Speaker 1: Welcome back to cutting the distance. My new found obsession
Speaker 1: maybe whitetailed deer. Please don't tell my wife I need
Speaker 1: another obsession. Um like nothing else, but it was pretty
Speaker 1: fun and animal. I've always joked about hunting. When I
Speaker 1: turned seven years old and can no longer chase meal deer, blacktails,
Speaker 1: or elk around, so I've I've started to dig up
Speaker 1: all the information that's out there because that's kind of
Speaker 1: where all my hunting starts. I want to know about
Speaker 1: the animal before I go out there. And there's one
Speaker 1: name that always seems to come up as an expert
Speaker 1: on whitetail biology, does a ton of research on him,
Speaker 1: Dr Bronson Strickland. He's a professor a Wildlife management in
Speaker 1: Mississippi State University. He's a co director of m s
Speaker 1: US Deer Lab and the co host of Deer University podcast.
Speaker 1: And I brought him on today to kind of pick
Speaker 1: his brain a little bit see how we can use
Speaker 1: these bigger bucks, their biology, their instincts against them in
Speaker 1: the fold. So welcome to the show. Dr Scriptling, Hey
Speaker 1: glad to be here. Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1: Were you able to get out in the woods is
Speaker 1: here and hunt it all or just just well, it's
Speaker 1: really just beginning here. I mean we a gun season
Speaker 1: just began, and uh, and it's finally cooling down. You
Speaker 1: know what, when I was younger, even if it was
Speaker 1: ninety degrees during both season, I would go out of obligation.
Speaker 1: The the older I get, though, I like to wait
Speaker 1: for for cold weather. So it's finally getting right down here, perfect.
Speaker 1: I always forget down in the southeast. You guys ruts
Speaker 1: a little bit later. Your seasons are a little bit later,
Speaker 1: So that makes a ton of sense. I know, I
Speaker 1: was in Kansas, um, you know, ten days ago and
Speaker 1: the cold snap had hit there. We were in the
Speaker 1: you know, the single digits, you know, low low teens
Speaker 1: for a lot of that, and uh, you know the
Speaker 1: rut was was cranking along pretty good there between the
Speaker 1: tenth and about the fifteenth. UM. So yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: your your season still um coming up. But I'm gonna
Speaker 1: ask you to just kind of kick off the podcast,
Speaker 1: give us a quick rundown on kind of your history, um,
Speaker 1: and how you got to where you are now to
Speaker 1: be respected is as you know, as knowledgeable as you're
Speaker 1: in white tails, and what's led you to this point, Well, Uh,
Speaker 1: I'm really lucky. I'm just really really lucky that I
Speaker 1: grew up in a place and time to where being
Speaker 1: a white tail researcher and a biologists and outreach specialist
Speaker 1: is a job. And so uh got got my degrees
Speaker 1: uh at University of Georgia, Texas A and m Kingsville
Speaker 1: and Mississippi State, and it's all focused on wildlife management
Speaker 1: and specifically white tailed deer. And then UH lucky again
Speaker 1: that I could get a job uh here at Mississippi
Speaker 1: State where I could focus keep focusing on uh deer
Speaker 1: research and then the outreach component of that, and that
Speaker 1: is basically just taking all the research that we do
Speaker 1: and putting it out in various forms articles, presentations, books, podcasts,
Speaker 1: et cetera. So that's that's kind of the heart of
Speaker 1: what I do. Thanks for that, Rundown. And as a
Speaker 1: civil engineer myself, I love when you can take research,
Speaker 1: you can take data and apply that to what I've
Speaker 1: seen in the field. You know, they were I had
Speaker 1: a great professor um going through school where it's like
Speaker 1: You're gonna teach you everything that's in these books, the theory,
Speaker 1: the science, but then to go out and proof that
Speaker 1: research and data on the ground, you know, and in
Speaker 1: this instance to ultimately Harvard you know, grow bigger bucks,
Speaker 1: find bigger bucks, understand bigger bucks. You know, the same
Speaker 1: thing on the engineering side. So as an engineer, this
Speaker 1: stuff really gets me when you're able to add facts, data,
Speaker 1: research to what we're trying to do. UM, I really
Speaker 1: I really like this stuff. So UM yeah, I appreciate
Speaker 1: having you on. So, like every Cutting the Distance podcast,
Speaker 1: we're gonna feeld a few questions UM from you the listeners,
Speaker 1: And if you have a question of your own to submit,
Speaker 1: please email us at ct D at Phelps game Calls
Speaker 1: dot com or send us a message on social media email. UM. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll do our best either have me or in this
Speaker 1: case UM our expert guests answer these questions, because I'm
Speaker 1: not quite um versus enough on these white tailed there
Speaker 1: yet to answer these questions. So our first question for you, Bronson,
Speaker 1: at what age should you start managing your bucks? Um?
Speaker 1: And by that I mean you know, we have identified
Speaker 1: the age, we've identified what they've got on their head.
Speaker 1: What's the right time to make a good decision that
Speaker 1: that deer is not ready to be taken out of
Speaker 1: the herd um if you listen to any of of
Speaker 1: our media or read any of our our articles. UH.
Speaker 1: My colleague and friends, Steve Demeris, he's also co director
Speaker 1: of the Deer Lab. We say it depends probably more
Speaker 1: than any little phrase, and essentially that means context. You
Speaker 1: gotta put some contexts and some boundaries on it. Um.
