Awesome Sturgis article - highlights Waupaca county

I respect Sturgis, and he's forgotten more about deer than i know, but i am questioning this. So my habitat is so good that only does live there. The mature bucks are living elsewhere because there is no room for their hermit-like nature.
So i would rather see two deer a day, if one of them was a booner? Vs seeing 20 deer a day with one of them a booner?
It seems to me that if your habitat can hold the number of deer living there, what have you to lose?
If you want to hunt loner bucks, then start hunting ditchlines next to the interstate. In November, you cant keep the boys from the girls.
 
First of all, that's an old article, so not sure if he's really spot on "again."

Secondly, I don't buy into what he's selling at all. Ultimately, he's a salesman. He wants you to buy something. He's figured out his niche and created a buzzword - doe factory.

I'm going to be honest and say that I really have no interest in what happens in Wisconsin. It might as well be the moon for all I care because it has no relevance to me down here in South Carolina. For my hunting situation, I have gone out of my way to create what he would stupidly call a "doe factory" and I'm fairly that if I changed my methods to what he recommend my hunting would suffer greatly. In reality I've created a deer factory.

Like most things hunting related, people love to over complicate and blame their problems on someone or something. Guys like this love to take advantage of that because it provides a living for them. More power to him, but just remember that he's a salesman.
 
I'm with cut on this one. Snake oil IMO.

Classic non sequitur: "Nearly a 4.5:1 doe to buck harvest ratio over a 10 year period, is a strong indication of a doe factory habitat problem."
 
The term doe factory is a catchy phrase; it was catchy when I first heard it twenty-five years ago and now again with its reinvention it is catchy again. As with anything it loosely does have some merit but not I believe as it is being sold in this go-around. As Fish and Cutman have said or eluded to here they are creating deer factories not doe factories. And there is no question that we all can up our property’s production of deer by helping our land to produce more food and cover and thru manipulating the distribution of that food and cover.

I want my property to run on the maximum production of food and cover that the property is capable of and within the limits of time and resources available. This produces the most amounts of deer and the best overall hunting for us.

One part of this discussion that has merit for me is the balancing of food and cover to the seasons. Here if this property has too much candy type food in the dead of winter too many visiting deer move in and can destroy the natural habitat leaving just the undesirable plants with no competition. It is obvious yet not necessarily thought about that there are many plants that the deer will devour if the deer are there while also obviously they will not eat if they are not there. Examples would be cedar, blackberry, and red pine to name just a couple that can get 100% browsed(meaning within their reach) if within a couple of hundred yards of a planted food source. Conversely those same plants are often untouched just a short distance from there in a normal winter and without an extreme amount of deer having moved in. This becomes quite evident when an early spring browse survey is done. While I think that the more natural browse one has the better, planted food during winter months is good if not overdone.

On the other hand come spring, summer and fall, having the best cover, low pressure and abundant food is in order. That is not to say that we should have so many resident deer going into winter that the land can’t support them. It is each land owner’s responsibility to keep the population in check with the property’s winter carrying capacity. Admittedly most property owners in this area do not pay attention to the winter needs of the deer herd and that of course is a huge hurdle for many of us.

We have all seen that yes the bucks do seem to bed away from the doe groups but it is not conceivable that a rutting buck would spend his days roaming a woods void of does when a neighboring property has lots and lots of them. I've managed to stay out of this discussion for three years now but the doe factory idea as described just doesn't make any sense and that's my final take on it.
 
Chainsaw - I can see your point from what I know about your place. You're trying to build your herd.

Unless you've been in Waupaca county it might be hard to understand. It's perfect deer habitat. Crazy wildlife reproduction - I've never seen anything like it and I've lived all over WI.

Opening day 2015 I heard 100 shots in the first 27 minutes of season.

If I wanted to I could easily raise the population on my farm where I'd see 50 deer a day. Easy

If you remember Pope, he's seen 100 deer in a sit routinely

Sturgis is right- you're better off not doing this and having a reasonable population. Food plot strategy is huge in this. Right now I hardly have a deer on my farm. I will not till about July. It makes a difference
 
What exactly is your point? Already in this thread you've been given examples of how Sturgis is wrong, yet you counter with "sturgis is right."

Sturgis is definitely not right for my situation.

Rather than starting a million threads about Waupaca county, why don't you start one big one and update it with your ever-changing thoughts?

Edit - Also, it's possible to manage a habitat that promotes doe herds but also keep the population in check. They are not mutually exclusive. I have several different doe groups on the land I manage, and I try to shoot at least one doe from each group every year. Sometimes I'll shoot 5 does a year, sometimes I'll shoot 10 on essentially 300 acres. I have an adult buck to adult doe ratio of close to 1:1. My doe factory allows me to shoot deer every year for the freezer and pass on young bucks to focus on mature bucks.
 
What are you talking about?

