Manage your way to better hunting

Great post.

I saw him speak last February(2005). He is a very informative Guy. You will learn a lot.

Guys

There has been one slight change in the time. We have received many comments about how far some guys are driving after getting off work. Most stated an additional 30 minutes would work best.

The doors still open at 6:00 PM The seminar will begin at 7:00 PM

Hope to see many of you there. Bring a friend.

DaWG

Antlers-R-Us ?

I really enjoyed Dr. Woods seminar, he is very informative. Well worth the 2 1/2 hour drive and $10.

Greg,
He was talking about Brassica seeds. Kale, turnip or rape seed. It is fairly cheep. I think you can get purple top turnip seed from you local coop for about 1$ a pound. One pound of turnip seed will go a long way. Also you can get pre-mixed seed at Rural King or Walmart. They carry name brand brassicas, one is Shot Plot and the other is Biologic Maximum.The seminar was very informative. I was impressed.

Kevin1, Have you ever tried it on a small scale? I doubt you have. I'm doing it on 400 acres and it works wonders. You have to do it by the book not half a$$ it.

The most important plots you can plant are clover and alfalfa, They come up early and are available long before farm crops. they are high in protein which is a must for milk production and antler development. My clover started coming up in early March and the alfalfa soon followed. Natural forage alot of times gets drowned out by weeds during important times of the year. That won't happen with a maintained plot. I have expearimented with differnt things for 14 years now and you would be suprised with some of the results I have had.

QDM works. It can and does work even on a small scale. About the only thing I don't see it working on is public ground or private ground bordering to public ground.

Let me share with you my personal experience. 9 years ago, I obtained the ground that I currently use as my primary hunting area. A little over 200 acres of corn field. The only cover on that ground is about 15 acres of dense thick drainage ground in the middle. It has a small beaver pond and nothing but drainage ditches with small beading areas. Not what I'd call whitetail heaven. The first year I hunted it, I barely saw a deer. I did manage to shoot a doe. The guys that hunted it before me, shot everything that moved for years. I knew after that first year, something had to change. This was before I knew what QDM really was. All I knew was that I had what I felt could be a good piece of ground, if it and the surrounding properties were managed properly.

So, I set out on a mission. Food plots were out of the question, since the farmer used any tillable amount of land for crops. Besides over 190 acres of corn is a heck of a food plot. All I could do was two things, be selective in what I deer I shot AND start talking to the surrounding hunters. Armed with a plat book, I went door to door and found out who hunted every piece of land in the area. I then tracked down the hunters. Putting on my best sales man face, I eventually sat down with them all one on one (it was tough convincing some to even talk to me). I got a feel for what hunting was to them and used their individual goals to begin my case for getting everyone on a similar page regarding hunting. It took a lot of time and A LOT of talking (not arguing), but slowly over the course of about 5 years, I managed to get the bulk of them on board to holding out for mature bucks and shooting does ... a lot of does. Guess what happened. It did not take long and everyone was seeing more and more deer. Not just does, but bucks and eventually ... A LOT of bucks. Everyone laughs about it now, but now most of us usually see more bucks than does over the course of a season. Nearly everyone around is on board with the program. The program is not in writing and there are no actual rules. Just try to pass up on everything that is less than a mature deer.

People don't believe me when I tell them that over the course of Oct. 1 to Jan., I pass up 30 or more DIFFERENT bucks within bow range every year. I pass up many opportunities at the same bucks over and over. I have a buddy that comes over from Ohio, just to shoot a doe. The first year he came over, he could not believe all the bucks. The first morning he hunted, he passed up 6 different bucks, one a 150's class buck (but alas, all he had was a doe tag). Every year, now he comes over and usually within one day of hunting, we have a buck for him.

Everyone on board with our program sees more deer than ever before. Not everyone scores on a wall hanger every year, but on average the guys are taking a wall hanger about once every four years. I took three in three years, so I figure I'm due for eating some tags for a while. Everyone fills their freezers with their share of does.

My point is QDM works, but you have to be willing to put in the time and be bull headed enough to make it work. There will always be those stubborn neighbors and other road blocks, but they can be overcome and swayed. Put on your salesman hat and sell them on QDM. It won't be easy, but it can be done. Then again, I never liked to take the easy way out and feel that any challenge can be overcome. I heard an interesting saying just the other day. Something to the effect of ... if you are not willing to go the extra step to stay ahead of others, then you are simply taking up space. I think that applies to every aspect of life.

Don't complain about how something can not be done, get off the couch and make it happen.