Speaker 1: But if we were going to say, on the average, uh,
Speaker 1: I think for most people in most places is at
Speaker 1: three and a half. At three and a half years
Speaker 1: of age, depending on where you're at, a buck is
Speaker 1: showing sixty too, sometimes seventy or greater percent of what
Speaker 1: he's going to be at maturity. And so three and
Speaker 1: a half is a good age because we now have
Speaker 1: a reliable predictor of what he's gonna be a couple
Speaker 1: of years down the road. Simultaneously, it takes a few
Speaker 1: years to forgive some of the issues that may have
Speaker 1: happened to the buck's mother when it was a fawn
Speaker 1: or while it was a yearling, wasn't born late, wasn't
Speaker 1: born in a drought year, etcetera, etcetera. It takes a
Speaker 1: couple of years to grow out of that circumstance. The
Speaker 1: buck was born into and so just very much in general,
Speaker 1: I would say three and a half would be the
Speaker 1: single most important age where you make a decision of, uh,
Speaker 1: do I want to harvest this buck? I don't think
Speaker 1: it has a lot of potential? Or am I going
Speaker 1: to make sure I spare this buck and we protect
Speaker 1: this buck because he is definitely demonstrating he has a
Speaker 1: lot of potential to be trophy class at maturity. That
Speaker 1: makes a ton of sense. And to piggyback onto that
Speaker 1: question a little bit of my own, do environmental factors
Speaker 1: start to playing? Like as a land manager is is
Speaker 1: somebody trying to manage the herd? Um? You know, we
Speaker 1: were in as I keep referring back to my one
Speaker 1: and only trip in Kansas, they were coming off of
Speaker 1: a pretty bad drought and and that was going through
Speaker 1: everybody's mind. Um, you know, times were a little bit
Speaker 1: shorter things. You know, they had saw a dear you know,
Speaker 1: five single digit percentage increase in horns you know on
Speaker 1: their head. Um, do you take that into effect as
Speaker 1: you're looking at that, like if you get a good,
Speaker 1: good moisture here in the drought and they're able to
Speaker 1: get the minerals, you know, back out of the ground
Speaker 1: and the water sources whatever. Um, you know that maybe
Speaker 1: are you are you gonna let that play in? And
Speaker 1: maybe you know, should we should we hold off on
Speaker 1: managing those dear knowing that they may have a big rebound,
Speaker 1: maybe they'll come back bigger because of a drought situation
Speaker 1: or you know, they also were talking about their their
Speaker 1: beans didn't come up, you know, and so they missed
Speaker 1: uh you know, a quarter or their their typical food source.
Speaker 1: UM that fattens them up. Is that going to play
Speaker 1: into too when you're gonna harvest or maybe give them
Speaker 1: that extra year. Yeah, and let's say that's gonna be
Speaker 1: man infested in two ways. It's it's going to affect
Speaker 1: the deer on the hoof that year. So if you're
Speaker 1: talking about drought or beings, you're talking about something during
Speaker 1: the summer during the antler growth period, and it is
Speaker 1: going to influence uh their maximum antler size uh when
Speaker 1: when they harden out shed their velvet that that fall. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's also going to influence uh buck fawns as well.
Speaker 1: And so that again that early environment they're into can
Speaker 1: put them on a different trajectory of growth for several years.
Speaker 1: In their life, so two different ways. But I guess Jason,
Speaker 1: one way you have to think about that too is
Speaker 1: how big is big enough? And so you always have
Speaker 1: to think about that opportunity of you know, hey, my
Speaker 1: goal is a one eighty or one seventy or one ninety,
Speaker 1: whatever it is. I have this buck in front of
Speaker 1: me at twenty five yards bow in my hand, and
Speaker 1: he's twenty inches less than what he could be, but
Speaker 1: I have the opportunity right now for for a lethal shot.
Speaker 1: So you got to play the probability, the odds. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're playing that game, and you know at that point, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's twenty inches less, but he's still got smarter to
Speaker 1: dear that was you know, if that's what you're trying
Speaker 1: to do, you're out smart at him. He's still the
Speaker 1: same deer regardless of what's on his head, and um,
Speaker 1: you know that well. And you have to factor in
Speaker 1: a risk that there is no guarantee that he's going
Speaker 1: to be around next year. There's a lot of other
Speaker 1: non hunting mortality sources that could take him. So you're
Speaker 1: rolling the dice when you let him go. And now
Speaker 1: I'm gonna you may not have an answer for this,
Speaker 1: but you you kind of um, you know, we have
Speaker 1: a lot of winter kill out here out west, you know,
Speaker 1: big snows, and you have age classes of deer missing.
Speaker 1: What you just touched on there a little bit is
Speaker 1: in a drought year, do people manage to the point
Speaker 1: knowing that their bucks at you know that in four
Speaker 1: and a half years or four years are going to
Speaker 1: have those bucks may not have the potential I mean,
Speaker 1: are people managing to that level that that that buck
Speaker 1: or that buck fallen was born during a drought his
Speaker 1: genetic potential or not it wouldn't be genetic his potential
Speaker 1: because of the mom's health is now going to be
Speaker 1: lessened in four years when I want to hunt, you know,
Speaker 1: or five years and I want to hunt a buck
Speaker 1: of that age class. Uh, probably not any I think
Speaker 1: that's more of a biologist look at it. When when
Speaker 1: they're have an aggregation of data at a very large scale,
Speaker 1: you can kind of explain from year to year. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know what, what proportion of the very the annual
Speaker 1: variation and average antler size is explained by the events
Speaker 1: this year and what can we go back to the
Speaker 1: year of birth and you just kind of partition that
Speaker 1: there's probably Jason not that many in the southeast that
Speaker 1: would take take that into account. But but if you
Speaker 1: go to a situation like like in South Texas. In
Speaker 1: South Texas, it may not be looking at hey, we
Speaker 1: probably have antlers or five percent less than they would
Speaker 1: have been. It's that you literally have cohorts of dear missing,
Speaker 1: much like what you described out west with winter kill,
Speaker 1: and so you you you may have two or three
Speaker 1: years where there was no cohort of bucks coming through
Speaker 1: you know, the population, and so that that's probably the
Speaker 1: biggest effect. I see, that makes sense. Um, yeah, this
Speaker 1: is this is playing a big impact on my life.
