Land Management Skill vs Hunting Skill

[JCDEERMAN]

Good discussion and great topic. Only thing I'll add, is that when you start working on your land, it becomes your masterpiece. That masterpiece will become very sentimental to you, and more so over time. When the killings come along, I can't describe the fulfillment of joy you will feel. I would rather kill a 120" buck on our property than a 150" deer somewhere else. I have a couple leases on the plateau and have killed 2 deer in the 130-145 inch range, but those deer don't mean nearly as much to me as any of the descent bucks I've killed on our owned land….because I haven't "worked" on that land other than placing stands.

Best of luck BC!

 

[BSK]

Good discussion and great topic. Only thing I'll add, is that when you start working on your land, it becomes your masterpiece. That masterpiece will become very sentimental to you, and more so over time. When the killings come along, I can't describe the fulfillment of joy you will feel. I would rather kill a 120" buck on our property than a 150" deer somewhere else. I have a couple leases on the plateau and have killed 2 deer in the 130-145 inch range, but those deer don't mean nearly as much to me as any of the descent bucks I've killed on our owned land….because I haven't "worked" on that land other than placing stands.

And to add to that, it sounds crazy, but once you've put enough effort into your property, it is the effort itself that becomes most important to you. I still love to deer hunt and always want to see or kill "the big one," but the process of managing the land has now become more important and fulfilling to me than the actual hunting.

 

[Boll Weevil]

I still love to deer hunt and always want to see or kill "the big one," but the process of managing the land has now become more important and fulfilling to me than the actual hunting.

^ This.

 

[rukiddin]

Me personally, I get more gratification from making my land appealing to critters than I do shooting them. I killed a nice deer from my front porch. Was I "hunting"? No, not at all. But the deer was on my property because of the work and sweat I'd put into it for the last 5 years and that's a far greater satisfaction than "hunting skills".

 

[TNTreeman]

Good discussion and great topic. Only thing I'll add, is that when you start working on your land, it becomes your masterpiece. That masterpiece will become very sentimental to you, and more so over time. When the killings come along, I can't describe the fulfillment of joy you will feel. I would rather kill a 120" buck on our property than a 150" deer somewhere else. I have a couple leases on the plateau and have killed 2 deer in the 130-145 inch range, but those deer don't mean nearly as much to me as any of the descent bucks I've killed on our owned land….because I haven't "worked" on that land other than placing stands.

Best of luck BC!

This is how I feel. I LOVE planting, hanging stands, cameras, creating bedding areas etc. I am blessed to have a good deer population and mature bucks. I let really nice deer walk and if I never see them again , oh well. I know I play very little in " growing" deer but I get great joy in providing year round food for them and watching them grow. I love climbers and ladder stands the most and even enjoy using climbing spikes and my tree saddle that I use for my job . I hope this year to get a nice condo to hunt in during rain and freezing temps and take the bride with me. She doesn't care about hunting but after all these yrs (26 yrs) of my pics and videos and stories she wants to participate. I'm using my old composted wood chips to create another 4 to 5 acre field that is solid rock , the deer and turkeys are already using it to bed and eat mushrooms and such . I hope to create a good green field out of it this fall. All of this is more fun to me than flinging arrows or pulling the trigger. Doing all of this is " hunting " to me year round. JMO

 

[Thelonegoose]

Me personally, I get more gratification from making my land appealing to critters than I do shooting them. I killed a nice deer from my front porch. Was I "hunting"? No, not at all. But the deer was on my property because of the work and sweat I'd put into it for the last 5 years and that's a far greater satisfaction than "hunting skills".

I agree with this. I am very fortunate to have a great piece of land that I have been able to manage. I love watching the deer grow over the years, especially those that never seem to leave our farm. It's a good feeling to know that a deer values your farm enough and has all the resources, food, water, and cover to never have to leave. On a different note, I also love being able to see the diversity of wildlife a well managed piece of land has. Any given year, I am able to see ducks, geese, deer, rabbits, quail, coyotes, raccoons, song birds, wood peckers, and all kinds of wildlife with regularity. That to me is the a great sign of a well managed habitat and ecosystem.

 

[Bone Collector]

I don't know. If the goal is mature or large-antlered bucks, I've seen WAY too many instances of one or two hunters on a lease or in a club that are ALWAYS the hunters who kill "the big one." And they aren't necessarily the ones who hunt the most. They are the ones who understand mature buck movement patterns and how terrain and habitat effect deer movement hence they hunt the smartest.

and I have seen instances of people having good spots, but not knowing what they are doing and they ruin the area aka spooking the mature bucks out of the area.

