Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Serious Deer Talk Forum Big Buck spin off

I am curious. How many acres do you need to control or influence thru neighbor agreement to truly grow some big bucks? I saw something when I was researching that says you have 1 mature buck for every 250 to 300 acres.

Trigger control is tough when you try to manage a club, because people want to try to simplify the rules. I say 3.5 years or older, and get, so basically an 8pt? No, I have some big 6 pts too. I have a big body deer with a small rack I would love to get out of the breeding pool. If you say 6pt or better, which alot of clubs do, most members will shoot any deer with 6pts.


I have 1 buck I have let walk this year, and whats funny, I have seen him in person twice. He looked bigger the second time I saw him. He is sort of right on the line of what I would say meets the lease rules of 3.5 years old or better. But then I see pic's and sometimes I go, nope, and others I go, well maybe.

Maybe I just need to write the rule to say, if you have doubts it's old enough, it's not. That's sort of the position I have taken on this one. But another member might see him and pull the trigger.

I wish I had 5 other guys who would spend about $2,500 to $3K and invest time and effort in. I think things could really change that way.

I have always said if there is no wow factor, then don't shoot. If I have second thoughts about shooting him, then I probably would regret shooting him. I just know that if I kill him, there is 0 chance he will be bigger and can't control the others. I did tell the guys who hunt on my property that there are two bucks to not shoot which one is a stud 4.5 yo that I hope makes it to 5.5 with the other being a freak young buck. They are good with it.

I do not have the answer as it is just site specific...

Realistically or in theory? Because my answer changes based on that realization.

5 members on the same page, leasing 2,000 acres can do some good, especially if you recruit another 2,000 adjoining acres (leased or owned) to coop with.

The typical Alabama timber lease is probably closer to 100 ac per member, so with 20 members on 2,000 acres…no chance of accomplishing anything.

Realistically please.

Set the min age at 5 yo.

Depends a lot on location and neighbors.

Minimum age of 5+, considering average home ranges of bucks at 800-900 acres, with excursions, and the objective to produce a 5+ per 200 acres, with 1 member per 250 acres(or less on this type of management), you’ll need a total of 4,000 acres to be reasonably successful. It’s HARD to get a deer to 5 in AL. It’s harder to get a population of deer with a decent percentage of that age class. Along with the acreage you’ll need overwhelm them with early succession and native cover. Dr Kroll says you need 10k acres of ground to manage 2k acres of deer. I’m not going that far, but it’s not too far fetched. I’ve got one property (free range too) we consistently produce a mature buck per 100–150 acres, but that’s rare and most landowners are not willing to manage the land intensively enough to accomplish that.

If you have trigger happy neighbors 4000 acres may not be enough. If you’ve got neighbors who don’t hunt much, you can do it on 2000 acres.

The sad part is, the vast majority of hunters will never be able to afford 100 acres… 1,000+ is just a pipe dream.

You either have to be born into the land or have very deep pockets to truly grow and hold a population of mature bucks. With that said, I still believe in trigger restraint if the deer doesn’t make you happy, regardless of property size.

Indeed, and that’s why I love cooperatives. The best chance a small landowner has to produce big deer is join his neighbors in like objectives.

Matt, if you were working on initiating a cooperative, and you had already mentioned it to multiple land owners, and they were interested, what is the smallest size property around you that you would do your best to talk with? FYI, for the most part, I have good neighbors already in the scenario that I’m referring to and have some mature bucks as well.

All acreages and all landowners. 😁

I try to get as many involved as possible. When everybody figures out they can work for each other rather than against it is so much better. Instead of being in competition, gotta realize everybody wants the same thing. If everyone can have their hand in the same jar they feel more eager to let deer walk. It’s especially important on parcels that are broken up into small acreages.

We don’t have a problem getting them to 5. We have a problem killing them after they get to 5 because people don’t understand pressure.

They shouldn’t be that hard to kill if pressure can be limited. On most of the properties we manage 5-6 year old deer aren’t any more difficult to kill than any other deer. Growing them is the hard part. With limited pressure, killing them can be quite easy. It takes a LOT of discipline though.

Jhardy, this is going to cost me some money but I was trying to find any opportunity to engage my adjoining neighbors in deer management conversation. I scheduled (and agreed to pay for) a thermal herd survey after the season closes in February for all of our properties. Each of them think the other is shooting everything (one is right, lol). None of us have ever gotten together for a hunting conversation. They both readily agreed so we will all sit around and watch the survey in progress. I’m hoping it’ll be a good opportunity to get them excited about management ideas.

Oh I totally agree. Sometimes I feel like we are paddling the canoe in circles while everyone talks about how much they love canoeing.

Interesting. Haven’t even looked into a thermal survey. Always used camera surveys. Would be a good way to get started. Going to invite them all over to my place for steaks to get the conversation started. Only have a couple holdouts I am guessing.

........or less.

My 5 and up never been easy and pretty much every time i kill - its the last 3 min of legal except last one which was 30 before legal which is very early for me

But my deer are different - this year and past years my deer hammer grass more than corn or bran. One i just killed had no feed at field - but also had no camera which for my deer adds pressure