Speaker 1: Um for a sheep hunt right now, I've got planned
Speaker 1: for twenty four is they had you know, some bad winners. Um,
Speaker 1: you know three or four years ago, I was planning
Speaker 1: on the twenty four and there's a band of sheep missing. Well,
Speaker 1: when you're going sheep hunting, you need a certain age,
Speaker 1: and there is a complete band miss. So you know,
Speaker 1: I've I've got way more familiar with um, you know
Speaker 1: years and bad years. But um, yeah, we'll roll into
Speaker 1: this next question from our listeners. Um, everyone is interested
Speaker 1: in what food the plant during that deer season, you
Speaker 1: know that September, October, November, you know even in December
Speaker 1: when you're gonna be hunting them. What can you bring
Speaker 1: that dear? Um? You know, in front of your stand,
Speaker 1: in front of your blind But what should hunters really
Speaker 1: be looking at to improve the overall health of the herd?
Speaker 1: And by that I mean you're round food like and
Speaker 1: if it makes it easier, maybe break it down by
Speaker 1: season like we know they're they're you know, enzymes change
Speaker 1: their ability to break down certain foods change. Um, what
Speaker 1: what's like an ideal feeding plan or a crop plan?
Speaker 1: Look like, well, I'm gonna give you my typical speech here. Um.
Speaker 1: So if it sounds a little scripted, it's because I've
Speaker 1: said it before many many times. Uh what what? What
Speaker 1: we preach because we know it works, is that the
Speaker 1: focus should be on habitat management. The focus should be
Speaker 1: on habitat and the number of deer utilizing that habitat.
Speaker 1: So your density has to be appropriate. Well, once you
Speaker 1: address that, you move into you move into habitat that encourages, promotes,
Speaker 1: facilitates the growth of the technical term for us is
Speaker 1: called a forbe f O r B, which is just
Speaker 1: a broad leaf plant, a non grass or basis plant
Speaker 1: that is the majority of the dear diet. And when
Speaker 1: you produce that and the diversity of all those forbes
Speaker 1: on the landscape that, by the way, are very drought tolerant,
Speaker 1: so you see a lot of resilience in your habitat
Speaker 1: and deer herd when you provide the naturally a ring
Speaker 1: foods that that they want to eat. So now let's
Speaker 1: let's take care of that, or or say we have
Speaker 1: taken care of that, now we move into we say
Speaker 1: food plots. I like to call them supplemental food plots
Speaker 1: because they should supplement that the habitat. And this is
Speaker 1: going to vary from region to region and latitude and etcetera.
Speaker 1: But but the bottom line is you gotta get you
Speaker 1: gotta grow plants that grow in your environment, whether it
Speaker 1: be you have you have a really wet area, you
Speaker 1: have a really dry area of cold, etcetera. Soil types
Speaker 1: all that find the group of plants that grows really well.
Speaker 1: And typically it comes down to this, You're gonna be
Speaker 1: able to find one of several cereal grains, wheat, oats, ryot, etcetera.
Speaker 1: They typically grow well everywhere couple that with some type
Speaker 1: of clover, and again that depends on where yet cloth
Speaker 1: do you love them? And there's always a clover that
Speaker 1: works really well. And then also a brassica typically some
Speaker 1: type of brassica's well. And when you mix those together
Speaker 1: literally either in a mix within the plot or spread
Speaker 1: them out in different plots that I've never seen a
Speaker 1: case where that didn't work well. That they grow well.
Speaker 1: It attracts dear high nutrition. It's just win win win. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and that makes a ton of sense as a
Speaker 1: as a good mixture. And I like the idea of
Speaker 1: supplemental It's like they should have what they need on
Speaker 1: the ground and then your plot should just add to
Speaker 1: that nutrition, add to that. Um and then you know,
Speaker 1: for hunting purposes, maybe drawn to that area, you know
Speaker 1: during the season. Um, because I was driving around, you know,
Speaker 1: this area of Kansas and kind of scratching my head
Speaker 1: because you would have a tunered acre, you know, tillable
Speaker 1: filled with hedgerows. There were deer in that. And then
Speaker 1: you'd go to my buddies place that was timber with
Speaker 1: you know, ten percent food plots there were deer in that.
Speaker 1: You'd have his neighbor that didn't do any management to
Speaker 1: their land, but maybe an old CRP field and there
Speaker 1: were deer in that, and I'm like, well, maybe these combine,
Speaker 1: these deer use all of them. But it's three different
Speaker 1: scenarios with with properties stacked together and they all had
Speaker 1: deer on them, and so I'm like, well, maybe there
Speaker 1: isn't a a magic solution, like as long as they
Speaker 1: have enough of what they need there, you're gonna hold
Speaker 1: deer and you're gonna you're gonna keep them. I didn't,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm sure there are there's probably not the
Speaker 1: magic answer, but there's probably things that they prefer or
Speaker 1: things that will you know, keep those deer healthier, going
Speaker 1: a little bit you know, bigger on your land. So
Speaker 1: it's just one of those things where to see three
Speaker 1: you know, different landscapes all whold deer um, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you've got another way you can kind of
Speaker 1: qualify that as well. It might have been on one
Speaker 1: of the properties you described where uh, it may not
Speaker 1: have been managed as well, and there was just an
Speaker 1: old CRP field for for one thing, deer are gonna
Speaker 1: eat what is available to them, So you could take
Speaker 1: the deer and move them to a different property. They
Speaker 1: may not eat the forage they were eating on the
Speaker 1: first property, but it's the only thing palatable they had
Speaker 1: available to them as well. So they'll make they'll make
Speaker 1: do with what they've got. Well they have to, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they have to make do. So so I guess I'm
Speaker 1: out west. We can see meal deer. You go three
Speaker 1: or four miles a day. But these white tail they
Speaker 1: don't have that home range. They're gonna stick to a
Speaker 1: little bit tighter range. They're gonna make you know, like
Speaker 1: you said, they have to make do with what they've got.
