Ep. 28: Whitetail Science with Dr. Bronson Strickland
41:54 Share

Check engine light on? Take the guesswork out of your check engine light with O'Reilly Veriscan. It's free and provides a report with solutions based on over 650 million vehicle scans verified by ASE certified master technicians. And if you need help, we can recommend a shop for you. Ask for O'Reilly Veriscan today. O, O, O'Reilly Auto Parts.

You ever get that feeling, the walls closing in, the concrete jungle suffocating you? You crave some wide open spaces, the chance to connect with nature, maybe in a spot all your own. Well, head over to land.com. They've got ranches, forests, mountains, streams, you name it. Search by acreage. You can search by location. You can search by the kind of hunting and fishing you're dreaming of. Land.com. It is where the adventure begins.

Market House has the cleanest, leanest, juiciest meat and seafood shipped to your home overnight. Expect the service of a local butcher and the convenience of a large supplier. Unlike many online butchers, you can grab just one meal's worth or lock in for a subscription box. Choose from grass-fed and grass-finished beef, American Wagyu, free-range poultry, grass-fed lamb, wild-caught king crab, seafood, and more.

and more. For 15% off your first order, use code COUNTRY at checkout. Just visit markethouse.com. That's M-A-R-K-E-T-H-O-U-S-E dot com. And use the code COUNTRY.

Welcome back to Cutting the Distance. My newfound obsession may be white-tailed deer. Please don't tell my wife. I need another obsession like nothing else. But it was pretty fun. An animal I've always joked about hunting when I turned 70 years old and can no longer chase mule deer, blacktails, or elk around. So I've started to dig up all the information that's out there because that's kind of where all of my hunting starts. I want to know about the animal before I go out there. And there's one name that always seems to come up.

is an expert on whitetail biology, does a ton of research on them. Dr. Bronson Strickland, he's a professor of wildlife management at Mississippi State University. He's the co-director of MSU's Deer Lab and the co-host of Deer University Podcast. And I brought him on today to kind of pick his brain a little bit, see how we can use these bigger bucks, their biology, their instincts against them in the fall. So welcome to the show, Dr. Strickland. Hey, glad to be here. Thanks so much for having me.

Were you able to get out in the woods this year and hunt at all or just watch them? Well, it's really just beginning here. I mean, gun season just began and it's finally cooling down. You know, when I was younger, even if it was 90 degrees during bow season, I would go out of obligation.

The older I get, though, I like to wait for cold weather. So it's finally getting right down here. Perfect. I always forget down in the southeast, you guys, is ruts a little bit later. Your seasons are a little bit later, so that makes a ton of sense. I know I was in Kansas 10 days ago, and the cold snap had hit there. We were in the single digits, low teens for a lot of that, and the rut was cranking along pretty good there between the 10th and about the 15th.

So, yeah, I guess your season's still coming up. But I'm going to ask you to just kind of kick off the podcast. Give us a quick rundown on kind of your history and how you got to where you are now to be respected as knowledgeable as you are on whitetails and what's led you to this point.

Well, I'm really lucky. I'm just really, really lucky that I grew up in a place and time to where being a whitetail researcher and a biologist and outreach specialist is a job. And so I got my degrees at University of Georgia, Texas A&M Kingsville, and Mississippi State, and it's all focused on wildlife management and specifically whitetail deer.

And then lucky again that I could get a job here at Mississippi State where I could focus, keep focusing on deer research and then the outreach component of that. And that is basically just taking all the research that we do and putting it out in various forms, articles, presentations, books, podcasts, etc. So that that's kind of the heart of what I do.

Thanks for that rundown. And as a civil engineer myself, I love when you can take research, you can take data and apply that to what I see in the field. You know, there were, I had a great professor going through school where it's like, you know, we're going to teach you everything that's in these books, the theory, the science, but then you're

to go out and proof that research and data on the ground, you know, in this instance to ultimately harvest, you know, grow bigger bucks, find bigger bucks, understand bigger bucks, you know, the same thing on the engineering side. So as an engineer, this stuff really gets me when you're able to add facts, data, research to what we're trying to do. I really, I really like this stuff. So yeah, I appreciate having you on.

So like every Cutting the Distance podcast, we're going to field a few questions from you, the listeners. And if you have a question of your own to submit, please email us at ctd at phelpsgamecalls.com or send us a message on social media, email. We'll do our best to either have me or in this case, our expert guests answer these questions because I'm not quite versed enough on these whitetail deer yet to answer these questions. So our first question for you, Bronson,

At what age should you start managing your bucks? And by that I mean, we have identified the age, we've identified what they've got on their head. What's the right time to make a good decision that that deer is now ready to be taken out of the herd?

