Quality Deer Management

After hunting whitetails for 16 years, I have found a concept that covers all aspects of whitetail management. Although the first time I heard of QDM, it was on a sign on the West county line and I thought it was some weird type of off-limits sanctuary. Turns out it was private land that was telling other people what they stood for. That was as least 3 or 4 years ago. Now at 27, I'm spending lots of time in the woods and I'm learning so much by reading about and observing whitetail behavior. The majority of my early learning was taught orally by my dad. I would listen to stories about buck encounters, that were vividly memorable to him, and as hard as I could, I tried to place myself there with him. I heard the names of hunters of old and places that had names like 'The Carlson Slough' and 'The Little Hill' which the average up-and-comer has no clue what those were or where they were. I learned about antlers and had the privilage of seeing hundreds of racks come through the house as my dad would score them or mount them for people through the decades. I new the difference between typical and nontypical at an early age and that the four circumference measurements were referred to as "Hs". I knew that inside spread was the only spread that counted and that G5s were rare.

After college, I rekindled the passion of my youth, but now it has been with more knowledge, understanding, and in-depth curiosities. I wanted to know why whitetails do what they do, not just be content to shoot a decent one. I picked up my bow and started shooting and shot my first buck near Barnsville, MN in the 'Black Swamp' state piece. That was all it took to have me hooked on bowhunting. The following season (2007) I shot my first Pope & Young grossing 144". I began to read more, watch more hunting videos, be more mezmorized by whitetail behavior, and ultimately, I wanted to know what could be done to enhance and study a specific herd of deer.

Throughout most of my recent reading, the topic of deer management has been coming up more and more frequently. Food plots have been a buzz phrase for a few years, but I've learned that that's only one aspect of deer managment. I've learned that the most commonly practiced type of management (traditional deer management) really isn't a management style at all. The other two that are being talked about are Trophy Deer Management and Quality Deer Management. TDM is fairly self-explanatory in it's goals, as is QDM. Since there is nothing to really gauge a 'trophy doe', TDM must be talking about bucks. The downfall to this is that bucks only make up half the possible herd. Quality Deer Management focuses on the overall herd health, which encompasses bucks, does, and fawns. QDM has four cornerstones or pillars and they are:

Herd Management

Habitat Management

Hunter Management

Herd Monitoring

Each of these are essential, and not necessarily easy to achieve. In an area like where we hunt, there's some private land, but it's mostly public. Granted, there's not simple access to most of the public land, getting land owners to agree on some sort of standard or basic principles of hunting seems daunting. For a QDM cooperative to work, lots of people need to work together.

All this brings me to where I am today. I have fully bought into the principles of QDM and now the task is to communicate and sell the vision of what potential some simple cooperation could do for our deer herd, and ultimately for our hunting future.