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Yearling Dispersal Recruitment

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8 POINTS OR BETTER

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Any thoughts on drawing in yearling dispersal bucks to a certain property with food plots, and good habitat. Seems like with no acorns , if we could get some rain this would be a good year to pull some extra yearling bucks in to QDM land, when they are looking for a new home. I know some thank you can't stockpile bucks, but it seems to me we have more yearling bucks on the property I hunt after the season, than we did before the season.
 
You ABSOLUTELY CAN stockpile bucks. I've seen it done many times. I don't know exactly why it works but it does. Better habitat (especially cover) will draw deer to a smaller property, but simply better herd dynamics (balanced sex ratio and advanced buck age structure) also draw deer for some reason, especially young bucks.

Most assume--using human logic--that having a bunch of mature bucks in one location would drive younger, subordinate bucks away. But I actually see just the opposite effect. I don't know why, but I see these small, managed properties--once the herd dynamics begin to improve-- suddenly start "accumulating" far more bucks than would normally occur in that area. And again, I really don't know why. My only guess is that good herd dynamics are somehow attractive to deer.
 
I'm not trying to question you BSK just tying to understand. I'm almost positive that I read a post from you one time that said deer won't leave it's home range because there's food in another area. I think I remember you saying that deer don't know that there's food outside of their home range. Does this contradict your earlier statement or are they even related?
 
Deer won't leave their home range in search of food as long as they're finding available food items within their home range, thats even if their food items are very low preference foods. They don't have the cognitive initiative to think, "hey, I bet I'll find tastier food items over the hill."

Deer primarily leave their home range for four reasons:

1.) they get kicked out by their mom and must establish their own home range (young bucks)

2.) their nose tells them there's a receptive doe "over the next hill" (older bucks)

3.) they can no longer find any food or water resources whatsoever and are forced to find something

4.) we push them out (sprawl)
 
Scrub Buck said:
I'm not trying to question you BSK just tying to understand. I'm almost positive that I read a post from you one time that said deer won't leave it's home range because there's food in another area. I think I remember you saying that deer don't know that there's food outside of their home range. Does this contradict your earlier statement or are they even related?
Click to expand...

Yes, it does. I've really had to reevaluate that old "standard" concept of buck movements we were all taught. I kept seeing very strange patterns in buck usage of individual properties that really flew in the face of that earlier belief. What I was seeing just didn't jive with that concept. Now there is some solid GPS-collar studies that show bucks really do move around considerably throughout their life-times and during an individual year. In fact, they may have less fidelity to a particular range than we ever imagined.

However, that bucks move around more than we though is very interesting information (and has many implications for small-land management), but the real question is "why do they make these movements?" What is the driving force/influence? Some of seasonal movements are certainly to access a critical resource, but which resource? Food? Cover? Some herd condition? And why do bucks display sometimes completely different rut-season ranges from one year to the next?
 
BSK said:
Yes, it does. I've really had to reevaluate that old "standard" concept of buck movements we were all taught. I kept seeing very strange patterns in buck usage of individual properties that really flew in the face of that earlier belief. What I was seeing just didn't jive with that concept. Now there is some solid GPS-collar studies that show bucks really do move around considerably throughout their life-times and during an individual year. In fact, they may have less fidelity to a particular range than we ever imagined.

However, that bucks move around more than we though is very interesting information (and has many implications for small-land management), but the real question is "why do they make these movements?" What is the driving force/influence? Some of seasonal movements are certainly to access a critical resource, but which resource? Food? Cover? Some herd condition? And why do bucks display sometimes completely different rut-season ranges from one year to the next?
Click to expand...

I think the bucks nose can be attributed to some of these crazy jaunts.
 
BGG,

Without question, the short-duration long-range shifts of older bucks during the rut can be absolutely attributed to much better noses than we ever imagined.

But the data coming from the latest Auburn study is absolutely revolutionary, especially the aspects of non-filelity between annual rut-season ranges. And this data perfectly matches some of my camera data.
 
When you already have problems trying to somewhat "patternize" these bucks you guys aren't helping by telling me that my quarry is not "patternable"...LOL. They're attracted to food; they aren't. They're attracted to does; they aren't. They're attracted to a particular area during winter; they aren't.

It doesn't sound like there are many guarantees. When hunting "X" parcel of land I guess I'll stick to the cover edges with available food and does and hope for the best.
 
I hate to say it Mike, but from my data, I strongly believe mature bucks do not follow patterns. And there could be a couple of reasons for that.
 
BSK said:
I hate to say it Mike, but from my data, I strongly believe mature bucks do not follow patterns. And there could be a couple of reasons for that.
Click to expand...

I don't have any data but I'm beginning to think the samething. It seems mature bucks will show habits much more than patterns and from those habits they will tend to show what looks like a pattern but they really are quite random. I know of some deer that I know I can harvest b/c of their personalities or habits and then others where I'm just gonna have to get extremely lucky.
 
Just my observations from 30 something years of chasing mature bucks but they seem to set more of a pattern and have a smaller range in the vast remote wilderness/national forest areas than they do in farming regions. Though the farm bucks with high protein food resources get much bigger.
 

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