If you listen to any of our media or read any of our articles, my colleague and friend Steve Damaris, he's also co-director of the Deer Lab, we say it depends probably more than any little phrase. And essentially that means context. You've got to put some context and some boundaries on it. But if we were going to say on the average, I think for most people in most places is that three and a half.

At three and a half years of age, depending on where you're at, a buck is showing 60 to sometimes 70 or greater percent of what he's going to be at maturity. And so three and a half is a good age because we now have a reliable predictor of what he's going to be a couple years down the road. Simultaneously, it takes a few years to

to forgive some of the issues that may have happened to the buck's mother when it was a fawn or while it was a yearling. Was it born late? Was it born in a drought year? Et cetera, et cetera. It takes a couple years to grow out of that circumstance the buck was born into. And so just very much in general, I would say three and a half would be the single most important age where you make a decision of

Do I want to harvest this buck? I don't think it has a lot of potential. Or am I going to make sure I spare this buck and we protect this buck because he is definitely demonstrating he has a lot of potential to be trophy class at maturity.

That makes a ton of sense. And to piggyback onto that question a little bit of my own, do environmental factors start to play in like as a land manager, as somebody trying to manage the herd? You know, we were in, as I keep referring back to my one and only trip in Kansas, they were coming off of a pretty bad drought. And that was going through everybody's mind. You know, times were a little bit shorter things, you know, they had saw deer, you know,

single digit percentage increase in horns, you know, on their head. Do you take that into effect as you're looking at that? Like if you get a good, good moisture year and the drought and they're able to get the minerals, you know, back out of the ground and the water sources, whatever, you know, that may be, are you, are you going to let that play in and maybe what,

Should we hold off on managing those deer knowing that they may have a big rebound? Maybe they'll come back 20%, 25% bigger because of a drought situation. Or they also were talking about their beans didn't come up. And so they missed a quarter or 25% of their typical food source that fattens them up. Is that going to play into when you're going to harvest or maybe give them that extra year? Yeah.

Yeah, and I would say that's going to be manifested in two ways. It's going to affect the deer on the hoof that year. So if you're talking about drought or beans, you're talking about something during the summer, during the antler growth period, and it is going to influence their maximum antler size when they harden out, shed their velvet that fall. It's also going to influence...

buck fawns as well. And so that, again, that early environment they're into can put them on a different trajectory of growth for several years in their life. So two different ways. But I guess, Jason, one way you have to think about that too is how big is big enough? And so you always have to think about that opportunity of, you know, hey, my goal is a 180 or 170 or 190, whatever it is.

I have this buck in front of me at 25 yards, bow in my hand, and he's 20 inches less than what he could be, but I have the opportunity right now for a lethal shot. So you got to play the probability, the odds. Yeah. Yeah. You're playing that game and you, you know, at that point, yeah, he's 20 inches less, but you still outsmarted a deer that was, you know, it,

if that's what you're trying to do, you're outsmarted him. He's still the same deer, regardless of what's on his head. And, um, you know, that's what, and you have to factor in risk that there is no guarantee that he's going to be around next year. There's a lot of other non hunting mortality sources that could take him. So you're rolling the dice when you let him go. Yep. And now I'm going to, you may not have an answer for this, but you, you kind of, um, you know, we have a lot of winter kill out here out West, you know, big snows and you have age classes of deer missing. What you just touched on there a little bit is, um,

In a drought year, do people manage to the point knowing that their bucks at, you know, that in four and a half years or four years are going to have, those bucks may not have the potential. I mean, are people managing to that level that, that, that buck or that buck fallen was born during a drought, his genetic potential or not, it wouldn't be genetic. His potential because of the mom's health is now going to be lessened in four years when I want to hunt, you know, or five years when I want to hunt a buck of that age class.

Probably not many. I think that's more of a biologist look at it when they have an aggregation of data at a very large scale. You can kind of explain from year to year, you know, what proportion of the annual variation in average antler size is explained by the events this year. And what can we go back to the year of birth? And you just kind of partition that. There's probably, Jason, not that many in the southeast area.

that would take that into account. But if you go to a situation like in South Texas...

In South Texas, it may not be looking at, hey, we probably have antlers or 5% less than they would have been. It's that you literally have cohorts of deer missing, much like what you described out west with winter kill. And so you may have two or three years where there was no cohort of bucks coming through the population. And so that's probably the biggest effect I see. That makes sense. Yeah.

