I'm no expert, but I believe that a buck, first and foremost wants plenty of cover, with appropriate escape routes, etc, he wants food, and during the rut he wants does. I believe in controlling the cover either by planting trees(pine thickets) or using select cutting to thicken up the ground cover. Then comes food, for the most part, in my neck of woods, food is plentiful, everywhere, we don't get snow, so winter is not hard on our deer. So... its hard to attract deer to your land based on food alone, cover is the deciding factor.

I don't get too caught up in antler restrictions, I let obviously young bucks walk and once a deer reaches 3 1/2, he's fair game. If I had several thousand acres to play with things may be different.