Speaker 1: That's that's right, that's right, and we you know, uh,
Speaker 1: they can definitely move along ways. But the way generally
Speaker 1: there's always exceptions, but but generally that they have seasonal
Speaker 1: home ranges and and generally that's gonna be you know,
Speaker 1: depending on buck or dough age, etcetera. You know, about
Speaker 1: a thousand acres, some five hundred, some twenty hundred. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's like within that home range. Well then that
Speaker 1: season they know what is on the landscape and is
Speaker 1: available to them, and they're gonna pick the best. Got
Speaker 1: We'll talk about it a little bit um. You know,
Speaker 1: some of the research I've read. I can't remember if
Speaker 1: you specifically, you know, but some deer moved nine hundred
Speaker 1: yards and then some deer you know up thet nd
Speaker 1: yards during the rut, and I'm like, shoot, I've had
Speaker 1: meal deer like blow through that you know, in in
Speaker 1: a in the evening or or a night, so, um,
Speaker 1: a little bit different. But UM, I appreciate you answering
Speaker 1: those user questions. Once again, if you have questions of
Speaker 1: your own, please submit those questions to C. T. D
Speaker 1: at Phelps game Calls dot com and we'll do our
Speaker 1: best to either have myself or one of our guests
Speaker 1: answer those. So now we're gonna jump into some of
Speaker 1: my personal questions I have, and I'm gonna apologize ahead
Speaker 1: of you, you know, to you Dr Strickland and all
Speaker 1: of our listeners. These are gonna jump around, but these
Speaker 1: are like my personal questions, things that you know, as
Speaker 1: I'm sitting in a tree stand trying to relate what
Speaker 1: i know about hunting, what I know about um animals,
Speaker 1: and just some of the stuff that goes through um,
Speaker 1: you know, some of the stuff we've heard. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna kind of just go through this list of questions
Speaker 1: and see what you got for answers. Um. I was
Speaker 1: mentioned to the previous of the podcast kind of you know,
Speaker 1: I I get things stuck in my head from what
Speaker 1: I've experienced, and um, this first one it kind of
Speaker 1: piggybacks on some conversations I had with Kevin monteth On. Uh.
Speaker 1: I was talking to Steve Ronnella about this when we
Speaker 1: were on Accoused Deer Hunt, and I'm like, this, it
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense from what I've seen and and um.
Speaker 1: But but my question will be how much of a
Speaker 1: buck's potential is genetic? How much is that mother's health
Speaker 1: during pregnancy, the available nutrition both food and minerals, environmental conditions,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Um, And I know they all it probably varies.
Speaker 1: It's determined. But if you if you had to kind
Speaker 1: of break those out, what would you say or the
Speaker 1: factors that that give you that potential of you know
Speaker 1: that buck has the ability to get to two inches,
Speaker 1: but environmental effects it Um. I know it's a big
Speaker 1: loaded question, but if you can try to break that
Speaker 1: down for us, Yeah, well I'll certainly try. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: and you know a word we use in the science fields,
Speaker 1: as you know, we we think about variation and partitioning.
Speaker 1: How how how do we slice up the pie? And
Speaker 1: you know, we we can and there's a lot of
Speaker 1: different ways to look at this, but we we we
Speaker 1: can start with what what's heritability? What's the heritability of
Speaker 1: antler characteristics from father to son, etcetera. And you know
Speaker 1: that that can be twenty or thirty percent um. We know,
Speaker 1: of course the mother is half of the equation. So
Speaker 1: you can have a father with Boone and Crockett antlers
Speaker 1: and a mother that sire's offspring that is half that
Speaker 1: and we're gonna get something in the middle. And that's
Speaker 1: what makes you know, the culling for genetics and so
Speaker 1: forth that people try to do is you know, I
Speaker 1: shot that buck to get it out of the gene pool.
Speaker 1: Uh that that's why that doesn't work. It's because you
Speaker 1: can make no selection with the female. So so there
Speaker 1: is a baseline genetic component of of course, the example
Speaker 1: you gave is two of antler. Well, yeah, that that
Speaker 1: that buck has genes that are coding for that amount
Speaker 1: of antler growth. But that antler growth is influence and
Speaker 1: either suppressed or enhanced by the environment, but by its food.
Speaker 1: Is it dealing with a disease issue. You know, all
Speaker 1: those things are very influential and so um, I guess Jason,
Speaker 1: the way we think about it is we we probably
Speaker 1: say half and half is there's a lot of this
Speaker 1: about half of it and that's buck and the you know,
Speaker 1: the mom and the and the father, etcetera. But then
Speaker 1: the other half is is the nutrition available to the
Speaker 1: deer that year. And you mentioned Kevin Monte something uh
Speaker 1: he did when he was a graduate student. Something we've
Speaker 1: done at the m s U. Deer Lab is demonstrating
Speaker 1: the influence of what what we call the intergenerational you know,
Speaker 1: generation after generation after generation of nutrition and and that
Speaker 1: is also what is influencing. The term is epigenetics, but
Speaker 1: that is also is an organism. In this case, a
Speaker 1: deer may have the genes for a hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: inches of antler, but because the mother was a experiencing
Speaker 1: nutritional or environmental stress while this little buck fall and
Speaker 1: wasn't in womb um her her signals are basically telling
Speaker 1: the fetus or the genes that you don't need to
Speaker 1: express yourself fully, and so that buck will never reach
Speaker 1: its full potential because of these cues in the uterine
Speaker 1: environment of its mother are suppressing the expression of those genes.