If you have too few deer you can't understand this situation

If you change you're food plot strategy you can have less deer. Spreads them out. Helps fix the high population problem
 
Cut - from what I saw on the club I hunted hogs on last month in Charleston. The culture of baiting and using corn is not even close to what we do in WI. Your woods are so thick I can imagine over browsing being a problem. Southern boys like killing things. My brother shot over 30 deer this year and is average

There's so much more land. Seemed to me dpsm was much less than I am used to but hard to tell. Where I am from 3-4 guys hunting a 40 is typical

Completely different world.
 
Bull, You are 100% right in that your area is completely different than mine. Somehow it seems the deer in your area can move off of your property and make the winter just fine and come out of it healthy. However here if it weren't for the very few us scattered thru town that put in the extra effort to see that our properties can help the deer make the winter then many more deer would simply die and come fall there wouldn't be enough to draw to our properties to bother with. I am glad though that what you do seems to work in your county for you. Question--If everyone in your area had no deer on their property all winter where would they stay?

It may be completely different where you are but for me here--not providing winter food for the deer on my property would be irresponsible on my part. I would feel like I was first being unfair to the deer and second that I was relying on my neighbors to do what I should be doing. If I did rely on my neighbors to winter the deer and the deer did survive it surely would be easy to draw them back come fall with my then not browsed no pressure woods and plots. I just wouldn't feel right about it.


And I think we would all agree that food plot strategy and pressure are key to populations. This is not something new I don't believe to any of us.Of course properties are better off with a reasonable deer herd. Reasonable to me equals up to 70% of carrying capacity; others might think 50%. Fifty or seventy % is irrelevant in this discussion but what matters is most of us can improve the carrying capacity of our properties.
edit-will be off line for the rest of the day mostly--wife has a big list for me.
 
Chainsaw said:
Bull, You are 100% right in that your area is completely different than mine. Somehow it seems the deer in your area can move off of your property and make the winter just fine and come out of it healthy. However here if it weren't for the very few us scattered thru town that put in the extra effort to see that our properties can help the deer make the winter then many more deer would simply die and come fall there wouldn't be enough to draw to our properties to bother with. I am glad though that what you do seems to work in your county for you. Question--If everyone in your area had no deer on their property all winter where would they stay?

It may be completely different where you are but for me here--not providing winter food for the deer on my property would be irresponsible on my part. I would feel like I was first being unfair to the deer and second that I was relying on my neighbors to do what I should be doing. If I did rely on my neighbors to winter the deer and the deer did survive it surely would be easy to draw them back come fall with my then not browsed no pressure woods and plots. I just wouldn't feel right about it.


And I think we would all agree that food plot strategy and pressure are key to populations. This is not something new I don't believe to any of us.Of course properties are better off with a reasonable deer herd. Reasonable to me equals up to 70% of carrying capacity; others might think 50%. Fifty or seventy % is irrelevant in this discussion but what matters is most of us can improve the carrying capacity of our properties.
edit-will be off line for the rest of the day mostly--wife has a big list for me.
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We live in a great area for hardwood lumber. Once the corn was gone on mine they moved north eating the tops from the logging. They will move to the farmers clover and alfalfa this spring. I'll have some back in July when my beans get big enough
 
It seems that this theory is based on grossly overpopulated (by deer) areas. Yes, I understand that by providing additional food and cover, we can increase the carrying capacity of any habitat. We've got to acknowledge though that there IS such a thing as too many deer per acre/sq mi/etc. I know that the hunter in us tends to want as many as possible, but if we're honest with ourselves, if we kill 30 does on a 500 acre farm (Sturgis talks about "small" properties), and they are immediately replaced by 30 more - the area has an overpopulation problem. We can attribute the influx to pressure on surrounding properties, but if those does don't return to their original areas shortly after the pressure subsides, it is evident that the habitat they came from wasn't supporting them well. Inadequate habitat for the number of occupants.

What Sturgis advocates is degrading my land's habitat so that the neighbors' habitat takes care of the deer most of the year. Then I attempt to draw 'em back in time to kill them. Seems selfish and irresponsible, as Chainsaw just pointed out.

A "factory" implies that we are producing something. What Sturgis describes is not a factory, it's a sink. Those 30 does are not deer produced in the deer factory; most, if not all of them came from somewhere else.
 
ng270 said:
It seems that this theory is based on grossly overpopulated (by deer) areas. Yes, I understand that by providing additional food and cover, we can increase the carrying capacity of any habitat. We've got to acknowledge though that there IS such a thing as too many deer per acre/sq mi/etc. I know that the hunter in us tends to want as many as possible, but if we're honest with ourselves, if we kill 30 does on a 500 acre farm (Sturgis talks about "small" properties), and they are immediately replaced by 30 more - the area has an overpopulation problem. We can attribute the influx to pressure on surrounding properties, but if those does don't return to their original areas shortly after the pressure subsides, it is evident that the habitat they came from wasn't supporting them well. Inadequate habitat for the number of occupants.

What Sturgis advocates is degrading my land's habitat so that the neighbors' habitat takes care of the deer most of the year. Then I attempt to draw 'em back in time to kill them. Seems selfish and irresponsible, as Chainsaw just pointed out.