Yeah. This is, this is playing a big impact on my life. Um, for a sheep hunt right now, I've got planned for 24 as they had to, you know, some bad winters, um, you know, three or four years ago, I was planning on a 24 and there's a band of sheep missing. Well, when you're going sheep hunting, you need a certain age and there is a complete bandwidth. So, you know, I've, I've got a way more familiar with, um, you know, years and bad years, but, um,

Yeah, we'll roll into this next question from our listeners. Everyone is interested in what food to plant during that deer season, you know, that September, October, November, you know, even into December when you're going to be hunting them. What can you bring that deer, you know, in front of your stand in front of your blind?

But what should hunters really be looking at to improve the overall health of the herd? And by that, I mean year-round food. And if it makes it easier, maybe break it down by season. We know their enzymes change, their ability to break down certain foods change. What's an ideal feeding plan or crop plan look like?

Well, I'm going to give you my typical speech here. So if it sounds a little scripted, it's because I've said it before many, many times. What we preach, because we know it works, is that the focus should be on habitat management. The focus should be on habitat and the number of deer utilizing that habitat. So your density has to be appropriate.

Once you address that, you move into habitat that encourages, promotes, facilitates the growth of the technical term for us is called a forb, F-O-R-B, which is just a broadleaf plant, a non-grass herbaceous plant. That is the majority of the deer diet.

And when you produce that and the diversity of all those forbs on the landscape that, by the way, are very drought tolerant. So you see a lot of resilience in your habitat and deer herd when you provide the naturally occurring foods that they want to eat. So now let's take care of that or say we have taken care of that. Now we move into, we say food plots. I like to call them supplemental food plots because they should supplement the habitat.

And this is going to vary from region to region and latitude and et cetera. But the bottom line is you got to grow plants that grow in your environment, whether it be you have a really wet area, you have a really dry area, cold, et cetera, soil types, all that. Find the group of plants that grows really well. And typically it comes down to this.

you're going to be able to find one of several cereal grains, wheat, oats, rye, etc. They typically grow well everywhere. Couple that with some type of clover. And again, that depends on where you're at. Deer love them, and there's always a clover that works really well. And then also a brassica. Typically some type of brassica as well. And when you mix those together, literally either in a mix within the plot or spread them out in different plots, that...

I've never seen a case where that didn't work well. They grow well, it attracts deer, high nutrition, it's just win-win-win. Yeah, and that makes a ton of sense as a good mixture. And I like the idea of supplemental. It's like...

they should have what they need on the ground and then your plot should just add to that nutrition add to that um and then you know for hunting purposes maybe draw them to that area you know during the seasons um you know because i was driving around you know this area kansas and kind of scratching my head because you would have a 200 acre you know tillable field with hedgerows

There were deer in that. And then you'd go to my buddy's place that was 90% timber with, you know, 10% food plots. There were deer in that. You'd have his neighbor that didn't do any management to their land, but maybe an old CRP field. And there were deer in that. And I'm like, well,

maybe these combine these deer use all of them, but it's like three different scenarios with, with property stacked together and they all had deer on them. And so I'm like, well, maybe there isn't a, a, a magic solution. Like as long as they have enough of what they need, they're, you're going to hold deer and you're going to, you're going to keep them. I didn't, you know, I'm sure there are, there's probably not the magic answer, but there's probably things that they prefer or things that will, you know, keep those deer healthier growing a little bit, you know,

bigger on your land. So it's just one of those things where to see three, you know, different landscapes all hold deer, you know. Yeah. And then you've got another way you can kind of qualify that as well. It might have been on one of the properties you described where

It may not have been managed as well and there was just an old CRP field. For one thing, deer are going to eat what is available to them. So you could take the deer and move them to a different property. They may not eat the forage they were eating on the first property, but it's the only thing palatable they had available to them as well.

So they'll make, they'll make do with what they've got. And well, they have to, yeah, they have to make do. So, so I guess I'm, you know, out West we can see meal deer go three or four miles a day, but these white tail, they don't have that home range. They're going to stick to a little bit tighter range. They're going to make, you know, like you said, they have to make do with what they've got. That's that's right. That's right. And we, you know, uh, they, they can definitely move along ways, but the way generally there's always exceptions, but, but generally they have seasonal home ranges and,

And generally that's going to be, you know, depending on buck or doe age, et cetera, you know, about a thousand acres, some 500, some 2,500. But yeah, so it's like within that home range, within that season, they know what is on the landscape and is available to them and they're going to pick the best.