Speaker 1: And I hope I didn't go off off the rails
Speaker 1: that they're too complicated. But it is a complicated question. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: And and I'm super interested in you know, It's like
Speaker 1: I don't want to say we're out there chasing you know, horns,
Speaker 1: but we're chasing mature deer. And it's one of those
Speaker 1: things that I always try to wrap my head around,
Speaker 1: like what what is the genetic potential? Like are we
Speaker 1: shooting a deer before a genetic potential? Could he ever
Speaker 1: got bigger? Um? So I'm gonna I'm gonna roll some
Speaker 1: things by in and you can either correct me or
Speaker 1: you know, maybe agree with them. So as a buck,
Speaker 1: he's got a genetic potential and is for my understanding,
Speaker 1: like years one, you three, he grows that skeleton out,
Speaker 1: he's in that he's growing, and then years three to five,
Speaker 1: three to four and a half, he's typically trying to
Speaker 1: add muscle onto that skeleton become the biggest, baddest buck,
Speaker 1: which genetically yah um ensures that he'll have his chance
Speaker 1: to breed, right, That's why he's putting on muscle, he's
Speaker 1: packing on muscle that gives him the ability, um, you know,
Speaker 1: in the pecking order to be able to breed, and
Speaker 1: so are we going to always experience and so they're
Speaker 1: using energy, they're using effort, they're using fat stores, they're
Speaker 1: using uh, you know, I guess energy for lack of
Speaker 1: a better word, to grow skeleton, to grow bone either
Speaker 1: in their body, or they're using it to grow muscle
Speaker 1: on their body to pack on muscle. And then are
Speaker 1: we always gonna get that buck's best potential? Now? You know,
Speaker 1: I guess let's assume environmental conditions have been the same
Speaker 1: every year he's been alive, so we can take that out,
Speaker 1: no drafts, no, you know, the food has been the same.
Speaker 1: Are we typically always gonna get their best horn growth
Speaker 1: you know six and a half and seven and a
Speaker 1: half years old? Or can that very as well? Like
Speaker 1: or you know, I use the example of you know,
Speaker 1: your buddy Dawn's you know, Don Higgins is Buck how
Speaker 1: that was over two of the three year old? Like
Speaker 1: that Buck was just destined to be a giant. But
Speaker 1: I don't want to knock on it because the year
Speaker 1: he let it go to the year he shot it,
Speaker 1: but it didn't grow percentage wise much more than it
Speaker 1: was less than ten percent between three and four. You know, Um,
Speaker 1: how do you guys, how do how does the research
Speaker 1: support that? Like? Are we you know? Is there is
Speaker 1: there a correlation that you're gonna get your best horn
Speaker 1: growth at six and a half or seven and a half. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and I gotta qualify here. What we always have
Speaker 1: to say is that that we deal with the averages,
Speaker 1: what we deal with the population response, and not individuals,
Speaker 1: because individuals do wacky things, just like human beings. But
Speaker 1: but yeah, on on the average, um, five, six, seven
Speaker 1: is gonna be the point. And this is I guess
Speaker 1: the point I'd make Jason. Not not that they're reaching
Speaker 1: their peak and then soon after there's gonna be a decline.
Speaker 1: It's for they reach their maximum. That is the plateau
Speaker 1: for many many years to come. Um. Now, there are
Speaker 1: definitely some individual dear, and I think this happens more
Speaker 1: often in the Midwest, and even in Mississippi and our
Speaker 1: agg regions versus our forested regions, you will see them
Speaker 1: maximizing their antler size about a year earlier than you will.
Speaker 1: So in other words, in our southern part of our state,
Speaker 1: you need to you need to let them get six
Speaker 1: to seven. And in our agg region of the state,
Speaker 1: the delta region, probably four or five is plenty sufficient.
Speaker 1: But the thing that's interesting to me, Jason, is that,
Speaker 1: and I can say this because you qualified earlier. Let's
Speaker 1: take nutrition, the stability, the availability, nutrition of the equation.
Speaker 1: If you're in our deer research facilities, Uh, basically you
Speaker 1: will have from five to six until nine or ten
Speaker 1: and to where antler size hardly decreases at all. And
Speaker 1: so you've come four or five year window where they maximize.
Speaker 1: So you hold that it's it's not a peak, it's
Speaker 1: a plateau up there. And then one thing you see
Speaker 1: is you know, maybe some kicker shorter times, longer times,
Speaker 1: no kickers. They clean up, they add on, but they
Speaker 1: typically stay. You know, like you said, um, you know
Speaker 1: they say about the same amount of inches there, you know,
Speaker 1: plus your minus a few percentage, but change configurations a
Speaker 1: little bit, add mass, lose length. Um, you know, the
Speaker 1: combinations there. And that's one of those things that's very
Speaker 1: visible that doesn't get as much credit on Boone and
Speaker 1: Crockett's score is the mass and specifically the mass and
Speaker 1: the times. You know, there's no measurement for the circumference
Speaker 1: of the time. But man, that really looks impressive when
Speaker 1: you get a six or seven year old old buck.
Speaker 1: And then also the character points, the splits, the drops
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Yeah, you see that at maturity
Speaker 1: more often I've heard things, you know, a spike is
Speaker 1: always a spike, which kind of blows my mind, especially
Speaker 1: growing up here in the Blacktail Woods, because it just
Speaker 1: in my opinion, doesn't hold true. But you know that
Speaker 1: that same deer talking about I think I called it
Speaker 1: how earlier Mail or whatever the name of that deer was.
Speaker 1: You know, Dawn had video of it, is a one
Speaker 1: and a half year old and he's already a ten
Speaker 1: point And that kind of blew my mind because around
Speaker 1: here it's like, you're a spike at a year and
Speaker 1: a half, you're a small two point at two and
Speaker 1: a half. Um, how much can we tell from a
Speaker 1: deer at one and a half years old? Like, is
Speaker 1: that starting to show genetic potential or I mean obviously
Speaker 1: in this case it was, But can that same you
Speaker 1: know spike with eye guards that's running around on a
Speaker 1: on a piece of property blossom out to be a
Speaker 1: great you know, dear horn wise, you know, at four
Speaker 1: and a half, five and a half. I think the
Speaker 1: safe way to deal with that is that if he
Speaker 1: is really big as a yearling, I would say ninety
Speaker 1: nine point nine percent of the time, he's gonna be
Speaker 1: a monster when he when he's mature. But you can't
Speaker 1: say just because it has below average or a spike
Speaker 1: or a fork or whatever at a yearling, that in
Speaker 1: no way guarantees that you're not gonna have a one
Speaker 1: fifty or greater buck at maturity. But but Jason, let
Speaker 1: let me circle back around to UH, individuals versus population averages.