 

[JCDEERMAN]

This is how I feel. I LOVE planting, hanging stands, cameras, creating bedding areas etc. I am blessed to have a good deer population and mature bucks. I let really nice deer walk and if I never see them again , oh well. I know I play very little in " growing" deer but I get great joy in providing year round food for them and watching them grow. I love climbers and ladder stands the most and even enjoy using climbing spikes and my tree saddle that I use for my job . I hope this year to get a nice condo to hunt in during rain and freezing temps and take the bride with me. She doesn't care about hunting but after all these yrs (26 yrs) of my pics and videos and stories she wants to participate. I'm using my old composted wood chips to create another 4 to 5 acre field that is solid rock , the deer and turkeys are already using it to bed and eat mushrooms and such . I hope to create a good green field out of it this fall. All of this is more fun to me than flinging arrows or pulling the trigger. Doing all of this is " hunting " to me year round. JMO

Absolutely. @BSK mentioned this as well. The killing is just the icing on the cake. I couldn't care less if it even happens . Identifying and walking areas with a hatchet and squirt bottle is fun to me. Creating fire lines is fun to me. Sitting on the tractor for 14 hours straight is fun to me - well the atleast first 4 hours is HA.

 

[redblood]

To just kill a deer sure killing a deer in middle tn is easy can't speak on east or west. Killing mature big deer Consistently takes skill.

anyone could kill a 4.5 buck where i live. good county, crops and thick ridges, high deer population and big tracts of protected land. i could have easilt killed 4 different mature bucks off the front porch the 1st week of november alone. of couse some hunters are a little better than others. I dont consider myself to be great For the record. Thats why i usually will not shoot until i know the deer is 5.5 plus and fully mature.

the only hunters that really impress me is the ones who kill them on land anyone can hunt and do it with a bow. lets face it, anyone can blow down a big buck in a creek bottom corn field at dark with a 30-06. but to do it on land that anyone can hunt with a bow, is very impressive to me.

 

[Soft Talker]

The only deer hunters who have ever impressed me, have been ones who can consistantly kill legal bucks in the South Cherokee NF year after year, without the use of bait. Everything else is child's play

 

[BSK]

anyone could kill a 4.5 buck where i live. good county, crops and thick ridges, high deer population and big tracts of protected land. i could have easilt killed 4 different mature bucks off the front porch the 1st week of november alone.

I do NOT believe that is the norm for most of TN, or most of the Southeast for that matter!

 

[Ski]

or most of the Southeast for that matter!

Or anywhere else in the country.

 

[MUP]

I guess I'm in the minority but I've grown up hunting pretty thick woods, without a field or any real open areas to hunt. My enjoyment has always come from scouting for sign and travel patterns thru the terrain. Many a time I've had to wait for a shot, not bc I was trying to determine if the buck was a shooter, but knowing I wanted to shoot but trying to find the least opening I could confidently take the shot thru. If I had farming equipment readily available I might feel differently, but I'm not sure. Hunting what the land has provided, sparse as it may be, and coming out successful from a hunt therein provides me with all the satisfaction I can ask for.

 

[BSK]

I guess I'm in the minority but I've grown up hunting pretty thick woods, without a field or any real open areas to hunt. My enjoyment has always come from scouting for sign and travel patterns thru the terrain. Many a time I've had to wait for a shot, not bc I was trying to determine if the buck was a shooter, but knowing I wanted to shoot but trying to find the least opening I could confidently take the shot thru. If I had farming equipment readily available I might feel differently, but I'm not sure. Hunting what the land has provided, sparse as it may be, and coming out successful from a hunt therein provides me with all the satisfaction I can ask for.

I do understand many who express skepticism about the "skill" needed to hunt intensively managed land, but just because land is being managed doesn't mean most deer are shot at long range over open fields and food plots. I would consider my place pretty intensively managed, but as I've stated before, the average MZ/gun kill is at 35 yards. That's almost bow range. Most of my mature buck kills have been within 20 yards.

We have some big food plots, but they are mainly for attraction purposes. I almost never hunt them, except on a rainy day when I want to be in a condo stand. To date, I've never shot a buck off a food plot. Other hunters have, but a mature buck has never been killed off a food plot. All the mature buck kills come from really thick habitat, where long shots are impossible.

 

[TheLBLman]

Most of my mature buck kills have been within 20 yards.

This is in large part because most of your hunting involved "set-ups" where a deer was mostly likely to be encountered at @ 20 yds, and beyond 40, unable to be seen?

I've also taken most of my mature bucks in heavy cover.
But believe this is large part because of how I hunt,
as do know many people killing more than I just by sniping them at extreme long range,
and, yes, many are out in large fields.

