Deer Management | Manage by Age | Protecting isn't Managing


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We always emphasize the importance of providing optimum nutrition throughout the year so the deer can reach their genetic potential, but there is also another side to deer management. You make a number of important decisions with your trigger finger – whether by squeezing it keeping it still. What you shoot and what you pass up has a big affect on future hunting and once you start experimenting in this regard, you will face a big dilemma: which bucks do I shoot and which ones do I let go? Most hunters make that decision based on antler size. I suggest that there is a better way.

Most serious deer managers tell us that a buck isn’t mature until after his fourth birthday. During his fifth fall, he is 4 1/2 years old, and that is when he starts to put on the kind of antler and body size he is capable of producing. He also becomes much harder to hunt at this age. A 4 1/2 year old buck is more secretive and reclusive than a younger buck. At this age, he is a fine trophy no matter what he has on his head and shooting one is no small feat. Getting bucks to this age is not easy either because they are so much easier to kill when they are a year younger and right on the verge of becoming great trophies.

When you start making management decisions based on age rather than rack size, you open up the possibility for an interesting dilemma. What if you have a chance to shoot a dandy buck that is genetically superior but obviously still young? Sounds simple enough on paper – you pass him up. But, in the real world it can be a whole lot tougher. A trophy buck is still a trophy buck even if he is only 3 1/2 years old. Many hunters will mash the trigger before they even consider how old the buck is. Believe me, I know from experience. I’ve done it.

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Manage by Age

This catches me at a bad time. I just got back from checking some of my fields. It has been a drought year here in the Midwest, and I was afraid to look at my cornfields, but finally got up the nerve. I have food plots and I have commercial cornfields, so I have real money invested in farming – deer farming and the regular kind. I about threw up when I saw the damage to the back ends of all my cornfields. The deer hammered the corn this summer – ate entire areas right to the ground. I’m sure it had a lot to do with the drought, but that little to ease the strain on my pocketbook.

Now I’m seeing red and I’m on a rampage to lecture any of my neighbors that “manage” for deer. The message is simple: what you are doing (protecting deer) is not beneficial in the long-term.

In the end, protecting deer will be the downfall of us all. You have to remove deer from managed lands at an aggressive rate every year or the population will hit a critical mass and then normal hunting won’t be able to control it. It will quickly become very hard to get the numbers back under control short of taking drastic measures.

I, for one, will not be very happy about that situation and I know my crop-farming neighbors won’t be happy either. Not only is a high deer population bad for public relations, farming cash flow and habitat, it is also bad for those who are trying to produce the highest quality herd and the biggest bucks possible. Here’s why you need to take your harvest responsibility very seriously.