Grow and Kill the Biggest Buck Possible

STUNNING INCREASE
IN RECORD-BOOK
BUCKS IS NO
COINCIDENCE
Grow
and Kill
the
Biggest
Buck
Possible
uestion: Have you checked
the trends in the Boone and
Crockett and Pope and
Young record books during
the past 20 or 30 years? If you
have, you’ve probably noticed
something stunning. There has been
an explosion of whitetail deer entries
starting about 10 years before the
turn of the century.
6 WHITETAIL NEWS
/ Vol. 24, No. 1
Charles J. Alsheimer
By Gerald Almy
www.whitetailinstitute.com
Guess what else happened around that time?
Ray Scott founded the Whitetail Institute of North America and
singlehandedly began the food plot phenomenon with the introduction of Imperial Whitetail Clover — still the greatest perennial seed
for growing trophy whitetails. Since then, the company has grown exponentially. With help from Ray's sons, Steve and Wilson, who joined
the company in 1990, and many dedicated employees, Whitetail Institute has expanded to meet the high demand for its established food
plot products while continuously researching ways to improve existing
products and to develop new, innovative ones for the wildlife land
manager.
The timing of the beginning of the food plot craze and the dramatic
increase in trophy bucks is not coincidental. In fact, a strong case
could be made that one is largely responsible for the other.
Just how dramatic has the increase in record-book bucks been?
“Since the Whitetail Institute was founded in 1988, and food plots
and other deer management techniques became more widely publicized and implemented by hunters across the country, the annual average number of record-book bucks entered has increased 500
percent,” Steve Scott said.
Of course, that surge in record-book bucks can’t totally be credited
to the food plot phenomenon and Whitetail Institute’s products. Deer
hunters have become much better educated not only on the importance of food plots but on all aspects of deer management. Two things
are for sure, letting bucks grow older and providing them with highquality nutrition help them grow bigger racks, so more record-bookquality animals exist, and more are harvested by hunters.
The contribution of Whitetail Institute to the explosion of heavy-
racked deer can be traced to four distinct ways their products have
helped make it possible for the number of record-book trophies — and
big deer in general — to multiply so dramatically.
Let’s first list the four reasons. Then we’ll delve into each of them
a bit more deeply. After that, I’ll describe briefly how my property has
followed the same pattern and demonstrated firsthand how the food
plot craze has led to an upsurge in more old deer with heavy racks
being killed. The parallels between the national whitetail scene and
my situation are strong, because I bought the land where I live and
started getting into food plots two years after Ray Scott founded the
Whitetail Institute.
Here are the four ways Whitetail Institute has contributed to the
surge in the number of trophy and record-book deer.
1. The nutrition and protein their plants offer help deer grow larger
racks.
2. The plots hunters plant help produce more and bigger deer, so
hunters have had the opportunity and motivation to pass up smaller
bucks and let them obtain the age necessary to grow record-book
racks.
3. The work involved in planning and creating plots encourages
hunters to spend more time in whitetail habitat, learning more and
becoming more knowledgeable of their land which helps them harvest
the wariest old bucks.
4. Planting Whitetail Institute products makes deer more predictable, allowing their movements to be patterned as deer travel from
bedding areas to food plots.
Now let’s delve into the factors in more detail.
1. High-protein, nutritious foods help deer to grow the largest racks
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Vol. 24, No. 1 /
WHITETAIL NEWS 7
8 WHITETAIL NEWS
/ Vol. 24, No. 1
Gerald Almy
possible. Whitetail Institute products provide forage that tastes good
to deer, attracting them and providing the protein and nutrition crucial to growing big bodies. After the nutritional needs for the bodies
of deer are met, excess nutrients and minerals in the forage can be
used for growing heavier racks. The Whitetail Institute also produces
mineral/vitamin supplements such as 30-06, Cutting Edge and Results
deer feed designed to fit the specific physiological needs of deer, as opposed to cattle or sheep. All of these products help hunters grow the
best deer possible in their area, from healthy does that produce strong,
heavier fawns to bucks that grow the biggest racks their genetics will
allow.
2. More bucks are being allowed to grow old. This benefit grows directly out of previously mentioned factors. Food plots have helped
landowners grow bigger bucks with larger racks, and that has instigated the trend of letting bucks mature beyond the typical one or twoyear-old that was harvested 20 or 30 years ago. If your plots are growing and attracting deer with racks in the 120- or 140-inch class, what
hunter wouldn’t start passing up those spikes, forkhorns and spindly
racked 8-pointers?
Hunters rarely had the opportunity or motivation to pass up
younger bucks years ago, when the food available was of poor quality
and almost everyone shot bucks before they could grow good headgear.
Lately, a philosophy of allowing young bucks to walk at least until
they are three or older has developed, nurtured by Whitetail Institute,
the Quality Deer Management Association and preached by hunters
who have seen how much a deer can develop with age.
3. Hunters are getting more skilled and knowledgeable. Another
thing Whitetail Institute has done by encouraging and nurturing food
plot establishment throughout the whitetail range is to make deer
hunters more knowledgeable about their properties and the behavior
of whitetails. That inevitably makes them better hunters and better
able to bag old, educated bucks.