- Gotcha, yeah, we'll talk about it a little bit. Some of the research I've read, I can't remember if you specifically, but some deer move 900 yards and then some deer up to 1500 yards during the rut. And I'm like, shoot, I've had mule deer blow through that in an evening or a night. So a little bit different, but appreciate you answering those user questions. Once again, if you have questions of your own,

please submit those questions to ctd at phelpsgamecalls.com and we'll do our best to either have myself or one of our guests answer those.

So now we're going to jump into some of my personal questions I have, and I'm going to apologize ahead of you, you know, to you, Dr. Strickland and all of our listeners. These are going to jump around, but these are like my personal questions, things that, you know, as I'm sitting in a tree stand trying to relate what I know about hunting, what I know about animals and just some of the stuff that goes through, you know, and some of the stuff we've heard. So I'm going to

kind of just go through this list of questions and see what you got for answers. Okay. I was mentioning to you previous to the podcast, kind of, you know, I get things stuck in my head from what I've experienced. And this first one,

it kind of piggybacks on some conversations I had with Kevin Monteith on, uh, I was talking to Steve Rinella about this when we were on a coos deer hunt. And I'm like, this, it doesn't make any sense from what I've seen. And, and, um, but, but my question will be how much, uh,

Of a buck's potential is genetic. How much is that mother's health during pregnancy, the available nutrition, both food and minerals, environmental conditions, et cetera. And I know they all, it probably varies. It's determined. But if you had to kind of break those out, what would you say are the factors that give you that potential of, you know, that buck has the ability to get to 200 inches, but, you know, environmental affects it.

I know it's a big loaded question, but if you can try to break that down for us. Yeah, well, I'll certainly try. Yeah. And, and, you know, a word we use in the science,

As you know, we think about variation and partitioning. How do we slice up the pie? And, you know, we can and there's a lot of different ways to look at this, but we can start with what's heritability. What's the heritability of antler characteristics from father to son, et cetera? And, you know, that that can be 20 or 30 percent.

We know, of course, the mother is half of the equation. So you can have a father with Boone and Crockett antlers and a mother that sires offspring that is half that. And we're going to get something in the middle. And that's what makes, you know, the culling for genetics and so forth that people try to do is, you know, I shot that buck to get it out of the gene pool.

That's why that doesn't work. It's because you can make no selection with the female. So there is a baseline genetic component. Of course, the example you gave is 200 inches of antler. Well, yeah, that buck has genes that are coding for that amount of antler growth.

But that antler growth is influenced and either suppressed or enhanced by the environment, but by its food. Is it dealing with a disease issue? You know, all those things are very influential. And so I guess, Jason, the way we think about it is we probably say half and half.

is there's a lot of this, about half of it, and that's Buck and the mom and the father, et cetera. But then the other half is the nutrition available to the deer that year. And you mentioned Kevin Monteith, something he did when he was a graduate student, something we've done at the MSU Deer Lab is demonstrating the influence of what we call the intergenerational, generation after generation after generation of nutrition.

And that is also what is influencing, the term is epigenetics, but that is also influencing

is an organism, in this case a deer, may have the genes for 180 inches of antler. But because the mother was experiencing nutritional or environmental stress while this little buck fawn was in womb, her signals are basically telling the fetus or the genes that you don't need to express yourself fully.

And so that buck will never reach its full potential because of these cues in the uterine environment of its mother are suppressing the expression of those genes. And I hope I didn't go off the rails that they're too complicated, but it is a complicated question. Yeah, no, and I'm super interested in it. You know, it's like,

I don't want to say we're out there chasing horns, but we're chasing mature deer. And it's one of those things that I always try to wrap my head around. Like, what is the genetic potential? Like, are we shooting a deer before his genetic potential? Could he ever have got bigger? So I'm going to roll some things by, and you can either correct me or maybe agree with him. So as a buck, he's got a genetic potential in his...

from my understanding, like years one through three, he grows that skeleton out. He's in that, he's growing. And then years three to five, three to four and a half, he's typically trying to add muscle onto that skeleton, become the biggest, baddest buck, which genetically ensures that he'll have his chance to breed, right? That's why he's putting on muscle. He's packing on muscle. That gives him the ability, you know, in the pecking order to be able to breed. And so are we going to always experience that?

And so they're using energy, they're using effort, they're using fat stores, they're using, you know, I guess energy for lack of a better word to grow skeleton, to grow bone either in their body or they're using it to grow muscle on their body to pack on muscle. And then are we always going to get that buck's best potential? Now, you know, I guess let's assume environmental conditions have been the same every year he's been alive. So we can take that out. No droughts, no, you know, the food's been the same. Are we typically always going to get their best horn growth?

you know six and a half and seven and a half years old or can that vary as well like or you know i i use the example of you know your buddy don's you know don higgins buck how that was over 200 inches with a three-year-old like that buck was just destined to be a giant but

I don't want to knock on it because the year he let it go to the year he shot it, but it didn't grow percentage wise much more than it was less than 10% between three and four. You know, um, how do you guys, how do, how does the research support that? Like, are we, you know, is there, is there a correlation that you're going to get your best horn growth at six and a half or seven and a half?

