 to 60 seconds every 20 minutes, increasing in both duration and intensity over time.

Whitetail Hunting Season in Good Shape

Many bow-carrying deer hunters have already headed to the field, but it’s darn tough out there right now for those than plan on whitetail hunting around a feeder. Much like the rain, food plots seem to be hit or miss depending on which part of Texas your located. Those that have been in the woods lately have no doubt discovered that the acorns have fallen. Last check of the game cameras have demonstrated that deer visitation at the feeders has slowed way, way down. But I’m not worried. They are there. Somewhere.

All in all, things are looking really good for Texas deer hunters this year. I’ve corresponded with quite a few property owners within the past couple of months and the overwhelming majority of them say things are looking pretty darn good. Habitat is decent for the time of year, antler quality is there and good numbers of fawns mean good deer hunting seasons to come. State wildlife officials are echoing what landowners have been saying for some time. This season is going to be a good one.

2013-14 Texas Deer Hunting Season

Source: “Statewide population trends remain stable and hunters should expect good numbers of deer year in and year out,” says Alan Cain, TPWD whitetail deer program leader. “I would predict the statewide deer population to be close to or slightly above the long-term average and hover around that 3.6 million deer mark for 2013.”

“One factor hunters should also keep in mind is the good carryover of deer from the 2012 season as harvest was down resulting from heavy acorn and mast crops in several regions of the state,” Cain notes. “For hunters this translates into plenty of opportunities to harvest a deer.” Though the deer population numbers are expected to be good this year, Cain predicts the recent September rains that resulted in a flush of green vegetation may cause bow hunters to rethink their early season hunting strategies as deer may spend less time visiting feeders. A well-traveled game trail may be more productive than hunting at the deer feeder.

Dry conditions in 2011 resulted in a significant decline in fawn production, down to 29 percent for the statewide estimate, a 24 percent departure from the long term average. Fawn crops bounced back in 2012 at 47 percent and Cain anticipates survey results will show a higher fawn crop this year. In fact, Cain is hearing reports from landowners as well as TPWD biologists of fawn production in the 60 to 80 percent range in the Hill Country and similar reports of good fawn production in other areas of the state.

For hunters fawn crops may not be as meaningful since harvest is generally focused on older age class deer, but remember those fawns this year translate into your adult deer several years into the future.

Environmental conditions can play big part in determining hunting season success on yearly basis, but if the hunting outlook in your area does not seem quite as rosy as you’d like then there may be some other factors at play. Never underestimate habitat when it comes to holding and producing whitetail deer. Deer need it because it provides plants to eat and they need it for screening cover. Fawns need it for thermoregulation as well as for concealment from predators. Of course, hunting pressure both on your property and neighboring properties can play a large role too. Consider active deer management to find out more about what’s happening with the deer population in your area, as well improving the deer hunting on your property.

Deer Antlers as a Management Tool for Whitetail Bucks

The idea that the genetic composition of a deer herd can be improved through selective harvest is not a new one to white-tailed deer management, but it is a tough goal to achieve. This is especially true when dealing with free-ranging deer herds on small to mid-sized properties, which covers most of the land found within the whitetail’s range. Selective deer harvest, or “culling” if you’re talking deer out on the ranch, is not always an option for every hunter on every property. This management practice, however, should not be overlooked by land owners and hunters looking to improve the quality of deer herd found on their property.

The idea of culling deer is to remove bucks with inferior genes for antler growth and leave the genetically better bucks to do the breeding, thereby passing on those better genes to their offspring. It’s a simple concept and it works. Cattlemen figured this out a long time ago; put a really good bull in the pasture and you’ll have better calves. The thing that makes it difficult to implement with deer is that there are often many, many bulls.

Believe it or not, genes are not all that difficult to see in animals. Well, you can’t see the genes per se, but you can see how they are physically expressed. For example, it’s not all that difficult to find a good bull if you know what you’re looking for. The same can be said of a buck. Ranches can identify a good bull by age, so a deer manager should be able to identify a good buck by age. The difficult part is that all those deer are running loose on your property and you can’t get them sort themselves out by age and line up from most inferior to most superior while you’re out deer hunting.

If you are interested in learning more about using what’s on a buck’s head to manage the deer found on your property, then check out the webinar being offered later this week that features Dr. David Hewitt, Stuart Stedman Chair for White-tailed Deer Research at the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute. There is no cost and you can watch from your home or office computer, just don’t let the boss catch you!

When: Thursday, September 19th, 2013, from noon to 1:00 pm CST

Topic: “Deer antlers as a Management Tool: The Role of Culling” Dr. Hewitt will be speaking on Deer antlers as a Management Tool: The Role of Culling. He will cover deer management objectives and the role of culling, reasons managers may wish to cull bucks, relationship between antler size at one age and antler size at a later age and the ability to change genetic potential for antler size in a free-ranging deer herd.

