I think by now most people who are paying attention know that I'm a Bob Sheppard fanboy. I have his "list" of things that are important to hunting success taped to my fridge. Number 1 on that list is "access to quaity whitetail habitat." I think we all know it matters. We all like to point out that, "anybody can kill those farm deer." I've heard the "if I had the money" and, "if i lived in xyz state" excuses. Heck, I've made them myself.
Sheppard is a cardiovascular specialist. He hunts where he wants because he has time and money. Those two things definitely make most things in life easier. Initially, I kinda disregarded his number 1 list item because I thought it was something I couldn't do at 20 with no trust fund. I've kinda changed my view on this over the past several years.
I kinda have been hesitant to write this post because I don't have a whole lotta "tricks" up my sleeve, and I've seen the results of cats and improperly tied bags. But, I have been channeling some negative energy lately because I see a lot of threads about little things like arrow weight, camo types, carabiner shine, etc get a lot of traffic. I figured instead of pooing on those threads it'd be better to give my two cents on what makes the biggest difference on hunting success. I'd rather shoot crappy arrows out of a discount bow while sitting on a bucket in blue jeans, on a prime piece of property, than shoot calculator-built arrows out of a 2021 bow while sitting in my saddle in Sitka gear while hunting poor ground.
This is all really simple stuff, and a lot of us already know it. Forgive me if it seems dumb or condescending.
What makes quality whitetail habitat? At the most basic level, dirt. Dirt makes things grow. We all basically come from dirt, and we all are going back into the dirt sooner or later. Man has known this for eons. Most creation stories involve man coming from dirt or mud in some shape or fashion. Good dirt grows good flora, good flora feeds prey animals, predators eat the prey and eventually die and become good dirt. Circle of life, foodchain stuff. Simple, but because it's simple it's easy to overlook. Farmers like our friends
@Blinginpse and
@Ontariofarmer live and die on how well they understand dirt. Good dirt will grow more crops and support more livestock. It's the main determining factor behind carrying capacity. You can't have more corn or more cows than what the dirt will support. Good dirt has lots of nitrogen, carbon, and other basic building blocks of life.
Water and sunlight are the other big requirements for abundance of life. A sunny rainforest supports more biomass than a dark tundra.
Dirt, water, sunlight. With me?
Sunlight is, more or less, constant throughout the US. The north gets less of it. Harder winters and shorter growing seasons can put a hurt on deer, but they're fairly tolerant of it. Lack of water is arguably why the far west has fewer whitetails, but most of the eastern half of the state gets pretty plentiful rainfall. Sunlight and rainfall are in my mind not good things to key on. We need things we can isolate and use as qualifiers for good habitat.
Circle back to dirt. What makes good dirt? In layman's terms, dead stuff. We'll leave the philosophical ponderings on the concept of death being a prerequisite to life for another day. Remember the story about Squanto teaching the pilgrims to bury their maize seed with a little dead fish? Historical accuracy aside, that's about the gist of it. What concentrates dead things well?
River valleys.
Go on google earth and look at the US. You can quite clearly see the Mississippi/Missouri flood plain. Notice the states that occupy that space? Big-buck states, every single one. Flood plains, deltas, and other places where flood waters cover the earth and then recede are the cradles of life. Supposedly, all of us came out of the valley around the Tigris and Euphrates. The Mississipi valley is our fertile crescent. It's a huge part of what has made us successful. Good dirt and water.
You'll notice, if you look at alabama, that a little piece of that valley kinda gets lost and swoops across our state. That's the Alabama Black Belt, an area know for rich soil, culturally and historically fascinating demographic inequality, and big bucks. If you wanted to hunt Alabama, you'd do well to go to the good dirt in that area. It grows deer well.
Note that not all watersheds are fertile river valleys. The gulf coasts blackwater tributaries and sandy bays do not support deer the same way the black belt does. Salty water and sandy soils (quartz from the appalachian mountain chain congregates on the coast) does not support most life well. But if there's a body of water within driving distance of you that has thick, stinky, stick-to-your-toes mud...
Aside from river valleys, farmers may be the best soil improvers the continent has. Decades or sometimes centuries of husbandry can lead to very fertile soil and very big/plentiful deer. Sometimes it's a chicken or egg type puzzle. Are the farmers here because the soil is good, or is the soil good because the farmers are here? Does it matter? In my mind, no.
River valleys and ag. Chances are, that's a good place to start. That's the big picture. The foundation of whitetail habitat. What else can we do to weed out bad hunting spots?
Deer are a prey species. Prey species have 3 priorities. Eat, don't be eaten, procreate. That's all that needs to be coded into them. Deer are synchronized breeders, so for 11 months out of the year it's eat and don't get eaten. Good dirt satisfies the "eat" part of the equation. We have actually done them a pretty massive favor by ensuring that not much eats them except us. Prey animals thrive to their fullest (sometimes to the extent of overpopulation and mass starvation, but that's another story) when they aren't exposed to predators.
