Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Serious Deer Talk Forum Mark Buxton

From what I’ve gathered, improve habitat and plant perennials to include clover and alfalfa. Pretty much you create a utopia of nutrition and then be extremely selective in what you shoot. The rest of what he would provide would probably be stand selection based on wind direction and how you approach and leave areas. There’s really not much else it could be.

Thats my assumption. He may be one of those guys that can walk a piece of property and get a good feel on what your scent would do (swirls, thremoclines, and some of that other voodoo), Other than that I would think rely on soil samples and keep as much year round preferred food available. Then limit pressure and extreme trigger control.

I don't know but for me, paying some dude big money to tell me exactly what to do takes the fun out of it.

What to see an argument? Put two... or maybe three or a room full of deer biologists in a room and they will go at it!!!! I'm sure Mark's knowledgeable but you have to have people skills. But please do not discredit a Thought Leader in any space. You would not think that I.E. reloading and ballistics, etc... would be so complicated, BUT IT IS. Sweeping a floor, for example!! To do it right, there are details you have never thought about. The problem is that most people think they already know everything and that they've looked at a discipline (deer hunting, tennis, cooking, medicine, etc...) from every perspective possible... but they haven't.

Be open to new ideas and new ways of doing things and don't think that you already know all there is to know.

When I hear this: "I've been deer hunting for X years... you can't tell me anything!" I usually just walk away from an ignorant buffoon like that.

The man must know his stuff to still be in business with such an abrasive and petty personality.

If you want to get banned from his Facebook page, just ask him if a pic is free range or high fence😉. If I’m going to pay someone for their services, I’d prefer to know if their advertising is false or not. Anyone can get daylight pics of mature bucks in an enclosure.

I could give other examples of him acting like a spoiled child but I won’t go into it here.

The pictures he posts are almost exclusively taken of bucks "in the big pen" or maybe the "little pen" but either way, they are inside the fence.

I heard he liked sugar in his grits and thought Harsin was a good hire for the tigers.

He manages some places that are high fence and some that are free-range. His clover and alfalfa fields being inside a high fence has nothing to do with how they look and his success at managing those fields. Also, the abundance of other wildlife he shows that are not restricted by fences also show promises that his “program” has some validity. Also, I’m not saying he is the end all be all on deer but it is always good to keep learning and hear new, differing opinions on management.

His pics of big bucks laying in clover fields regularly in broad daylight have to be in the big/little pen because I dont care how little pressure the property has 150"+ bucks dont regularly lay around in clovers fields in the daylight in Alabama. Knowledgeable guys but is very childish acting.

I've never met him personally and I am sure he is knowledgeable. But Mully is exactly correct. I've got a really good place to hunt. Very low pressure, big fields, super trigger restraint, we plant the good stuff but we do not have a fence or an unlimited budget like most of his clientele. Not having a fence means we lose quite of few of our superior 2, 3, and 4 yr olds that we pass and try to protect, to our neighbors, but that is the nature of the game. This doesnt happen in a fence so that is his success factor #1. His success managing those fields is 95% due to the amount of $$ that he convinces the landowners to allow him to put into them. I'd love to see him take my annual budget and turn out a better product. I do not think that he could do any better than I am currently doing without significantly increasing the annual price tag ($$$). I'm sure that he has some ideas that I could incorporate, but I'll go out on a limb and say he's not the best deer guru, or farmer, in the SE. He's found a niche market of high $$ individuals (a lot of which have way more $$ than sense, and I say this from experience) that are willing to pay him to plant for them and good for him for doing so and making it into a business. The majority of pics he posts most definitely come from inside fenced enclosures and I know of one for sure where several of those posted pictures came from because I know the guy that owns it and I've sat in the same field where some of those pics were taken before. Point is, there are probably 3 dozen or more guys on this site that could grow fields just as good as he posts in those pictures, if they had the virtually unlimited resources he typically works with. Anyone that gets that defensive about anyone questioning his process or what he's doing that is so special, or what he's posting, generally has personal issues, or isnt really doing anything special and just doesnt want anyone to find that out. Farming for deer isnt hard, it just takes a little sweat, decent weather, $$$, and miraculously, like most everything else in life, the more your able to put into it (especially $$ wise when it comes to equipment, planting, fertilizer, chemicals and supplemental feed), generally the more you get out.

$ and equipment is my two. I started planting with an ATV and a Groundhog max. You can do it, but it takes a while. Then got a subcompact tractor. Much better. Even a compact tractor would be a step up though.

I would love to be able to go plant food plots and manage them for people.

I have not tried the brown bag clovers. The cheapest ones I use are plot spike. I like WTI clover and chicory alot.

The 2 biggest things that would help me the most are a rock crusher attachment (need a bigger tractor to run it) and a skid steer with a heavy duty brush cutter/mulcher.

I agree 100%. I wouldn't mind going to his seminar but not for $500. I am not as worried about the money as much as I am about taking notes to to remember everything he says. For $500 I would think a 3 ring binder with all the notes inside it already and at least a damn BBQ lunch aren't too much to expect! These two things would cost him less than $20/person but he isn't even offering that.

I got a buddy that had him out to his place - he tripping over himself to go to that similar and highly encouraging me

I ain’t going - hope it great but I ain’t going

But my buddy is a land owner - if I owned my own I may hav more interest but not for $500