Yeah, and I've got to qualify here. What we always have to say is that we deal with averages. We deal with the population response and not individuals because individuals do wacky things just like human beings. But yeah, on the average, 5, 6, 7 is going to be the point. And this is, I guess, the point I'd make, Jason. Not that they're reaching their peak and then soon after there's going to be a decline, but

It's where they reach their maximum that is the plateau for many, many years to come.

Now, there are definitely some individual deer, and I think this happens more often in the Midwest and even in Mississippi. And our ag regions versus our forested regions, you will see them maximizing their antler size about a year earlier than you will. So in other words, in our southern part of our state, you need to let them get six to seven. And in our ag region of the state, the delta region, probably four or five is plenty sufficient.

But the thing that's interesting to me, Jason, is that and I can say this because you qualified earlier. Let's take nutrition, the stability, the availability of nutrition out of the equation. If you're in our deer research facilities, basically you will have from five to six until nine or ten and to where antler size hardly decreases at all. And so you've got a four or five year window where they maximize.

So you hold that. It's not a peak. It's a plateau up there. It's a plateau. And then one thing you see is maybe some kickers, shorter tines, longer tines, no kickers. They clean up. They add on. But they typically stay, like you said, they stay about the same amount of inches there, plus or minus a few percentage, but change configurations a little bit, add mass, lose length, etc.

you know, or combinations thereof. And that's one of those things that's very visible that doesn't get as much credit on Boone and Crockett's score is the mass and specifically the mass and the tines. You know, there's no measurement for the circumference of the tine, but man, that really looks impressive when you get a six or seven year old buck. And then also the character points, the splits, the drops and stuff like that. Yeah, you see that at maturity more often. Yeah.

O'Reilly Auto Parts are in the business of keeping your car on the road. I love O'Reilly. In fact, the other day, I'm not kidding you. The other day I went into an O'Reilly Auto Parts looking for a part. I needed a different thing that wasn't really in there, you know, only like tangentially related to what they carry.

They did not have it, and the dude told me specifically where I would go down the road to find it is how nice they are. They offer friendly, helpful service and the parts knowledge you need for all your maintenance and repairs. Thousands of parts and accessories in stock, in-store, or online, so you never have to worry if you're in a jam.

They'll test your battery for free. If you need your windshield wipers replaced, a brake light fixed, or quick service, they'll help you find the right part or point you to a local repair shop for help. Whether you're a car aficionado or an auto novice, you'll find the employees at O'Reilly Auto Parts are knowledgeable, helpful, best of all, friendly. These guys are your one-stop shop for all things auto, do-it-yourself,

You can find what you need in store or online. Stop by O'Reilly Auto Parts today or visit them at OReillyAuto.com slash MeatEater. That's OReillyAuto.com slash MeatEater. We've all seen plenty of gadgets and fads come and go, but here's one product that stood the test of time. Seafoam Motor Treatment. Lots of hunters and anglers know that seafoam helps engines run better and last longer.

It's really simple. When you pour it in your gas tank, sea foam cleans harmful fuel deposits that cause engine problems. I'm talking common stuff like hard starts, rough engine performance, or lost fuel economy. Sea foam is an easy way to prevent or overcome these problems. Just pour a can in your gas tank and let it clean your fuel system. You probably know someone who has used a can of sea foam to get their truck or boat going again. People everywhere rely on sea foam to keep their trucks, boats, and small engines running the way that they should the entire season.

Help your engine run better and last longer. Pick up a can of Seafoam today at your local auto parts store or visit seafoamworks.com to learn more.

This is Brent Reeves from This Country Life. What makes South Dakota the greatest for pheasant hunting? With over 1.2 million pheasants harvested last year, South Dakota boasts the highest population of pheasants in the nation. In fact, you'd have to add up the total harvest from neighboring states just to get that many birds.

There's also millions of wide open acres chock full of different landscapes, meaning the hunt in one county is often completely different from just a few counties over. But what really makes South Dakota the greatest goes way beyond just hunting a colorful bird. It's the pursuit of something more like the camaraderie that awaits all kinds of hunters from all walks of life and partaking in South Dakota tradition over 100 years in the making.

