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.

Year End

I pulled my last camera today. There were 250 pictures in one week. Three different bucks, a yearling, a two year old, and Scabby 8 - all of them bald. There has been a lot to learn throughout the season, and I have to say, most of these lessons are made possible by using trail cameras. I've spent the time to make a detailed spreadsheet of all the bucks sited on camera this year and I made note of their age, how many points, rough score, location, time, and tried to attach a picture. It was a lot of work, but i'd have to say that the most interesting part was watching the age structure of the deer around where we hunt. Being able to figure out how old each buck is and how many other bucks there are for competition and for dominance. I quickly realized that these bucks really are traveling a few miles to pass through the area, simply because in a normal herd, there is not enough room for multiple four, five, and six year old bucks. The hard part begins this spring when I will be looking for areas that these more mature bucks called home right prior to the rut, honing in on them, and figuring out if there is a way to hunt them before the rut drags them all over the place.

It was great to see a few older bucks after the rut thanks to the 'second rut' and a very confined food source. Now I can't wait for May & June to come to get some mineral site pictures. Bring it on 2010.

Another One Bites The Dust

I forgot to mention that another friend shot one of the bucks off the '2010' Hitlist. I heard he shot a ten pointer, but never saw any pictures and I was looking at his Facebook page and sure enough... There it was. The Pond Buck. I guessed him to be 4, but he could've been three. Hard to say. Anyway, that's another one of the hitlist that I've been working on for 2010. So I think I'm back down to 7 or 8. We'll see what else turns up.

Steph and I just got back from Denver and it was a great trip and we're quite exhausted. We had some wind and nasty weather while we were away. I'm probably going to see if batteries died in the wicked windchill. Hopefully there's a picture of the Clown. Fingers crossed.

Ding Dong Hanger's Dead

Well, after a hunting season with many mysteries, there's some peace of mind to know that Hanger is dead. The brother of a friend of mine shot him during rifle season. I only had one picture of the buck out of velvet this year. He must not've travelled very much outside of his core area, which according to the friend was west of the little hill. Fitting.

Otherwise, the sheds are still falling, but unfortunately, so is the snow this coming weekend. Mom text me on their way out to ice fish by Long Point. She sent a picture of her holding a fresh shed she picked up and I immediately thought she picked up the other side, but it turns out it's the same side to a different buck. Very similar in measurements. Her antler went 51" and mine was 48 3/8". I'm preparing to take my cameras down for the season, but we've had unbelievably warm weather for the middle/end of January so I'm trying to milk it. As soon as it starts to drop down below zero for day time highs, I'll pull them. It's been a great late season for pictures. I just hope those bucks left on the hitlist make it through the winter.

Stephanie and I are driving down to the cities this afternoon and evening and we're flying to denver tomorrow morning. I hope the roads will permit quick travel.

Exploring To The East

On Friday (a week ago), a friend and I took snowmobiles and headed a few miles east of where I hunt and ventured into some uncharted territory. Surprisingly, there was decent sign. We set up two trophy rocks with molasses about three quarters of a mile apart from each other. I'm really excited about these locations. There's a good chance at getting some pictures of some really nice bucks come April, May and June. The area is far enough away that it's very likely a whole other deer population, but at the same time, it's definitely not too far for a buck to venture when the rut kicks in. I'm hoping we can get a glimpse of the legendary 'Black Buck'.

You'll have to stay tuned to see what we find.

Today, I was out ice fishing with my dad and we did really well. We caught a lot of small saugers, but dad caught three fish over 18". We caught a total of 42 fish. Anyway, on the way back, we were driving down the highway and noticed that the ditchbank had been just demolished by deer. As my eyes scanned the ditch and then up into the field, and back into the ditch, I bet my eyes were twitching like a little freak, when all of a sudden, there was the sore thumb. "There's one." I nearly yelled. Dad was slowing down as I

saw it and we backed up and I hopped out and ran over to the field edge and glanced up at where I knew the antler lay. I was looking for the match, which I never did see. I pulled out my phone and got a couple pictures. Dad was sitting in the Blazer up on the highway and couldn't take the 1 minute photo shoot I was doing before I pulled it out of the snow. "Well are you gonna pick it up or what?"

It was a nice heavy, short four point - just chocolate brown. A beautiful antler that I probably won't find the other side to, but you never know. I'll keep my eyes peeled.

My First Set of Twenty Ten

I nearly walked on top of these monsters, believe it or not. I was about three feet from them, and they were about two feet from each other. He wont break any records, but he puts me on the board. Maybe more importantly, the cameras tell me that Mr. 140 is now a slickhead.

Sometime between the wee hours of the morning of December 23rd and supper-time of January 6th, he dropped both sides. His pedicles weren't bleeding, and he came from the north (or one would guess).These bucks have really been feeding elsewhere. I don't dare move my camera over to the pile of sunflowers, because it could easily get picked off by a snowmobiler. I feel like running these cameras into February because of the forcast. They're saying highs in the 20s for like two weeks! That's perfect. As long as we don't get too much snow, there should be lots of pictures, and lots of trails, beds, etc to look through.
Skyscraper showed his bottle-nosed head long enough for two pictures to let me know he's still packin'.

The Black Buck?

I stopped along a county road to talk with a high school classmate who's now a neighbor to our cabin. We started talking about him buying a new bow and whatever else, and inevitably got to talking about this year's hunting season. I told him about the buck I shot and he asked if I had heard anything about the 'monster' that was sighted on top of the hill. I had heard some vague details from another friend, but I was eager to hear more. He started talking about a 'black deer'. From the way he described it, it wasn't really black, but as dark of a deer as one had ever seen. I know there is such a thing as a black-looking deer, which of course is a pigment issue, similar to calico, piebald, or albino.

The odds of there being a truly black deer are pretty insane, but it is possible. I've gotten a couple picture of fawns/yearling does with a black patch on the top of its head, but that's it. Anyway, he went on telling me that a year and a half earlier, while farming a few miles west, he saw a really big buck that he nearly mistook for a bear. He said it was the biggest buck he had ever seen.

Whenever you hear those words from someone, you usually take them with a big grain of salt, but this friend of mine has seen, shot, and been around a lot of pope and young-150's type bucks and I had no choice but to take him seriously. I would guess this buck to be in the 160+ catagory, which is rare up here unless a healthy buck can live to 6 or 7 years old.

After that he started talking about a big buck he had seen by pete's. Tall tines. "at least a foot" he said. To me, that said, "Clown". He also saw him in the summer time by John's. It's getting a little easier to piece some of these bucks together. Patterning big bucks around such big woods, is tough to make an understatement. I'm learning a lot about my own naivity regarding the possible home and seasonal ranges of some of these older bucks. We've gotten lots on camera in the spring up in the big woods. At some point in the middle of June, they all vanished. I need to pick spots out in the fields, get permission, and set up trophy rocks, etc to capture some of these nomads. I am putting together some ideas of travel routes of these older age class bucks. The creek is becoming more and more important as I understand the need for water. It connects the dots.

As far as a black buck goes, one can only hope that a trail camera will locate the giant. If he survives this winter.