Mickey W. Hellickson, David G. Hewitt, and Fred C. BryantThe practice of selectively harvesting inferior-antlered, middle-age and older bucks has become popular. Criteria are often established based on age and antler points. However, no research on wild deer has been conducted to determine the appropriateness of these harvest criteria. Our objective is to randomly capture and measure >500 bucks annually on 5 areas to estimate age, count points, and determine gross Boone & Crockett Club (GBC) score. Capture data will...

As soon as I dialed in the radio frequency to buck #0083 and picked-up the antenna, I knew the 6.5-year-old buck was dead. Instead of hearing the characteristic “beep....beep....beep” from his collar, I heard a signal that was twice as fast, “beep, beep, beep, beep.” I jumped down from the truck bed and walked in the direction where the signal was strongest. After walking only 100 yards, there he was. His tall-tined rack, with trailing skeleton, stood out like a...

One on the first and foremost goals of deer management is to restore out-of-whack herds to proper balance. There are several keys to doing this, and today, we’re going to look at some of them.A common ill of unbalanced herds is the lack of older bucks. Biologists would say the herd has a poor buck age structure. We hunters would just call it sorry hunting. Ideally, bucks of all ages should be present in a herd, but that’s seldom the...

Would you like to determine how many deer live on the property you hunt or own? Or how many big bucks are roaming around? Trying this deer survey method will help you achieve both goals.WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO SURVEY DEER HERDS?In order to manage your deer herd efficiently and effectively, it’s important to know about your deer population. It is especially important to be able to estimate population size and determine the trend (increasing, decreasing, or stable) in the...

Carrying CapacityThe number of individuals of a species that a property and its resources can support. The carrying capacity for whitetails and other wildlife species can be greatly increased with food plots and proper habitat managementPopulation modelingBy collecting and analyzing the data from helicopter surveys, trail cameras, hunter observation, and harvest, Tecomate Wildlife Biologists can accurately asses deer herd dynamics including the sex ratio, population density, recruitment rate, and age structure.Harvest managementTecomate Wildlife Biologists can help you set the criteria...