Speaker 1: So even here at the deer lab, Harry Jacobson years ago,
Speaker 1: our predecessor, he had a great example in the Southeast
Speaker 1: where it was the uh, if you see a spike yearling,
Speaker 1: it is always gonna be terrible. You need to shoot
Speaker 1: every spike. Well, he had an example of a little
Speaker 1: spike yearling that ended up growing over two. That was
Speaker 1: an individual. But what we have shown is that on
Speaker 1: the average, if if you have below average yearling antler
Speaker 1: size versus above average yearling antler size, the above average
Speaker 1: will at maturity be above average and the below average
Speaker 1: at maturity will be below average. What you have to
Speaker 1: decide is is blow average still a good enough buck
Speaker 1: for you? In other words, I'm okay with the hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty buck. That's okay for me. But but if
Speaker 1: your sole purpose or goal objective is only want one
Speaker 1: fifties or above, then the best bet you can make
Speaker 1: is an above average year. Link is going to be that.
Speaker 1: That makes a ton of sense. I mean, like you said,
Speaker 1: you're just going with what you know. The average is
Speaker 1: um and what typically will happen. You know that bucks
Speaker 1: probably a little bit of an anomaly you know, in
Speaker 1: the in the data, but it proves that it can happen. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, so I know the place I was hunting,
Speaker 1: they don't. They don't manage it the one and a
Speaker 1: half year old, as we talked earlier, they're managing more.
Speaker 1: They're not even managing at the two and a half
Speaker 1: year old. Um, you know, at three and a half
Speaker 1: year old and you start to have six points or
Speaker 1: you know, small eight start to come out, that's when
Speaker 1: he decides, you know that those bucks e to be
Speaker 1: manager taken out. So that makes a ton of sense. Um,
Speaker 1: we're gonna move on to managing does and coming from
Speaker 1: out West, especially um, the black those that are in
Speaker 1: my area southwest Washington. Now we we aren't near carrying capacity.
Speaker 1: So my thought has always been those are the baby makers.
Speaker 1: We don't manage does here. And then you hear about
Speaker 1: people managing does you know, whether it's me watching uh
Speaker 1: a white tail show on you know, on TV or
Speaker 1: on YouTube, whatever it may be, and they're just you know,
Speaker 1: laying out does And it never made sense to me
Speaker 1: until you go out, you know, go back to the
Speaker 1: Midwest and just see just how many deer or on
Speaker 1: the landscape compared to what we have here, and it
Speaker 1: starts to make a lot of sense. So my my
Speaker 1: first question on this is, and I know you're gonna
Speaker 1: you're I know how these are. I'm in the same boat,
Speaker 1: you know, when you're when you're doing you know, scientific
Speaker 1: type stuff, and it's gonna depend on where you're at landscape,
Speaker 1: food availability. But what is a typical good bucket door
Speaker 1: ratio to maintain you know, good good heard health. Um,
Speaker 1: Probably something like I mean, if you can achieve and
Speaker 1: maintain one to one, then then that's fantastic. Um. It
Speaker 1: probably also enables you to keep the population under control
Speaker 1: more easily. If you can do that. But but we
Speaker 1: commonly see fantastic properties where they have one point five
Speaker 1: to two does per buck. Uh when when you start
Speaker 1: getting above that, and that's a little bit of a misnomer, Jason,
Speaker 1: is that you you hear and and read that a
Speaker 1: lot that the sex ratio is just really out of
Speaker 1: whack and there's tin does for every buck. Well that
Speaker 1: that can only occur if you're looking at adults, not
Speaker 1: including fawns, and at the end of the deer season,
Speaker 1: because mother nature has a self correction built in there,
Speaker 1: because all those does are gonna put fawns on the
Speaker 1: ground and half of them are bucks. So numerically it's
Speaker 1: really hard to maintain some five to one, six to one,
Speaker 1: seven to one because it's a self correcting, you know
Speaker 1: type system that makes a ton of sense. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess my own concern is that, well, what if
Speaker 1: you know, you leave those dose on there, they get
Speaker 1: bred and they're the ones to produce the next two buck.
Speaker 1: But also understand, like once again we're going back to averages.
Speaker 1: You know, your best bet, you know that the research
Speaker 1: probably shows if you can keep those those that doda
Speaker 1: buck ratio you know, or buck the door ratio one
Speaker 1: to one, one to two. Um, your bucks are gonna
Speaker 1: be healthier, They're gonna be able to realize their potential
Speaker 1: a little bit better. UM, you know. So for me,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I want as many deer on the ground
Speaker 1: as possible, as long as the food supports them. But
Speaker 1: I guess you know, rut, you know other things, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, competitiveness for that ground, all that comes
Speaker 1: into play and probably isn't that healthy, um, you know
Speaker 1: for your herd. So nail on the head, Jason, Just
Speaker 1: I just want to emphasize something you said. You said
Speaker 1: a little clause there. The thing's important as long as
Speaker 1: the habitat will support them. That that's the single most
Speaker 1: important thing. What's the optimal density, etcetera. Well, it depends
Speaker 1: on it is dear quality going to diminish incrementally as
Speaker 1: the number of deer increases. And so if the deer
Speaker 1: population increases and simultaneously deer quality increases, you've got too
Speaker 1: many deer. You need to take some deer off. All right,
Speaker 1: there's a that's a great segue. We were rolling right
Speaker 1: into my next question, which once again you have to
Speaker 1: preface all of this right because where you're at in
Speaker 1: you know, southeast Mississippi. UM is going to be different
Speaker 1: than what we're doing in the midwest, you know, Kansas, Iowa, Kentucky, Illinois,
Speaker 1: whatever it may be. Um, let's just assume we're in
Speaker 1: in the middle of Kansas. You know, we've got a
Speaker 1: good mix, a well managed farm, you know, good at
Speaker 1: good cover. Um. You know, we've hinged cut all of
Speaker 1: our bottoms. We've got everything that a big white tail needs.