It's about taking the greatest shots and watching your dog work the greatest fields in the greatest lands, carrying on the greatest heritage and making the greatest memories. So what are you waiting for? From the rush of the flush to the stories at the end of the day, experience a thrill like no other. Learn how at HuntTheGreatest.com.

I've heard things, you know, a spike's always a spike, which kind of blows my mind, especially growing up here in the black tail woods, because it just, in my opinion, doesn't hold true. But you know, that, that same deer talking about, I think I called it how earlier male or whatever the name of that deer was, you know, Don had video of it as a one and a half year old, and he's already a 10 point. And that kind of blew my mind. Cause around here, it's like, you're a spike at a year and a half. You're a small two point at two and a half. Um,

How much can we tell from a deer at one and a half years old? Like is that starting to show genetic potential or I mean, obviously in this case it was, but can that same spike with eye guards that's running around on a piece of property blossom out to be a great deer horn wise at four and a half, five and a half.

I think the safe way to deal with that is that if he is really big as a yearling, I would say 99.9% of the time he's going to be a monster when he's mature. But you can't say just because it has below average or a spike or a fork or whatever at a yearling that in no way guarantees that you're not going to have a 150 or greater buck at maturity.

But Jason, let me circle back around to individuals versus population averages. So even here at the Deer Lab, Harry Jacobson years ago, our predecessor, he had a great example in the southeast where it was the, if you see a spike yearling, it's always going to be terrible. You need to shoot every spike. Well, he had an example of a little spike yearling that ended up growing over 200 inches.

that was an individual. But what we have shown is that on the average, if you have below average yearling antler size versus above average yearling antler size, the above average will at maturity be above average and the below average at maturity will be below average. What you have to decide is, is below average still a good enough buck for you? In other words,

I'm okay with 120 or 130 inch buck. That's okay for me. But if your sole purpose or goal objective is I only want 150s or above, then the best bet you can make is an above average yearling is going to be that.

that makes a ton of sense. I mean, like you said, you're just going with what, you know, the averages, um, and what typically will happen, you know, that 200 inch bucks, probably a little bit of an anomaly, you know, in the, in the data, but it proves that it can happen. Um, you know, so I know the place I was hunting, they don't, they don't manage it. The one and a half year old, as we talked earlier, they're managing more, they're not even managing it. The two and a half year old, um, you know, three and a half year old, you know, you start to have six points or, you know, small eight start to come out. That's when he, he decides, you know, that,

those bucks need to be managed or taken out. So that makes a ton of sense. Um, we're going to move on to managing does and coming from out West, especially, um,

the blacktails that are in my area, Southwest Washington. Now we, we aren't near carrying capacity. So my thought has always been, those are the baby makers. We don't manage does here. And then you hear about people managing those, you know, whether it's me watching a whitetail show on, you know, on TV or on YouTube, whatever it may be. And they're just laying out does. And it never made sense to me until you go out, you know, go back to the Midwest and just see just how many deer are on the landscape compared to what we have here. And it starts to make sense.

A lot of sense. So my, my first question on this is, and I know you're going to, you're, I know how these are. Uh, I'm in the same boat, you know, when you're, when you're doing, you know, scientific type stuff and it's going to depend on where you're at landscape food availability, but what is a typical good buck to dough ratio to maintain, you know, good, good herd health? Um,

Probably something like, I mean, if you can achieve and maintain one-to-one, then that's fantastic. It probably also enables you to keep the population under control more easily, if you can do that. But we commonly see fantastic properties where they have 1.5 to 2.0.

When you start getting above that, and that's a little bit of a misnomer, Jason, is that you hear and read that a lot, that the sex ratio is just really out of whack and there's 10 does for every buck. Well, that's not true.

That, that can only occur if you're looking at adults, not including fawns and at the end of the deer season, because mother nature has a self-correction built in there because all those does are going to put fawns on the ground and half of them are bucks. So numerically it's really hard to maintain some five to one, six to one, seven to one, because it's a self-correcting, you know, type system. That makes a ton of sense. Um,

Yeah, I guess my own concern is like, well, what if, you know, you leave those does on there, they get bred and they're the ones to produce the next 200 inch buck. But I also understand like once again, we're going back to averages, you know, your best bet, you know, the research probably shows if you can keep those those that do to buck ratio, you know, or buck to do ratio one to one, one to two, your bucks are going to be healthier. They're going to be able to realize their potential a little bit better.