How to sign on: Simply point your browser to Texas Wildlife Association web site on the day of the webinar and click to join the Wildlife for Lunch webinar. By the way, WebEx webinars are not supported on handheld devices such as iPads or iPhones. Each web based seminar is fully interactive and allows you to engage the experts, make comments, and ask questions during the course of the presentation.

Deer Breeding, Hunting: Debated in the News

There is a gradient of acceptance when it comes to white-tailed deer hunting and the commercial deer breeding business. In many states across the US — where maintaining penned deer is legal — the whitetail hunting tradition has hybridized with deer farming to deliver a product that some hunters seem willing to buy. But it’s not for everyone. Literally on the other side of fence are hunters that do not want to accept farm-raised “wildlife.” They just do not agree with the raising or hunting of pen-raised deer.

I can see both sides. For one, the laws are law. It is completely legal to hold, breed and sell deer. In Texas alone there are approximately 1,200 permitted facilities that can help provide ranches with bucks, does and fawns that have the genetics to produce gargantuan antlers. But is deer hunting all about shooting bucks with big antlers? Traditional hunters say no, hell no. They will tell you that hunting is less about the kill and more about the experience, more about spending time with family and friends while hunting free-ranging deer.

Deer Breeding and Hunting Debate Continues

There is no doubt that every hunter has an opinion on the issue. And since opinions are rooted in personal beliefs they are not often swayed by facts. Each camp can come up with supporting facts to debate their side of the issue, but where you stand on the issue of hunting line-bred, pen-raised deer likely depends on which side of the fence you sit. Either way, the topic remains in the news.

Source: “The quest for better deer — specifically bucks with antlers as freakishly big as possible — has created a rift among deer hunters.

Prize bucks are measured on a complicated scale that involves measurements between antlers, but suffice to say the more and bigger the antlers, the more valued the animal in deer hunting circles. But hunters who stalk deer through the woods and take them down the old-fashioned way are seeing their records obliterated by bucks created by deer breeders and set free in enclosed areas for weekend warriors to bring down – and mount in mancaves back home.

“They’ve now created deer that are beyond human belief in terms of their antler size,” said Brian Murphy, CEO of the Quality Deer Management Association. “[The deer] staggers around under the weight of those antlers.” Murphy said some some breeder deer are released into 10,000 acres of land, while others, in the most egregious cases, are released into three to five acres before they are shot down. “Most hunters find great disdain in a known outcome,” he told FoxNews.com. “That is not hunting. There has to be a high degree of not being successful. The deer has to have a fair chance to escape.”

People who kill deer in that fashion follow “a code of ethics that is beyond reproach,” he said.

The race for bigger deer has prompted some to fear that cloning methods, first pioneered at Texas A&M laboratories in order to protect the species, could soon be used to accelerate the race for bigger antlers. In an investigative article written for Outdoor Life magazine, Chris Dougherty describes what he called “Frankenstein Bucks.”

“One look at this pen-reared buck tells you there is something wrong, something terribly wrong. His obscenely disfigured antlers look more like something you would find growing on a coral reef or in a post nuclear war sci-fi thriller,” Dougherty wrote. “They twist and turn and droop and bulge and fork and then fork again.”

But other deer breeding groups, like Michigan-based Whitehouse Whitetails, said there’s no difference between killing deer in the wild and killing them in an enclosed space.

“They have the right to do that because it isn’t to hunt. They just want the head to mount on their wall,” said Laura Caroll, who, along with her husband, owns the deer breeding company. “They [critics] are saying that one way of killing them is different from another way of killing them,” she said. “But the end result is that they kill them. It’s no different than raising cattle that’s going to go on people’s tables,” Caroll said.

It’s true, a dead deer is dead deer. The race to grow bigger and bigger bucks is no different than anything else humans try to take to the next level: the fastest car, the highest building, the meatiest cow, the biggest ear of corn. I’m not even sure how many hunters and non-hunters are really against deer in pens, but it seems like a good percentage of people take issue with calling the shooting of released deer a “hunt.” To me, that decision is best left up to the person who decides to pull or not pull the trigger.

Deer Hunting Small Properties for Success

It was a perfect morning for deer hunting. It was late October, 53 degrees and a 5-7 mile per hour wind was blowing out of the northeast. Directly in front of me, standing at 10 yards, was a 10 point buck that I recognized from game camera photos. The deer was walking quartering away and stopped right on cue. The arrow rocketed through him and hit the ground before he even flinched.

I could immediately see blood. He lurched forward and hit high gear in only a few steps. A few seconds later I heard him crash. It was quiet again. Just to be safe, I waited 15 minutes before walking to the end of a 45 yard long blood trail that culminated with my bow buck.