Speaker 1: What's what's a carrying capacity? Because one of the things
Speaker 1: we were going out there, you know, with our dough
Speaker 1: tags and we were shooting the dos that that we
Speaker 1: needed killed. But there was you know out here we
Speaker 1: do you know, aerial studies, helicopter flights on the winter range.
Speaker 1: What's the right number? Uh? What you know, what is
Speaker 1: the carrying capacity on a on a well managed hundred acres?
Speaker 1: And then how do we monitor that? As hunters are
Speaker 1: good stewards of our form, what what's a good way
Speaker 1: to to manage that and be somewhat scientific about it? UM?
Speaker 1: So you you're you're right. I am gonna respond with
Speaker 1: a you know, a contextual It depends and and I
Speaker 1: don't really have a numerical response for you, because there
Speaker 1: have been places I've I've been to and and people
Speaker 1: express deer density differently depending on where you're at in
Speaker 1: the country. If you're in the East, it's deer per
Speaker 1: square a mile here, And in Texas and other places,
Speaker 1: we use acres per acres perier. And I have been
Speaker 1: to properties where they might have seven or eight acres
Speaker 1: per deer and they are in superb condition. I've been
Speaker 1: to other places where you might estimate at twenty acres
Speaker 1: perier and the deer herd is in terrible condition. So
Speaker 1: so it's all based on on habitat quality. So I'm
Speaker 1: often asked, Jason, is you know, uh with without having
Speaker 1: a lot of familiarity with the property, how many doose
Speaker 1: do I need to kill? That's just kind of the
Speaker 1: default the response in the southeast, how many do dose
Speaker 1: who need to kill? And people probably get frustrated when
Speaker 1: I say, I can't give you that number, but because
Speaker 1: I don't know what the habitat is telling me. And
Speaker 1: and most importantly, and you said a moment ago, how
Speaker 1: do we scientifically go about determining that? I don't think
Speaker 1: you need to learn about population estimation techniques. I think
Speaker 1: you need to learn to examine what you can learn
Speaker 1: at the skinning shed after you harvest deer, look at
Speaker 1: their condition, look at their body weight, and and make
Speaker 1: it relative to what you have recorded over time and
Speaker 1: what your neighbor is doing. That's how you determine how
Speaker 1: many to kill. Yeah, and um, just you're what you
Speaker 1: just hit on a point we'll talk about a little
Speaker 1: bit later. Um. A matter of fact, it's it's right here. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, I was talking to my buddy Randy, who
Speaker 1: owns these properties, and you know, I I showed some
Speaker 1: interests and wanting to buy some Midwest property and he's like,
Speaker 1: the main things like, don't worry about what you can
Speaker 1: do with your property, Like pay very close attention to
Speaker 1: what your four your four neighbors are doing, you know,
Speaker 1: or whoever touches your piece of property. Um, because that's
Speaker 1: gonna be the biggest thing, the biggest factor on on
Speaker 1: uh on, you know, being able to keep big bucks
Speaker 1: on your property, not letting them you know, if they're
Speaker 1: shooting everything that's three and a half. You know all
Speaker 1: of that that that plays in. But I had one
Speaker 1: more question, which does tie into neighbors as well? Is
Speaker 1: as I was sitting in the stand. You know, we're
Speaker 1: trying to shoot these doughs, um and and you know,
Speaker 1: these seasons are long in the Midwest compared to our
Speaker 1: two week seasons one week season, so you don't see
Speaker 1: the pressure spikes like we see. But I'm like, the
Speaker 1: neighbors don't appear to be hunting at all, Like we
Speaker 1: get to see their roads on the way into our places. Um,
Speaker 1: if they're not harvesting their doughs, are we're gonna lose
Speaker 1: you know, this well managed piece of property. Are our
Speaker 1: bucks gonna leave? Or do they have enough dos to
Speaker 1: deal with? You know? In my mind, well, if there's
Speaker 1: you know, the neighbor has twice as many doughs, are
Speaker 1: we gonna lose our bucks to them? Like? Is there
Speaker 1: is there any you know, anything that supports that buckstan
Speaker 1: on his home range and and being completely um content
Speaker 1: with with breeding the doughs that were available, or is
Speaker 1: that gonna start and ridgelines and leave my property or
Speaker 1: leave the property? I think it's very difficult, uh to
Speaker 1: manage that situation. And and uh, I have thought and thought,
Speaker 1: and Steve and I have gone back and forth with
Speaker 1: for years about this and the way I would advise
Speaker 1: someone is uh, I would be just making sure that
Speaker 1: you manage your property with the appropriate density as we
Speaker 1: as we said earlier, to maximize the quality of But
Speaker 1: both your bucks and does that is what is in
Speaker 1: your control. That is what you can do. It is
Speaker 1: absolutely going to be successful. Your your neighbor running a
Speaker 1: higher dow density than maybe you. Yeah, it is going
Speaker 1: to happen. You can take it to the bank that
Speaker 1: one or two or some fraction of your bucks are
Speaker 1: gonna spin off because they've put their nose in the
Speaker 1: air and the prevailing wind and they can tell a
Speaker 1: doze and heat and they're gonna leave your property and
Speaker 1: they're gonna get shot. They absolutely are. But but I
Speaker 1: think that I think that is a of that is
Speaker 1: a short term negative. What I think turns into a
Speaker 1: long term negative is now I'm going to manage my
Speaker 1: property with a whole bunch of deer and a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of dose and diminish the quality of the entire
Speaker 1: herd because of that instance that may happen every year
Speaker 1: every other year where your your buck leaves of property
Speaker 1: and gets killed. Now you've shot yourself in the foot.