Um, you know, so for me, I'm like, I want as many deer on the ground as possible, as long as the food supports them. But I guess, you know, rut, you know, other things, um, you know, uh, competitiveness for that ground, all of that comes into play and probably isn't that healthy, um, you know, for your herd. So, um,

You hit the nail on the head, Jason. I just want to emphasize something you said. You said a little clause there that I think is important. As long as the habitat will support them. That's the single most important thing. What's the optimal density, etc.? Well, it depends on...

Is deer quality going to diminish incrementally as the number of deer increases? And so if the deer population increases and simultaneously deer quality decreases, you've got too many deer. You need to take some deer off.

All right. That's a great segue. We were rolling right into my next question, which once again, you have to preface all of this, right? Because where you're at in, you know, Southeast Mississippi is going to be different than what we're doing in the Midwest, you know, Kansas, Iowa, Kentucky, Illinois, whatever it may be. Let's just assume we're in the middle of Kansas. You know, we've got a good mix, a well-managed farm, you know, good ag, good cover. You know, we've hinge cut all of our bottoms. We've got everything that a big whitetail needs, you

What's a carrying capacity? Because one of the things we were going out there with our doe tags and we were shooting the does that he needed killed. But there was, out here we do aerial studies, helicopter flights on the winter range and

What's the right number? What is the carrying capacity on a well-managed 100 acres? And then how do we monitor that? As hunters or good stewards of our farm, what's a good way to manage that and be somewhat scientific about it?

Um, so you, you're right. I am going to respond with a, you know, a contextual, it depends. And, and I, I don't really have, uh, a numerical response for you because there've been places I've, I've been to and, and people express deer density differently depending on where you're at in the country. If you're in the East, it's deer per square mile here. And in Texas and other places we use acres per acres per deer. And I,

I have been to properties where they might have seven or eight acres per deer and they are in superb condition. I've been to other places where you might estimate at 20 acres per deer and the deer herd is in terrible condition. So it's all based on habitat quality.

So I'm often asked, Jason, is, you know, without having a lot of familiarity with the property, how many does do I need to kill? That's just kind of the default, the response in the southeast. How many does do I need to kill? And people probably get frustrated when I say I can't give you that number.

Because I don't know what the habitat is telling me. And most importantly, and you said a moment ago, how do we scientifically go about determining that? I don't think you need to learn about population estimation techniques. I think you need to learn to examine what you can learn at the skinning shed.

After you harvest deer, look at their condition, look at their body weight, and make it relative to what you have recorded over time and what your neighbor is doing. That's how you determine how many to kill.

Yeah. And just to your what you just hit on a point we'll talk about a little bit later. Matter of fact, it's it's right here. You know, I was talking to my buddy Randy, who owns these properties. And, you know, I showed some interest in wanting to buy some Midwest property. And he's like, the main thing is, like, don't worry about what you can do with your property, like pay very close attention to what your for your four neighbors are doing, you know, or whoever touches your piece of property.

because that's going to be the biggest factor on being able to keep big bucks on your property, not letting them, if they're shooting everything that's three and a half, all of that plays in. But I had one more question, which does tie into neighbors as well, is as I was sitting in the stand, we're trying to shoot these does,

Um, and, and you know, the, the seasons are long in the Midwest compared to our two week seasons, one week season. So you don't see the pressure spikes like we see, but I'm like, the neighbors don't appear to be hunting at all. Like we get to see their roads on the way in to our places. Um,

If they're not harvesting their does, are we going to lose, you know, this well-managed piece of property? Are our bucks going to leave or do they have enough does to deal with? You know, in my mind, well, if there's, you know, the neighbor has twice as many does, are we going to lose our bucks to them? Like, is there, is there any, you know, anything that supports that buck stand on his home range and being completely content with breeding the does that were available? Or is that buck going to start running ridgelines and leave my property or leave the property? Yeah.

I think it's very difficult to manage that situation. And, and I have thought and thought, and Steve and I have gone back and forth with for years about this. And, and,

The way I would advise someone is I would be just making sure that you manage your property with the appropriate density, as we said earlier, to maximize the quality of both your bucks and does. That is what is in your control. That is what you can do. It is absolutely going to be successful.

your neighbor running a higher dough density than maybe you, yeah, it is going to happen. You can take it to the bank that one or two or some fraction of your bucks are going to spin off because they've put their nose in the air and the prevailing wind and they can tell a dough is in heat and they're going to leave your property and they're going to get shot. They absolutely are. But I think that is a short-term negative. Yeah.

What I think turns into a long-term negative is now I'm going to manage my property with a whole bunch of deer and a whole bunch of does and diminish the quality of the entire herd because of that instance that may happen every year, every other year, where your buck leaves the property and gets killed. Now you've shot yourself in the foot, management-wise. Yep. Yeah, that makes...

