shaman
Member
Look, I don't want to sound like I'm bashing Jeff Sturgis and WHS. It's probably just me. I made a point this winter to hit his Youtube channel on a regular basis and make a studied effort to really try to grok what this guy has to say. My head was swimming when I started, and it still is.
Let me explain. I've got 200 acres in SW Bracken County, KY. It has 40 acres of pasture. The rest is a combination of hardwoods and cedars. We've had several windstorms since I took ownership, including a small tornado in 2008. It knocked over a bunch of trees, and added to the already abundant cover. We get a few monsters coming through, but most years an 8-10 pointer is our best. There are gobs of deer. I try to keep my doe happy and let them prosper; they return the favor by acting as bait for the bucks during the rut. Our deer camp is happy. We do all right for ourselves. Last year 5 of us got 4 bucks of with 3 were 8 pointers. Everyone who wanted one, also took a doe. This is Zone 1 of KY; the area is crawling with deer and the state lets you take 1 buck and as many antlerless as you want.
So here is my problem: Sturgis talks about doe factories, buck vacuums, and all sorts of eccentric terms he's made up. He sounds like he knows what he's talking about, but it ends up being what I'm doing turned on its head. He seems like he wants to limit the doe, and run around with a chain saw, and plant elaborate food plots and acres of switchgrass.
For one thing, as I said previously, I try to make my doe happy. I probably have a dozen or so on the property at any time. I'd be hard-pressed to keep them off. I've normally got 1-2 mature bucks resident. More roam through, especially during the rut, but 200 acres is not going to hold much more than that number. We have adequate cover for gobs more deer than we have. In fact, when the shooting starts in mid-November the deer all run onto our place. That's when we do the bulk of our deer hunting. We hunt squirrel and such in the early fall and fill the freezers with venison when gun season arrives.
I don't do a lot of cutting. I plant a food plot maybe once every 5-6 years. The family doesn't run a lot of ATV's or anything like that, but we do camp on the property right up to the start of season. The crazy thing is that a month later, some of the biggest bucks we'll see in the year are cruising through that campground. In fact, there are large bucks that come up to the house and stare at us. If you had to classify what I do, I would have to call it "benign neglect." I'm letting several fields lay fallow. Some of the older pastures that are too hilly to hay, I've let revert to red cedar.
What am I missing with Jeff Sturgis? Is he full of beans, or am I just being dense?
Let me explain. I've got 200 acres in SW Bracken County, KY. It has 40 acres of pasture. The rest is a combination of hardwoods and cedars. We've had several windstorms since I took ownership, including a small tornado in 2008. It knocked over a bunch of trees, and added to the already abundant cover. We get a few monsters coming through, but most years an 8-10 pointer is our best. There are gobs of deer. I try to keep my doe happy and let them prosper; they return the favor by acting as bait for the bucks during the rut. Our deer camp is happy. We do all right for ourselves. Last year 5 of us got 4 bucks of with 3 were 8 pointers. Everyone who wanted one, also took a doe. This is Zone 1 of KY; the area is crawling with deer and the state lets you take 1 buck and as many antlerless as you want.
So here is my problem: Sturgis talks about doe factories, buck vacuums, and all sorts of eccentric terms he's made up. He sounds like he knows what he's talking about, but it ends up being what I'm doing turned on its head. He seems like he wants to limit the doe, and run around with a chain saw, and plant elaborate food plots and acres of switchgrass.
For one thing, as I said previously, I try to make my doe happy. I probably have a dozen or so on the property at any time. I'd be hard-pressed to keep them off. I've normally got 1-2 mature bucks resident. More roam through, especially during the rut, but 200 acres is not going to hold much more than that number. We have adequate cover for gobs more deer than we have. In fact, when the shooting starts in mid-November the deer all run onto our place. That's when we do the bulk of our deer hunting. We hunt squirrel and such in the early fall and fill the freezers with venison when gun season arrives.
I don't do a lot of cutting. I plant a food plot maybe once every 5-6 years. The family doesn't run a lot of ATV's or anything like that, but we do camp on the property right up to the start of season. The crazy thing is that a month later, some of the biggest bucks we'll see in the year are cruising through that campground. In fact, there are large bucks that come up to the house and stare at us. If you had to classify what I do, I would have to call it "benign neglect." I'm letting several fields lay fallow. Some of the older pastures that are too hilly to hay, I've let revert to red cedar.
What am I missing with Jeff Sturgis? Is he full of beans, or am I just being dense?
It has been my experience that deer do what they want to do much more than what we want them to do. 
