Why You Can’t Create a Great Hunting Property Without Willing Neighbors

Quality deer management principals can have an amazing effect on a deer herd. By creating a better buck-to-doe ratio and allowing 1.5-year-old bucks to grow another year or two, an average hunting property suddenly booms with big antlers. It’s not magic, just the biology of allowing bucks to grow to maturity. One of the challenges of deer management is property size. You won’t be effective on small farms and ranches if deer move onto other properties where hunters don’t follow a program.

Craig Dougherty and his son Neal began a hunting property decades ago on one of the poorest pieces of deer habitat you can imagine. Literally a spike haven, they have transformed it and the deer-hunting industry with their management techniques. Craig tells his story in this post on the Whitetail Institute website.

During the past 25 years, my son Neil and I have introduced thousands of deer hunters to deer property management. Nothing excites us more than seeing an average (or sub-average) piece of whitetail property transformed into a first-rate piece of hunting ground. We do it because it’s good for hunting and good for wildlife. We also do it because the more people managing property, the better it is for us all. What’s better, one guy managing his 200 acres in the middle of 1,000 acres of ‘if it’s brown-it’s-down’ guys or 30 guys managing 10 square miles and helping each other? That one is a nobrainer… [continued]

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