I mean, you're just you're calculating, you're betting on what has the best potential to produce big bucks. And so, like you said, it sounds like herd health number one. And you just have to accept that you're going to lose maybe a buck or two that you wanted to try to kill to a neighboring property. But overall, that's going to give you the best chances on your well-managed piece of property to take that same buck or a buck that doesn't. That's a long term, sustainable way to do it. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Okay, so we've decided we've got to harvest those. We had a few conversations in the blind. What is the right dough to take? And once again, I don't want to say that I was above shooting a yearling, but it's like going into it, you're like, oh, you want to shoot the biggest, oldest dough, get some meat off of her. And Randy kind of alludes like, I don't mind shooting a yearling dough at all. And for the reasons of

You know, I'm, you may want to elaborate on whether there's a second route or a later route, but my understanding is the older does or the more mature does will come in, you know, earlier all kind of at the same time. And then we get those, you know, two and a half year old year and a half old does that will maybe come in later, you know, late November, early December, you know.

And Randy's frustration was, or not frustration, but his concern was it now has his bigger bucks chasing, you know, does for an extra month. And we've all seen it where you kill a buck, you know, mid October, he's got layers of fat on them. You kill a buck mid November and it's completely gone. Well, now you've got to add an entire month of chasing onto that. So Randy was like, I have no problem shooting a mature doe. I have no problem shooting a yearling doe. What's your thought on that?

Is there a right age class of does to take out? Or my other concern to Randy, not to ramble on with my question, was if you leave the mature does, you've now just taken a band of a certain age class of does out. To me, it would seem like the best way is just to be pretty random about it. But what's your thought on is there a prime candidate or what should the management strategy be on taking does out?

Well, I'm going to one-up your buddy Randy. Not only do I not mind shooting a yearling doe, I'll shoot a doe fawn. That does not even come into my thinking about pulling the trigger. I've got to ensure it is a doe fawn and not a buck fawn, but man, that's some good eating right there. It gets you a couple doe fawns.

That to me, Jason, is it's one of those things that makes better discussion than practically you can implement. So here's a couple scenarios, for example. Let's say I'm on a property or area where fawn recruitment is an issue. So think of your more arid places where you might be skipping some fawn crops or you might have an average of one fawn to four does.

then in that case, if you even needed to shoot a doe, you probably don't. But let's just say you were going to make a decision

I would be wanting to shoot the doe that did not have a fawn at heel, whether it be a yearling or two-year-old. Because in that context, those older mothers with fawn at heel have demonstrated that they have the cover and food, that they know how to raise a fawn. They know how to recruit a fawn into the population.

Now you can turn right around to an area like a lot of places in the southeast where dealing with deer density is always a problem. And I can only shoot one, let's say, for whatever reason. I can only shoot one out walk three. There's a doe fawn, there's a yearling or a two-year-old with no fawn, and there's an adult doe with two fawns.

If I'm trying to slow down the reproductive engine of that population, it's probably wiser to shoot that older doe. Because next year, I will probably have recruited less fawns the following year by killing that older productive doe.

That makes a ton of sense. So your, you know, maturity of that doe doesn't necessarily matter. You're looking for, you know, what your management needs to be, whether it's less does or less fawns, more fawns. And you're basing that if you had to pick, you know, one way or the other. Yeah. If I had to, another way, depending on what state you're in, another way to say it is if you need to kill a bunch, shoot all three, shoot the doe fawn, the yearling and the adult. Take out the whole group.

Now, I didn't go into this episode intending to leave you hanging, but there was just so much good information. We had to break this into two parts. Tune in next time for part two of my conversation with Dr. Bronson Strickland.

Hey, we're going to take a little break here and talk about interstate batteries. Now, if you're like me, enjoying the great outdoors, you need gear that is as reliable as it gets. That's why I power my adventures with interstate batteries. I use interstate batteries in my boats. I use interstate batteries in my camper. Great for your truck, too. From Alaska to Montana, they're outrageously dependable.

Battery is essential. With over 150,000 dealer locations, finding one is easy. For all your vehicles, land or sea, choose Interstate. Head to InterstateBatteries.com and find your power today. You ever get that feeling, the walls closing in, the concrete jungle suffocating you? You crave some wide open spaces, the chance to connect with nature, maybe in a spot all your own. Well, head over to Land.com.

They've got ranches, forests, mountains, streams, you name it. Search by acreage. You can search by location. You can search by the kind of hunting and fishing you're dreaming of. Land.com. It is where the adventure begins.