QDM: How to Create Ideal Fawning Cover
The future of every whitetail herd is the success and survival of each year’s fawn crop. Deer are exceptionally adaptive but certainly require adequate cover for safety. Trying to grow “giant bucks” is futile if you fail to maintain a positive fawn recruitment rate. Habitat management is one of the four cornerstones of Quality Deer Management…
Whitetail Tales: The Hunt for Black Buck
Some bucks evoke a pursuit. Not a deer that’s patterned or predictable to a food source, rather one that’ll take time and focus to fulfill. Those who don’t take the woods for game meat wouldn’t understand the challenge is mostly within the hunter. To bear down, remain focused and stick to the plan even when…
Hunt Sanctuaries Now
Preparing season long methods to hunt your land will consistently create opportunities to fill tags. Early and often. Maintaining sanctuaries is the best property feature to hold deer. Whitetails choose safety over food. Survival is above all for the revered White-tailed deer and a fabric of their existence. The highest quality food options are meaningless…
Using a Doe Decoy During the Rut
Deer decoys aren’t just for the Midwest and you don’t need to be immersed in agriculture fields or extensive, well-manicured food plots (but they can certainly help). Pinpointing your local breeding window and scouting doe locations for late October and early November are the key factors. I’ve always believed the best rut decoy to be…
QDM – Herd Monitoring through Trail Cameras
Monitoring the woods with surveillance is a relatively new tool for outdoorsman. It’s a game changer for hunters, deer managers and researchers. What we once didn’t believe or understand is now reality delivered via $100 cameras. Unmatched intel sent instantaneously. But are we truly capturing enough data to define real-time herd dynamics or is it…
Hunters for the Hungry Accepting Deer Taken Under GA Crop Damage Permits
By Jennifer Whittaker Farm Bureau Georgia Farmers who shoot deer eating their crops under a crop damage permit issued by the Wildlife Resources Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR) are encouraged to donate the deer to the Georgia Hunters for the Hungry (GHFTH) program. There are 23 participating deer processors across Georgia…
QDM: Hunter Management
After years of managing hunters, I can unequivocally say that trigger control is the driving factor that will impede growing mature, quality bucks. Whitetail bucks need to live long enough to fully express their genetic antler traits which cannot be determined by the hunter’s eye at one or two years of age. Three years can be…
QDM: Herd Monitoring through Necropsy
The stark reality of managing a deer herd is the certainty of death. Blood, sweat and tears are shed to produce the highest quality whitetails only for them to die within a relatively short period of time. Disease, sickness, age, predators, weather, wounds and automobile collisions all contribute to non-hunter related deaths. Poor habitat and…
Using Hunter Pressure to Your Advantage
Pressure is what kills the likelihood of meat at the skinning shed. It is why bucks “disappear” from your property, or do they? Too many sits in a stand and poor access techniques dramatically decrease odds of seeing and taking whitetails. Especially, mature antler sets. However, you can absolutely capitalize from the shift in movement…
CWD – A Deer Manager’s Perspective
With Georgia now in the CWD mix and South Carolina being the last Southeastern state without a confirmed case, I have some thoughts to share on herd management. These are my own viewpoints and ideas as a deer manager. A common sense proposition to consider for realistic management. The main concern of Chronic Wasting…
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