Here is some background on my club

Although the club I am in has been touting itself as a "Trophy Club" for 6 years now, I do not feel we are getting the results we wanted through the rules we have been following. So, I am now chief in charge of QDM for our club. I have now joined QDMA and will be in this forum quite a bit talking through the plans for the club.


Background: the club is 1000 acres in central georgia. We have had strict non-shooter rules in place for the entire time. The rule is 8 point or better and 15 inch spread. We have a total of 11 acres of foodplots and 20 members. We take 20-30 doe per year off of the property and typically 1 buck per year.

Food plot sizes
Area in Acres

0.8
0.6
0.5
0.5
0.6
0.4
0.1
0.4
0.6
0.9
0.3
0.6
0.4
0.9
1.7
0.7
0.6
0.3
0.2

Here is the layout in PDF format
http://personal.atl.bellsouth.net/rd...ng%20Lease.pdf

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Brian, I had Mark Thomas up here and he went along with John Ozoga in saying to keep the mature does, and try for fawn does and 8 pts or better. We have an average 50% mortality rate for fawns, and quite often in a severe winter the mature bucks and does are the only ones to survive. Our winter, and predators were so bad last year that only 1 fawn made it for the 6 mature does on the property, and 4 yearling does-which rarely give birth around here anyways.

Our summer range can support much higher deer numbers, but our winters keep the deer below summer-carrying capacities. The does stay in family groups together in the yards, and if there is a timber-cut that reduces thermal cover, or severe weather, entire family groups can be wiped out. There are areas withing 3 miles of my house that are still completely devoid of deer due to the severe 95 and 96 winters. These areas will not be replenished until another summer range becomes overcrowded-it hasn't happend yet.

If I can keep about 2 does for every buck in and around the property, I'm doing great. By keeping the mature does I'm safegaurding a population for the future in case of severe winter losses. I believe one of the studies concluded that more than 20% of the does in my deer yard(about 8 miles south), were over 10 years of age. In the words of John Ozoga, a mature doe is almost impossible to kill by natural causes-"they just don't die". If our mild winter continues, and there are many fawns next year, probably 3-5 does will have to be shot. Maybe one mature doe if more come in, but definatly some fawns and a yearling or two.

It's a different game up here-only 25 miles northeast there are less than 5 deer per sqare mile, and 50 mile southwest there are over 90 per square mile-the worst in the state. With our winter time yarding areas being reduced, coupled with a severe winter or two, our deer herd is always teatering on total elimination in some areas. My property can handle more does because the summer range is not too bad at all. They definately come to the plots, but not like you'd think.

Also, all of my plots are irregular in shape-1 is 200 yards long, with a 15' width in the middle, along with a couple 40' widths, up to 40 yards wide in 2 other areas. Another 1/4 acre plot is 100 yards long, with a little hook in it, and another plot is around 200 yards long, with a point, and is shaped like an irregular horseshoe. A 1 acre plot I am adding in the spring will have 2-3 narrow spokes, 1 a 100 yards long, and another plot is 1/3 of an acre and is shaped like a half moon, with one end skinney, and one end round, narrow in the middle. Many of my plot edges are wavy, and deer can feed on both ends of all the plots without even seeing each other. My plots are all evenly distributed throughout the property, with almost 3/4 of a mile between the outer edges of the bounderies.

Maguiver, something to consider. Your percentage of food plot size is alright, but sometimes with a large dispersal of small plots the deer are harder to harvest due to the fact they can step out and feed anywhere, at anytime, often bedding pretty close to the plot and just waiting until dark to enter. Are you getting any big-buck pictures, has anybody performed a camera sensus, indicating a need for better harvest practices, our are the deer just not in the area? Maybe some centralization of 2-3 acre plots, with a few surrounding smaller harvest plots between bedding cover would be better than a scattering of small plots. Also, is there much traffic around the plots? and if ATV's are used, you can throw all the other stuff out the window. I know you only have 1 hunter per 50 acres, but if you have common traffic areas, the deer can easily pattern 20 peoples common activities. Do you have a lot of walkers and stalkers? Another thing, it looks like some of the plots are near the borders of the property, keeping deer more scattered. for that size of property it would also be good to have quite a large set asside area centralized to the property that can be an established safety zone-never entered except for harvest recovery. I have a 30 acre safety area for 130 acres. What about tree-stand access, can you access stands from outer areas, to avoid pushing deer out on the way in? If you have an army going through the center of the property, there won't be many deer in the center of the property. Talk to a biologist about what a realistic number of bucks to be harvest for your property is. You don't have 2 squar miles, but even if you looked at it as that, what is realistic for that size of property. It might be that 8-10 bucks would be realistic, if managed properly and many in the club will have to go without.

I know 1000 acres sounds like alot, but a hunting partner of mine and I are considering whether a 379 acre farm can handle a 3rd person to hunt with us. The farm has 285 acres of rolling timber/brush, but it doesn't take much to chase the deer off the property. We usually would look at around 100 acres of wooded land per person, to avoid pushing the deer, depending on the layout of the land.

Hope you respond, I can really get into this strategic stuff.

Jeff...U.P. of Michigan.

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