About J. Wayne Fears

Food plots are an important part of managing any property for hunting, but far too often, that is all many land managers do – just plant fall food plots. Too often, consideration for the management of the entire tract of land and how to maximize the habitat for the well-being of the deer population utilizing the property is overlooked.

True, deer need quality food on a year-round basis, and food plots can go a long way toward meeting that need. However, just as important, deer need a diverse habitat including seasonal food varieties, bedding areas, safe zones, travel corridors, and water sources to survive and thrive. And, the management of deer on a property should be administered so that the numbers of animals are kept within the carrying capacity of the land.

An Overall Plan for
Deer Management Pays Off

A good example is a 1,500-acre lease tract I worked with in South Carolina. A farmer owned the land, which was mostly pine-hardwood mix forest. While the farmer did little to improve the habitat, the tract had a fair deer population that still had not reached the carrying capacity of the land. Wanting to make an income on the property, the farmer leased the hunting rights to a hunting club. The club knew nothing, and cared less, about deer management. They wanted to hunt as much as they could and success to them was how many deer each member took during the long South Carolina season. Many of the members practically quit their jobs when deer season opened and hunted almost every day.

Determining the land manager’s goal for buck management is an essential part of any plan.

After three hunting seasons, they complained to the landowner that there weren’t any large bucks on the lease and the deer population wasn’t what they expected. The club was killing a lot less deer than they had been three years ago. To avoid having to listen to constant whining, the farmer canceled the lease.

Word got out that the land was available and soon a small club of six hunters leased it. They were interested in deer management as much as in hunting, and knew they had a long way to go if they were to get this property back to its deer potential.

They hired me to help them come up with a written wildlife management plan for the property. This group was a pleasant change in attitude from the former lessees, and the landowner agreed to do the planting of food plots, soft-mast planting, and prescribed burning for the club.

We took several months writing the plan, and started with improving the habitat. The plan called for prescribed burning, the creation of food plots, food plots to be planted for both warm season and cold season plants, fertilization of native food plants, posting of the land, and cooperation of the local conservation officer to help stop illegal hunting and trespassing.

We discovered that the deer population on the tract was very low, and no mature bucks could be found. Knowing this, we designed the plan to put the club on a quality deer management program and slowly began to take doe in a very selective manner. It took five years of patience and annual adjustments, but the club developed into a deer hunter’s paradise. The club members took almost no deer the first couple of years, but now they take wall-hangers and their children have a great place to start their hunting careers.

	Most wildlife management plans will use aerial photos to point out areas where specific management practices are needed.

How to Get a Wildlife Management Plan For Your Property

If your hunting land is a lease from a timber company, paper products company, bank trust department, or utility company, chances are good the company has a wildlife biologist running the hunting lease program and you either are working with a plan or can get one simply by requesting it. However, if you own the land, or lease from an individual or smaller company, you may not have the services of a biologist and will have to find one on your own.

It is surprising to many land managers as to how easy it is to get a professional wildlife biologist to write you a wildlife management plan, and help you follow the plan to improve the hunting on your property. Every state game and fish agency offers the free services of their wildlife biologists to anyone who asks. I emphasize, you must ask. State wildlife biologists are very busy professionals and rarely do they have time to go out and seek land for which to write wildlife management plans. However, when a land manager calls their office and asks for help, it is usually a welcome request.

Every state has wildlife management planning assistance available through the USDA Natural Resource and Conservation Service (NRCS). By requesting help through their district conservationist, you can get a wildlife management plan underway.

Wildlife management planning assistance is also available through the Cooperative Extension Service. A request for help through the local agricultural county agent will get the ball rolling.

As I said earlier, this assistance is free, and even with heavy schedules, these wildlife professionals are glad to help an interested property owner or hunt club put together a management plan.

What to Expect in a Wildlife Management Plan

A written wildlife management plan prepared by a professional wildlife biologist sets the stage for years of successful deer management with defined goals.

A wildlife management plan is exactly what it says – a plan to help you manage the wildlife on your property to achieve a reasonable goal. In the case of deer, you will have to decide if you want more deer, want to maintain the deer population at about the same level, or want to have trophy bucks. While these may be simple questions, there is much more to it than most hunters think.

The plan will usually include an aerial photo of the property or a map of some type. The first section of the plan will establish what your long-term goals are in terms of what you realistically want in the way of wildlife resources. For this part of the planning process, the land manager should agree as to what they want. For example, in the case of a hunt club, part of the membership can’t want the property to have lots of deer with average or fewer bucks as their priority, while the other members want trophy class bucks to hunt. This leads to personal conflicts and conflicts in hunting management.

The second section of the plan will state the present estimated population of game, the condition of the habitat, and some history (if known) of past harvest data, hunting management, and wildlife management. Knowing this, the wildlife professional will then draw up a plan that will include habitat management needed to reach the goal, harvest recommendations, a data keeping system to monitor the management success, and other recommendations he or she thinks may be necessary to reach the goals.

	Keeping deer harvest records with age and sex information helps in the monitoring of the plan’s success.

Many of the habitat recommendations, including food plot crop recommendations, soft and hard mast plantings/management, and forest management, are written up in the plan and also marked on the aerial photo or map, which helps make it easy for the land manager to carry out the habitat improvements.

This is a long-term plan but one that must be studied annually to make adjustments, especially in the harvest recommendations, and occasionally with food plot crop changes. It can take years to see a major improvement, but it is well worth the wait.

These days, many of the plans are done with the help of computers; and sections of the plan, such as harvest data and evaluation, are computer-generated. Wildlife management plans are as individual as the biologists who write them, but the above gives you a good idea as to what your plan will look like.

If you own or lease land, or are in a hunting club to enjoy quality hunting, both for you and your children, you should obtain and follow a long-term wildlife management plan.