To some degree, deer, including mature bucks, can become "conditioned" to the point "generalized abnormal" behavior CAN become a particular deer's "normal" behavior.

I've seen deer become "conditioned" (mainly due to a lack of human disturbance) to bed & feed during daylight in very open, mature hardwoods (where they're easily seen, even when bedded, over 100 yds away by a hunter). But this type behavior usually only occurs with the lack of hunters, the presence of which contribute to deer "generally" having different primary bedding & feeding areas.

Then there's the issue of routine human behaviors "conditioning" deer to ignore those humans, such as farmer checking on his fields or livestock regularly, or vehicle traffic on a busy road.

Deer often become "conditioned" to ignore certain human activities, even certain individual humans. Deer that grow up around lots of water will often just swim across a large body of water rather than walk around it. Same for large fields, when they're not accustomed to being shot at for doing so.

 

[MUP]

I do understand many who express skepticism about the "skill" needed to hunt intensively managed land, but just because land is being managed doesn't mean most deer are shot at long range over open fields and food plots. I would consider my place pretty intensively managed, but as I've stated before, the average MZ/gun kill is at 35 yards. That's almost bow range. Most of my mature buck kills have been within 20 yards.

We have some big food plots, but they are mainly for attraction purposes. I almost never hunt them, except on a rainy day when I want to be in a condo stand. To date, I've never shot a buck off a food plot. Other hunters have, but a mature buck has never been killed off a food plot. All the mature buck kills come from really thick habitat, where long shots are impossible.

Oh I didn't mean to come across as saying less skill is needed to hunt managed land, as I do understand the draw for food plots, but the skill is being able to set up, IMO, as they are staging for the food plots, and that takes a skill of it's own, scouting, looking for sign, no different from what I would be doing, just that the end path for the deer will be a hot whiteoak tree maybe. And my longest shot on my place is 130 yards! Ranged!

 

[redblood]

anyone could kill a 4.5 buck where i live. good county, crops and thick ridges, high deer population and big tracts of protected land. i could have easilt killed 4 different mature bucks off the front porch the 1st week of november alone. of couse some hunters are a little better than others. I dont consider myself to be great For the record. Thats why i usually will not shoot until i know the deer is 5.5 plus and fully mature.

the only hunters that really impress me is the ones who kill them on land anyone can hunt and do it with a bow. lets face it, anyone can blow down a big buck in a creek bottom corn field at dark with a 30-06. but to do it on land that anyone can hunt with a bow, is very impressive to me.

Thats my point. In isolated pockets, where you have a high number of mature deer, it takes very little skill to kill one. Now public land, is a different story. The guys who can consistently do it there are a cut above

 

[BSK]

Oh I didn't mean to come across as saying less skill is needed to hunt managed land, as I do understand the draw for food plots, but the skill is being able to set up, IMO, as they are staging for the food plots, and that takes a skill of it's own, scouting, looking for sign, no different from what I would be doing, just that the end path for the deer will be a hot whiteoak tree maybe. And my longest shot on my place is 130 yards! Ranged!

My post was not a contradiction of what you posted, but a compliment to it. Figuring out how deer are using the terrain and habitat - managed or unmanaged - and setting up in the best situations, is the skill required. My "skills" wile actually hunting are pretty lackluster. I'm nowhere near as careful and focused as I used to be. But I try to make up for that by choosing the right stand locations.

 

[BSK]

This is in large part because most of your hunting involved "set-ups" where a deer was mostly likely to be encountered at @ 20 yds, and beyond 40, unable to be seen?

Correct. I cut my deer-hunting teeth bow-hunting. When it comes to stand placements, I still "think like a bow-hunter." In addition, we've created a lot of thick cover on our place to help hold hunter-wary older bucks under a lot of hunting pressure. Make a lot of cover, and older hunter-wary bucks tend to stick pretty close to it! It is pretty rare for me to set a stand that isn't very close to thick cover.

 

[BSK]

Now public land, is a different story. The guys who can consistently do it there are a cut above

Agree completely. My hat is off to hunters who can consistently kill mature bucks on public land.

Thats my point. In isolated pockets, where you have a high number of mature deer, it takes very little skill to kill one.

That has not been my experience when working with a lot of private landowners and clubs. But maybe that's because most of those hunters are hunting very difficult terrain with limited visibility. Even when mature bucks make up 10-12% of the entire buck population, mature bucks kills are very low, and in a group-hunting situation, it is usually the same one or two hunters who make the mature buck kills every year. Those one or two hunters are the most skilled at choosing stand locations.