Making Big Bucks
Big deer with big antlers a product of patience and nutrition
Experts say hunt Midwest for trophies
Steve Bowman described it perfectly in his bow hunting column. A grown man turns to him, puts his thumbs near his ears and wiggles all his fingers.
Translation: big buck.
If he had only wiggled two fingers on each side, it wouldn't have had quite the same effect. But big bucks don't come easily.
Certified Wildlife Biologist Kip Adams, who is the Quality Deer Management Association's (QDMA) director of education and outreach, said the size of a deer comes down to three factors: age, nutrition and genetics.
"The vast majority of deer mortalities come from hunting," Adams said. "As hunters, if we don't shoot them as yearlings or we don't shoot them as two-year-olds and give them the ability to reach six-years-old, they're automatically going to be much larger animals with much larger antlers."
The first food deer eat in the spring replaces all the body weight they just lost in the winter. If it's a really hard winter, it takes longer to get back to where they were, bringing weather into the equation.
"If you're in the far north, the severe winters can have devastating effects on the deer population, but it also eliminates their food source, which hurts antler growth," Adams said.
Once the buck has his body maintained, the next food is going toward body growth for the year, and then the last place the nutrition gets funneled is for that current year's antler growth, Adams said.
If a buck has to spend the majority of the food he's eating to replace his body weight, there's less food to go toward that current year's size and antler growth.
Even when they are getting plenty to eat, not just any food will do. Too much of one thing — for example, corn — is no good.
"There's no one magic food," Adams said. "Corn is a great food late fall and as they get into the winter, but they can't live on corn alone. First thing in the spring, they need vegetation and food plots."
Adams said in addition to food plots, hunters need to manage their forests to make sure it's providing both leaves and acorns or apples and persimmons to assure they're getting enough high quality food to eat.
The third factor — genetics — well … Adams said to forget he ever mentioned it.
"Research has shown that there's almost nothing that we can do to impact genetics in the wild," he said. "It's to the point where 99 percent of deer hunters out there don't even need to be concerned with the genetics."
ESPNOutdoors.com will be celebrating this year's deer season with "Deer Camp" — a two-week event, covering the big issues that are important to deer hunters and examining the state of the deer nation. We'll also be breaking down and rating deer hunting in all 50 states, with an analysis of what a hunter in that state has to look forward to this year.
