davidhelmly
Senior Member
Hey Dean sorry I didn't go back and answer this sooner.
No doubt age is #1, I would say the choice of weapon that could be used being a hand held bow because that meant that the vast majority of the bucks made it thru every season so that more could make it to the 4 or 5 year old age class.
Next would be having a minimum size on the bucks that could be harvested and also having a sizeable fine for undersized bucks killed, a lot of borderline legal bucks were passed for fear of that fine therefore having more bucks reach that 4 or 5 year old age class.
Limiting the number of hunters on the lease, that's just simple math, less hunters = less deer killed and more bucks reaching that 4-5 year old age class.
Pressure would probably be next, we were always an EV or foot traffic property after August 1st and then about 5-6 years ago we would also close over half of the roads to all vehicle traffic on August 1st. It's amazing how much pressure you can put on a property when you've got 5-6 people running out midday to check 6-8 cameras all over the property, when you have to do it on foot you don't check those cameras as often.
Next would be food, I think our supplemental feeding helped us in 2 ways, obviously by upping the amount of nutrition available for our deer but I think they also imprint where those feeders are over the years. We would draw lots of the neighbors bucks in the summer because they had grown up eating out of those troughs and knew that food would be there all summer, we have never hunted over any bait so we would shut our feeders down in August and some of the bucks would disperse back to there normal homes but it was almost guaranteed that we would see those bucks again during the pre rut and rut because they were familiar with the area and knew there was a pile of available does on our place. Same with food plots, we planted every available acre that we could and tried to keep all of them in some type of preferred deer forage (mostly white/red clover) all year long. We kept the plots limed and fertilized to make them as attractive as possible too.
It's a hard thing to do but you have to also choose the right members, if you are trying to grow mature deer you don't need the guys that think they have to prove they are the great white hunter by killing a limit of bucks every year. You need members that understand what you are trying to do on a property and are willing to help that cause and keep there ego's at bay. You also need someone in charge that has the best interest of the land and the deer as their priority, that means that he has to make sure EVERYONE follows the rules and they are fair for everyone, it also means if you have someone that just doesn't fit your program for whatever reason that same person has to get rid of them. The good members in a club can't be made unhappy by someone not following the rules or just always being a whiner, it turns into a cancer and spreads.
Sorry I got a little long winded but there you go.