Go to a light pollution map (
https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/#zoom=5.00&lat=4007046&lon=-9637101&layers=B0FFFFFTFFFFFFFFF) that's the quickest way to visualize whitetail predator density. IE, you and me. Now, it's tricky because not ALL humans are predators. Less populated areas with the demographical factors that breed hunters (income, political leaning, religious affiliation, age, etc) can be harder on deer than areas with more people, but fewer hunters. There can be excellent hunting in yuppie suburbs. But, look again at Alabama's Black Belt. Notice something? No people. And the Black Belt is not just called black because of the dark flood plain soil. The population is predominately African American. Statistically speaking, that demographic is not particularly likely to produce a lot of avid deer hunters. (There's a LOT of interesting and sometimes, to be honest, very sad history behind this. I live in a rural, minority-majority zip code, and a lot of them do hunt. For a variety of reasons, small game is more popular. I'm aware there are always exceptions to the rule.) So we have good dirt, and relatively few predators.
If you're inclined, now might be a good time to take a second and look at your state. See any river valleys or patchwork quilts of ag land? See those dark areas on a light pollution map? Do the two overlap? Is there public land there?
TLDR, good dirt and low human population makes quality whitetail habitat. I've expounded on it because I believe in having a firm grasp of the basic theories of stuff. Knowing WHY something is so has value.
Light pollution maps and aerial photography helps to see a big picture, but there are tools you can use to really narrow it down. Last year, I put together a spreadsheet with information on each county in Alabama. First, I joined the Pope and Young and the Boone and Crockett foundations, along with the Alabama Whitetail Records membership. This allowed me access to the databases containing info on "trophy" bucks. Ceteris paribus, the more trophy bucks a county has, the more interesting it is, even if you're not interested in trophies. If you have big bucks, you most likely have plenty of other deer surrounding them.
Our state is quite behind the times when it comes to harvest reports, but I also gathered that information. For the past several years every deer that has been harvested by a hunter has been reported, and the info is made public on the DCNR website. Or that's the theory, anyways. Definitely check your DCNR website. Call the biologist. Talk to the game warden. The information they can give you is often not very specific, but they can sometimes point you in the general area of "more deer there."
The USDA, USCOE and USGS also have some interesting maps that show things like soil type, rainfall, flood plains, etc. These can be used to identify the good dirt we're so keen on.
Census information is also useful. Deer harvested per capita in a county is a better indicator of quality habitat than just the harvest number alone. So is the deer per square mile number if you can compute it. Election results are handy to throw in the mix too. To be blunt, in Alabama, red counties hunt and blue ones don't. If you see a lot of deer harvested per capita in a blue county, that is worth investigating.
Once I had all that information in a spreadsheet, some counties really rose to the top. My county has ZERO P&Y or B&C bucks on record. Now, are all trophies recorded? Not hardly. I have seen some 150s come from around here. But if another county has, say, 80+ on record, is that not interesting to you? It was to me. I found a county that had it all. Low hunter numbers, good dirt, good harvest numbers, and some public property. I found several counties that way actually, and hunted 4 of them. Saw or killed deer on every sit in those counties, even though I had no prior familiarity with them and have hunted some of "my" spots locally for a decade. Must have been the saddle...
A lot of work can be done from the computer. I'm still looking at maps, charts, spreadsheets, and calculators. But once you've identified some good counties in your area, and ascertained whether or not they have public ground available on them (many good counties in Alabama unfortunately do not have public access) you have more work to do.
Boots
On
The
Ground
Boots on the ground. Until such a time as we can take high enough resolution imagery to see the little boogers hiding in the bushes, that's the only way to KNOW that they're there. Hop in the truck. Grab the bike. Hitch up the boat. Spray on the Gold Bond and put two pairs of socks on. Throw a camera in the backpack if you have one. Go to that WMA that the stats say should hold deer. Drive the roads. Walk the property line. Ride or walk the trails. Ride the rivers. Walk the field edges and woodlines. Walk all the easy stuff, mark the interesting sign on your GPS, and then circle back and follow that stuff into the property interiors. Don't slow down. Don't stop. Don't prep trees. See the whole property. Count tracks. Count deer. Bumping deer? Seeing tracks? Rut sign? Disused facilities?
Count shot up stop signs and beer cans too. Drive to the local town. What do you see? Lifted trucks and Summit stickers on the backglass? Bernie stickers, prius cars, and soccer moms? Talk to the cashier at the local gas station. Stay a night at the local campground or motel and chat up the host. "Get a lot of hunters here around the holidays?"
Now get back in your truck and go to the next place. And the next one. You're looking for the most important thing you'll ever find as a hunter. THE SPOT. Don't skimp. Don't wimp. Find the property that makes you look like a better hunter than you are.
We've mainly talked about the macro stuff. Micro can play a huge roll too. I have a smallish (500 acres) tract of public near me that gets a lot of pressure because you can get to it without a boat, and it doesn't flood. BUT...the surrounding several thousand acres have been under QDMA for about 20 years. Some affluent white guys lease the property on one side of the road, and another one runs a quail hunting lodge on the other side. Deer have a chance to grow old on those properties, and there's nothing but a dilapidated old barb wire fence between their place and the public land. There are maybe 40 acres on that 500 worth hunting, but that 40 acres produces one buck a year for me, almost without fail.
That's my spiel. I'm happy to answer questions about how I try and narrow it down, or hear from others how they separate the wheat from the chaff. Remember, Hemingway once said, “I write one page of masterpiece to ninety-nine pages of sh/t. I try to put the sh/t in the wastebasket.” Don't make the mistake of thinking you can use gadgets and gear to kill deer that don't exist. Put the sh/t in the wastebasket, and go find that one page of masterpiece.