A "factory" implies that we are producing something. What Sturgis describes is not a factory, it's a sink. Those 30 does are not deer produced in the deer factory; most, if not all of them came from somewhere else.
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ng270, I agree with your post but I just want to clarify what I meant tone wise. For me I would feel selfish and irresponsible doing that here. I consider my neighbors that do it to be irresponsible but not selfish;they likely don't have a clue. Every property area is different. For example on Chummers new land on Tugg Hill, he doesn't feed a single deer all winter. It is because the deer migrate the heck out of there in late November. If the deer stayed they would die most years no matter how good the property is. Thus in that location there simply is nothing that can be done;the hundreds of inches of snow coupled with zone 4a temperatures is simply too much for the deer. Every property area is different.

As regards Bull's property, only he and his neighbors can decide whether that strategy is appropriate or not in his neighborhood. As I said, its not acceptable for me here but I certainly have no clue of the conditions in others property areas especially that far away.
 
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Im in coastal NC, and grew up in the piedmont of NC. Around here if you are missing food and habitat for 1 or 2 seasons a year, the deer have so many other options of good habitat that if they leave, they will not come back, why would they? I am within a mile of a 70,000 acre public land that has great cover and routinely has large areas that get burned each year. Great deer and turkey habitat. If "my" deer leave, what would make them come back?
 
Point taken, Chainsaw. I agree that every area is different, and certainly wouldn't call someone in Chummer's situation selfish.

Didn't mean to put words in your mouth!
 
I do not see where this concept has any validity in a healthy deer herd.

My definition of a healthy deer herd is:
High quality habitat
100% high quality nutrition 365 days a year
Balance B/D ratio--1-1 or 1-2
Balanced age structure with plenty of fully mature bucks and does
Population appropriate to the habitat
Deer behavior reflecting a natural response to the environment vs. highly stressed deer with perverted movement patterns
Perhaps some more elements but thats off the top of my head.


Now, let these elements get out of whack and the rules for 'normal management ' change.
I've never been to Waupaca County but it doesn't sound enviable
100 shots in 27 minutes
Small highly fragmented properties
3-4 guys hunting a 40
Seeing 50 or 100 deer a sit [ or even 1/4 of that ]
None of this seems to me to create a 'normal' mgt. environment


What I believe is that ideas like this have no relevance when the opportunity for high quality deer management is available. There intensive focus on the basics are all that is required.
NUTRITION available for the entire herd everyday of the year.[ With all the subsets required to ensure this ; habitat, population and age structure mgt., nutrition sources etc ]
Let deer age. Age is always your friend.

And me, I like as high recruitment as I can get as this ensures ample bucks in the pipeline for the future
 
Baker said:
I do not see where this concept has any validity in a healthy deer herd.

My definition of a healthy deer herd is:
High quality habitat
100% high quality nutrition 365 days a year
Balance B/D ratio--1-1 or 1-2
Balanced age structure with plenty of fully mature bucks and does
Population appropriate to the habitat
Deer behavior reflecting a natural response to the environment vs. highly stressed deer with perverted movement patterns
Perhaps some more elements but thats off the top of my head.


Now, let these elements get out of whack and the rules for 'normal management ' change.
I've never been to Waupaca County but it doesn't sound enviable
100 shots in 27 minutes
Small highly fragmented properties
3-4 guys hunting a 40
Seeing 50 or 100 deer a sit [ or even 1/4 of that ]
None of this seems to me to create a 'normal' mgt. environment


What I believe is that ideas like this have no relevance when the opportunity for high quality deer management is available. There intensive focus on the basics are all that is required.
NUTRITION available for the entire herd everyday of the year.[ With all the subsets required to ensure this ; habitat, population and age structure mgt., nutrition sources etc ]
Let deer age. Age is always your friend.

And me, I like as high recruitment as I can get as this ensures ample bucks in the pipeline for the future
Click to expand...

Like. Like. Like. Very well said.
 
I've always been Luke-warm on Sturgis. My biggest problem with him is that he uses so many unnecessary and sometimes inaccurate words to express his ideas. When someone does this it makes me suspicious they are intentionally over-complicating things in order to either impress or sell something. When Sturgis comes up I usually throw out this opinion wondering if others feel the same way, but usually nobody responds, so I should probably get the hint, right? Maybe Sturgis is off-limits because he's so revered in the industry.

A few months ago Quality Whitetails ran one of his articles (I couldn't believe it). There was an illustration with the article with a caption underneath written by an editor that said as much in one sentence as it took Sturgis to say in several pages.

Okay, I'm done. I really hate to be a "basher", but I've wondered if others have noticed this. Back to "doe factories"...
 
Let me take a stab at summarizing the "doe factory" theory in a couple sentences:

You'll have better buck hunting if you limit the number of does on your property during summer by not planting summer food and by not providing abundant fawning cover. This keeps more bucks on your property year round and makes for good hunting when you attract the surrounding does back to your property in the fall with food and fall/winter cover.
 
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