Deer Hunting and Management on Small Property

I dragged the deer back to the truck, which was parked less than 60 yards away. You see, I was deer hunting a pint-sized property in Central Texas that consisted of a mere 7 acres. It was the second time that I had hunted the small tract in 6 years. Three years earlier had resulted in a mature, heavy-bodied 9 point whitetail buck.

My latest deer, why far from a “book” buck, was the product of only one deer management practice—harvest management. Not shooting him years earlier when he was younger was the strategy, just letting him go so he could grow into something more substantial. Deer hunting small properties can work, but you have to do it right from the start.

Deer Hunting Small Property 101

Keep it quiet. There is no real secret to this one, but it does mean allowing deer to be content using and traveling through a property. Larger properties afford protection to whitetail by the shear amount of space they put between them and any disturbances. Not the case when talking about a small property.

Tips for Deer Hunting a Small Property

Small acreages do not have the kind of built in buffer that distances deer from disturband, so it’s much more important that deer are not continually pushed off of the property, especially as the hunting season approaches. As a note, whitetail can deal with regular disturbances, but it’s different come hunting season once hunters take to the woods.

Mature deer, both bucks and does, become well aware of the sounds and smells that are out of the ordinary for the places they call home.

Help Their Diet

Just like the way to man’s heart is through his stomach, the best way to put an arrow or bullet in a buck’s heart is to keep him coming back for more—keep him well fed. Dominant bucks do not look for the poorest or even the most mediocre meal on the landscape as a part of their diet. They look for the best grub and they keep it to themselves.

If a big ole buck finds high quality forage on the small property you plan to deer hunt this fall then so much the better. A deer has got to eat, right?

The largest antlered bucks in an area will typically have the biggest bodies and that’s because they eat well. Give them something good on your property that is not found anywhere else in the area. Then you have a shot at making your small acreage property part of a dominant buck’s core area.

Deer Hunting Small Properties

It’s always a good idea to choose something that is highly tasty or high in protein. This could be anything from pelleted protein to cottonseed to other types of manufactured foods/baits that attract deer, including well-prepared food plots. The bow buck above had a taste for the Nut ‘N More Drop Block by InSights Nutrition. It’s actually a block that I believe was developed for deer breeders but I’ve found that free-ranging deer really go for this sweet, peanut-based product. Water can also be a great attractant in arid areas.

Know Your Small Tract

Not all small properties provide deer habitat. Smaller properties do not need an abundance of cover, but whitetail will avoid areas that do not have enough suitable screening cover to even provide for perceived safe travel. If you want whitetail deer to use a property it will at least need to have cover comprised of brush, grass, or small trees that are at least 3-4 feet in height in or near potential travel ways.

Deer Hunting Small Tracts

Some of the best small acreage deer hunting can be found on tracts of land that provide good travel corridors. In these cases, providing food or water may just be the icing of the cake for deer that are already traveling through a property. A creek, natural funnel or pinch-point can be a regular deer producer, even if it’s located on just a small tract of land. This is also something to consider when evaluating a hunting lease or when looking for property to purchase.

Timing is Everything

Like life, timing is everything when it comes to deer hunting. Time it just right. Use game cameras to keep informed of when animals are visiting your feed stations or traveling through the area. Most bucks will stick to well-defined feeding patterns before the breeding season turns them into nomads. If you don’t have the opportunity to hunt the pre-breeding season then the rut is, of course, a great time to hunt.

This is can bucks will longer distances in search of hot does. Know when the rut takes place in your hunting area, know the weather and get out there to take advantage of what’s going on. Deer will move throughout the day when the time is right.

Another option is to try rattling. Bucks will readily respond to rattling antlers a couple of weeks before the breeding season kicks into high gear. You may also have a shot a drawing them onto your small hunting tract after the rut as tapered off. A buck may cruise by to take a look if he thinks there is one last shot at breeding success.

Hunt Deer, Don’t Scare Them

Hunt only when the wind is right. This idea is so simple in theory, but it had been one of the most difficult things for me to put into practice during the hunting season. The problem had always been that I wanted to be in the field regardless of whether or not the weather was right. After years, however, I’ve learned that not only is hunting bad wind not effective, it can can run a buck out of the area for good.

Deer Hunting Tips for Small Acreage

I had one buck wind me several years ago and he never showed back up, at least not on game camera, for almost 5 weeks. Mature deer learn real quick when an area is not safe. That’s how they got old.

Hunting Small Acreage Successfully

These tips are a good place to start when deer hunting smaller tracts or any property for that matter. Whitetail are smart animals and that makes them challenging to hunt. It also makes it that much more rewarding when we’re lucky enough to bag a good one, especially on small acreage.

There is something about hunting these mini properties that makes deer hunting even more challenging. It’s good to shoot deer, but keep always remember that deer harvest management is even more important on small tracts. Do not over hunt them.