A landowner of 40-80 acres will have zero luck keeping a buck alive long enough to mature if even a few of their neighbors routinely shoot them as spikes/forkhorns, which is exactly what happens. It is only when a plot of land gets significantly larger than the home range of a whitetail buck that you can have success doing this. The mentality in Michigan is prevalently to shoot the small bucks and the regulations encourage it, so all people I know that tried to implement QDM by themselves just watched their neighbors hang the bucks up on their poles.
I couldn't agree more. Usually the people that want QDMA are the ones that have lots of land and neighbors who cooperate. We have 120 acres in northern MI and we have tried to start some QDM with letting the spikes go, shooting more does, and planting food plots. We have notices NO difference in mature buck sighting and have noticed a substantial difference in the number of small bucks the neighbors shoot and the number of deer poached near our property. I just found one more buck today lying just off our land with the head cut off. We are near a lot of public hunting ground and does are not allowed to be taken on public land therefore, most hunters will shoot any buck that is legal. It seems that its a battle that can't be won and the only people that would benefit from QDMA up north would be the ones that hunt illegally.