Speaker 1: Management wise, Yeah, that makes it I mean, you're you're
Speaker 1: just you're calculating your you're you're betting on what has
Speaker 1: the best, you know, potential to produce big bucks. And
Speaker 1: so like you said, it sounds like herd hells number one. Um,
Speaker 1: and you just have to accept that you're gonna lose
Speaker 1: maybe you know a buck or two that you wanted
Speaker 1: to tell guill to it to a neighboring property, but overall,
Speaker 1: that's gonna give you the best chances on your well
Speaker 1: managed piece of property to take that you know, same
Speaker 1: butt or or the term sustainable way to do it. Absolutely. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we've sided, We've got a harvest dose. Um. We
Speaker 1: we had a few conversations in the blind, Um, what
Speaker 1: is the right dough to take? Um? You know. And
Speaker 1: once again, I don't want to say that I was
Speaker 1: above shooting a yearling, but you know, it's like going
Speaker 1: into it like, oh, you want to shoot the biggest,
Speaker 1: oldest dough, you know, get some meat off of her, um,
Speaker 1: you know. And and Randy kind of alludes like I
Speaker 1: don't mind shooting the yearling dough at all. And for
Speaker 1: the reasons of you know, I'm you may want to
Speaker 1: elaborate on whether there's a second rut or a later up.
Speaker 1: But my understanding is the older dose or the more
Speaker 1: mature does will come in you know, earlier, all kind
Speaker 1: of at the same time. And then we get those
Speaker 1: you know, two and a half year old, year and
Speaker 1: a half old dose that will maybe come in later,
Speaker 1: you know, late November, early December, and and and Randy's
Speaker 1: frustration was not frustration, but his concern was it now
Speaker 1: has his bigger bucks chasing you know, dose for an
Speaker 1: extra month. And we've all seen it where you kill
Speaker 1: a buck, you know, mid mid October, you's got layers
Speaker 1: off at on him. You kill a buck mid November
Speaker 1: and it's completely on. Well, now you've got to add
Speaker 1: an entire month of chasing onto that. So Randy was like,
Speaker 1: I have no problem shooting a mature dough. I have
Speaker 1: no problem shooting a year ling dough. What's your thoughts
Speaker 1: on is there a right age class of dose to
Speaker 1: take out or or my my other concern to Randy,
Speaker 1: not to ramble on with my question was if you
Speaker 1: leave the mature does, you've now just taken a band
Speaker 1: of a certain age class of dose out, Like do
Speaker 1: you want to me? It would seem like the best
Speaker 1: ways just to be pretty random about it. But what's
Speaker 1: your thought on is there a prime candidate or or
Speaker 1: what should the management strategy be on taking dose out? Well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna one up your buddy Randy. Not only do
Speaker 1: I not mind shooting a yearling dough, I'll shoot a
Speaker 1: dough faon um that that does not even come into
Speaker 1: my thinking about pulling the trigger. I've got to ensure
Speaker 1: it is a dough fallen and not a buck fawn.
Speaker 1: But uh man, that's some good eating right there. It
Speaker 1: gets you a couple of dough phones. That to me,
Speaker 1: Jason is um. It's one of those things that makes
Speaker 1: better discussion than practically you can you can implement. So
Speaker 1: here's a couple of scenarios. For example, let's let's say
Speaker 1: I'm on a property or area where fawn recruitment is
Speaker 1: an issue. So think of your more arid places where
Speaker 1: you might be skipping some fawn crops, or you might
Speaker 1: have an average of uh one fond four dose then
Speaker 1: uh in that case, if you even needed to shoot
Speaker 1: a dough, you probably don't. But let's just say you
Speaker 1: were going to make a decision, I would be wanting
Speaker 1: to shoot the dough that did not have a fawn
Speaker 1: at heel, whether it be a yearling or two year
Speaker 1: old um. Because in that context, those older mothers with
Speaker 1: fawn at heel have demonstrated that they have the cover
Speaker 1: and food, that they know how to to raise a fawn,
Speaker 1: they know how to recruit a faon into the population.
Speaker 1: Now you can turn right around to an area, like
Speaker 1: a lot of places in the southeast, where dealing with
Speaker 1: dear density is always a problem, and I can only
Speaker 1: shoot one. Let's say, for whatever reason, I can only
Speaker 1: shoot one out walk three, there's a doe fawn, there's
Speaker 1: a yearling or a two year old with no fawn,
Speaker 1: and and there's an adult dough with two fawns. If
Speaker 1: I'm trying to slow down the reproductive engine of that population,
Speaker 1: it's probably wiser to shoot that older dough. I'm probably
Speaker 1: gonna because next year I will probably have recruited less
Speaker 1: fawns the following year by killing that older productive dough.
Speaker 1: That makes a ton of sense. So you're you know,
Speaker 1: maturity of that dough doesn't necessarily matter. You're looking for,
Speaker 1: you know what your management needs to be, whether it's
Speaker 1: less does or less fawns, more fawns in your basing
Speaker 1: that if you had to pick, you know, one way
Speaker 1: or the other. Yeah, if I had to another way,
Speaker 1: depending on what state you're in. Another way to say
Speaker 1: it is, if you need to kill a bunch, shoot
Speaker 1: all three, shoot the dope, fall in the yearling end
Speaker 1: of the adult, take out the whole, the whole group.
Speaker 1: H m hm. Now, I didn't go into this episode
Speaker 1: intending to leave you hanging, but there was just so
Speaker 1: much good information we had to break this into two parts.
Speaker 1: Tune in next time for part two of my conversation
Speaker 1: with Dr Bronson Strickland. M hm hm