This morning’s post is more of Gillian’s great big buck photographs along with examples of how to manage for deer like those pictured. Also included in these shots is some behavior that many hunters will NEVER see – a whitetail buck breeding a doe.

Let me just say that the most important part of growing big bucks is passing up young bucks! However once you have gotten control over your trigger finger, the next thing you need is to keep those deer on your property as much as possible so that they can grow healthy and old. To do this, you must provide the right habitat so that they have everything that they need on your land and never want to leave (or at least less often).

The two most important pieces of habitat is a good deal of thick cover for deer to bed in along with a lot of food for them to eat. However the one mistake that I often see that keeps deer from fully utilizing all of the food that the property manager has provided is not putting the food where older, wiser big bucks will feel comfortable eating. A lot of food plots that I see are planted along the edge of a big fields where it is easy to plant and easy to hunt. That is fine for killing some deer, but it will not work that well for those big boys.

For those, hunters are far better off if they spend a little extra time and effort to put those plots deep in the woods, preferably right next to the thick cover where big bucks like to hang out. Check out Gillian’s pictures of some of their food plots. Those nice green strips run down through the thick pines and clear cuts where big bucks bed. They are also long and narrow, not big and open. This allows big bucks to feed VERY close to thick cover, making them feel safer to come out to eat.

I understand that it is tough to put these types of plots in, so you must work with any areas that are conducive to it. That probably means planting fire breaks and reclaiming logging decks. You can see the pile of timber leftover from a cutting being burned in order to clear the area to be planted. Not only does the fire clear the brush piles, it also helps fix the soil with some much needed nutrients from the ash. You will still want to fertilize your new plot, however this should reduce the amount needed. Please note that it will not reduce the amount of lime that should be applied, and only a soil test will be able to accurately detail the exact amounts of each that will be required to bring the soil up to optimum condition.

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