To implement a plan you must know what you’re dealing with. What is the herd’s buck to doe ratio and age structure? It is recommended to determine this by a combined effort of examination with the use of scouting cameras and extensive surveillance.

Through outstanding efforts by the Quality Deer Management Association and through word-of- mouth from successful land managers, planting food plots is one of the hottest topics and fastest growing segments in both the hunting and agricultural industries. Many people have tried to plant food plots or start a management program with limited success. What is surprising is a good many are going to manage the same way or plant the same thing, the same way, with the same results again this year.

I have been very lucky and have had the opportunity to train on this subject with the foremost expert in the field, Dr. Grant Woods. One thing Woods is infamous for driving home is "why do the same thing and expect different results?" If you’re going to do it, do it right the first time!

No matter how well you do in the job of planting food plots, if you want to see a difference in your hunting, you need to practice sound herd management and habitat management in addition to your food plot program. For there to be a trophy buck, a young buck must be allowed to grow old enough to sport trophy caliber "head gear." Out of the big three – age, genetics and nutrition – "age" is by far the most important element. Dead deer don’t grow!

On the properties we manage, we like to stick to harvesting four-year-old bucks or older. Not all the bucks we harvest are going to make Pope & Young (the better majority do), but they are still a challenge to hunt and we consider an adult buck over the age of four to be a trophy. Maybe you want to set your sights higher then that. The point is you need to set standards and stick to them.

If your property is typical of many throughout the country, you may have an imbalance in your herd and too many does. If you want to see an increase in the number of bigger bucks with larger body weights, you may have to thin your doe population out a bit.

A given piece of land will hold and sustain X amount of deer. Because of the territorial tendencies of whitetail, a large matriarchal society may develop over time.

Let’s say a doe has one buck-fawn and one doe-fawn. After the fawn’s entire first year, which is spent with the doe, Mother Nature instills an urge in the buck to go seek out a territory a fair distance away from his mother. The doe also helps this by having her own instinct to drive her male offspring away. Studies show they may only move a mile or so, but most often they’ll move much further away, sometimes as far as 40 to 50 miles. They may wander around for some time before selecting a permanent home territory. Many believe this to be Mother Nature’s way of preventing inbreeding in the herd.

On the other hand, the female offspring will usually take up a territory right next to, and possibly intertwined with the doe’s home range. Over time you get a big doe matriarchal society that just keeps getting bigger and bigger. After a year-old buck disperses from the area where he was born and goes off searching for where he will take root and spend the rest of his life, he could come across your property but he may not be able to stay because all of those X’s are filled by a large doe group. To see more, bigger bucks, balancing the ratio is very important.

One should strive for a happy medium. An equalized buck to doe ratio and a balanced age structure is what we try to achieve. Through studies of archeological sites and Native American burial spots, it is known a natural balance would be close to 50:50. It is unbelievable how great hunting can be when you come close to this balance. The rut is much more pronounced! Things you’ve only heard about or seen on TV start to happen. Hunting tactics like calling, rattling, using scent and decoying really start to work like they should.

Knowing your sex ratio and age structure is important so you know what needs to be done to implement a plan. Maybe you have a low-deer-density and you want to increase numbers. Maybe you have the typical imbalance in the sex ratio. Finding this out through the use of scouting cameras or extensive observing is very important.

If all you ever see are does in your hunting area, I suggest targeting a few of the older, more dominant does in the herd. You can recognize these deer in several ways. Their bodies are filled out more than younger does, they’ll usually have longer noses and just look older and they act dominant around the other deer. Also, they will almost always, in areas with at least normal nutrition available, have two or more fawns. Depending on how severe your imbalance is, you may need to go after them with a vengeance and it may take several years to correct.

My point is, even though food plots will be a significant benefit to your hunting area, you may also need to implement sound herd management practices by changing your herd’s statistics.

Make sure you don’t take it too far. Because different states have been listening to hunters and increasing the amount of antlerless tags in certain regions the problem of "too many does" has turned into "where have all the deer gone." Hunters who were used to seeing 10 or more animals per hunt are now seeing very few. Take it upon yourself to manage your own property. I believe most state agencies do a great job with the limited resources they are given. But they are usually "late to the game." Because of this they typically take a "knee-jerk" reaction to cure the problem so it goes too far in the opposite direction. Take it upon yourself to become educated and look after your own property with you own goals in mind.

Besides the "trigger-finder management" you also need to back it up with sound habitat management. If you offer more food but don’t have the "housing," your impact will probably not be what you expect. Through planting various plants, trees and shrubs you can create excellent bedding habitat.

One of the simplest ways to create the edge-cover and diversity whitetail love is with a chainsaw. You’ve probably heard the old saying: "a chainsaw is a whitetail’s best friend." It is true. Wherever you can allow the sunlight to hit the forest floor, you permit increased stem density which equals both more food and cover.

If you want to be informed about managing your herd, the best book I’ve read is "Deer Management 101 – Manage Your Way To Better Hunting" by Dr. Grant Woods, Bryan Kinkel and Robert Bennett. It gives well researched, proven tactics for managing your whitetail herd.