Many hunters don’t just go out for a few weeks in the fall now. They
spend much of the year out in the woods and fields patterning the
movements of animals, setting out trail cameras, searching for shed
antlers and most important, improving the habitat and creating nutritious food plots to enhance the deer’s health and improve their
hunting. As you scout your property to find the best food plot locations, you discover a lot about the topography, the natural vegetation
and the lay of the land. You learn about the animals’ behavior as you
study your trail camera photos and discover the sign they leave, gradually becoming a more knowledgeable hunter. And that’s the type of
hunter who is most likely to harvest an old, wary buck that might
make the record books.
4. Food plots make deer more predictable. This benefit of food plots
definitely makes taking a mature, potential record-book buck more
likely. Properties 20 or 30 years ago often consisted of large tracts of
hardwoods where deer fed randomly and huge agricultural tracts that
made it hard to tell where a deer, let alone a specific trophy buck, was
likely to appear.
Now take that setup and add a few lush, strategically located food
plots a few hundred yards from thick bedding cover, and suddenly a
mature buck’s movement patterns become a bit more predictable. And
maybe you even helped create that bedding area with your chainsaw,
so you know exactly where it is, or at least you’ve discovered it during
scouting and shed hunting and have learned via trail cameras the
routes bucks follow from there to one of your plots. Killing a mature
buck becomes much more do-able in this situation. And that’s why
The author proudly looks at his beautiful buck killed with the
help of Whitetail Institute products.
the record bucks continue to fall.
So you see, it’s not just because Whitetail Institute products provide
good nutrition that more big bucks are being harvested. It’s also because we have more motivation to pass up young deer, as older bucks
are more numerous. It’s because putting in food plots can make us
better hunters. And it’s because deer living on properties with food
plots are more predictable and more killable.
Even with all these positives, tagging a huge, gnarly-racked whitetail
is still not easy. But with the use of food plots planted with Whitetail
Institute products, habitat-improvement projects and patience to pass
up small deer, it is clearly more likely than ever that a hunter using
this system stands the best chance to kill a beautiful mature buck.
Whether it makes a record book is important to some, but for most of
us, what matters is that the deer reaches its full potential. What that
potential is will vary from state to state, county to county, and even
individual property to property.
Personal Experience
Virginia has produced some outstanding bucks, including a net typical 12-point in the 180s that was bagged just a few miles from me in
the Shenandoah Valley. But bucks like that were few and far between
when I bought my land 22 years ago. It was rare, in fact, to see a deer
in the 130s. Taking a two-year-old with a thin 8-point rack and 16inch spread would be a real accomplishment. That would typically be
www.whitetailinstitute.com
a deer in the 100 to 115-inch class. Now many hunters in the area are
routinely passing up such deer and searching for three to four-year
old bucks and occasionally even five-year-old bucks instead. The reason they’re doing so is because those older bucks are now available,
thanks to the use of food plots and improved hunter education, skills
and attitudes.
Using food plots has not only allowed them to pass up younger deer,
it has encouraged them to learn more about their properties, as I have
with mine, realizing how deer move in their daily patterns and improving other aspects of the habitat for them besides putting in plots.
When I added shrubs, planted warm-season grasses and had timberstand improvement done, and then built a couple of ponds, deer began
living on the property instead of just passing through. That meant
they could be allowed to grow older, and soon 100- to 110-inch bucks
were being replaced with 120s, 130s and 140s.
Every year, I added more plots, sticking mostly to Imperial Whitetail
Clover for the perennials but adding Chicory Plus for when we experience dry summer conditions. Then I realized annuals such as PowerPlant were a good addition to provide more varied food sources. In
late summer, I put in Winter-Greens and Tall Tine Tubers. These
plants also helped kill the weeds in the soil by shading them out and
preparing the ground for future perennial plantings. This year, I added
Whitetail Oats Plus which provided a terrific fall and winter food
source that deer craved because of its high sugar content.
Each year during the two decades I’ve been putting in food plots,
the racks of deer have gradually attained more mass and gained
inches. And the more large deer I saw, the more I passed up younger
ones because I knew I could take an older buck with enough patience,
paralleling a national movement that was underway. The high-quality
nutrition from the Whitetail Institute plots, combined with the increase in older bucks and better understanding of my land’s topography and vegetation were paying big dividends.
And one of the most important of those benefits was that it’s made
the deer on my land more predictable in their movements — the
fourth benefit of Whitetail Institute products and the food plot craze.
The patterns of travel are so much more predictable than when I
bought the property it's like night and day. When I bought the land,
there were fescue fields, some scattered cedars that offered cover, a
few agricultural fields on either side of me and a woods that was too
one-dimensional. Deer movement was almost random, it seemed.
Now, almost every day, deer leave the thick cover of the woods and
head into one of my plots to feed toward dark. It’s just a matter of pinpointing which one they’ll use on a given day and deciding whether
to set up on the plot or hunt back in the woods closer to where they
bed. But the chance is there any day, thanks to the plots, to tag a brute.
And who knows? Maybe a buck with genes from that 180-inch 12pointer killed across the valley will wander into one of my plots one
afternoon. If he does, I’ll be ready for him. But even if the deer I kill
is much smaller, at least he will have reached more of his potential
than he would have 25 years ago, before the food plot revolution
began.
And that is the real reward of putting in plots and doing habitat
work. Whether you can grow 170-inch bucks that qualify for Boone
and Crockett or grow 120- or 150-inch bucks, it shouldn’t really matter much. The pleasure lies in letting the deer in your area reach their
full potential or close to it.
It’s a reward I hope I’ll never stop enjoying until my days end. ^
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WHITETAIL NEWS 9