My first year as caretaker on the farm, a spread of around 1,000-plus acres in southeast Arkansas, saw me take zero deer and only get a look at three whitetails on opening day and two the next day. A year removed from my deer doldrums and after some cooperative efforts with a cousin of the landowner, I found myself in a tower blind overlooking a food plot that the cousin, his son and I had crafted.
The end of archery season was only a month or so away, and I was already reminiscing about the doe and buck I had harvested over the food plot. I had also shot two more does on the farm, and I definitely attributed their presence to the work we’d done to enhance their winter food supply.
The roughly 2 acres of lush green in front of the stand marked my first major push to plant a food plot in the more than two decades I’ve hunted whitetails. Those 2 acres also pushed me to ponder what else could be done for the deer, and for our group of hunters, to keep the whitetails on the farm and healthy 365 days a year.
That is where I enlisted the knowledge of Cory Gray, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s deer-program coordinator and a source for many of my stories over the years. Gray has been with the AGFC for about 15 years, serving nine of them in his current area of expertise.
Hunting plots
“I have deer hunted most of my life,” Gray said, “and have spent a great deal of time hunting in the northern Ozark region, and in the last 16 years in south Arkansas. The hunting I enjoy most is sitting in a stand overlooking a wheat patch and shooting does.”
In fact, food plots like those wheat patches are the preferred method that Gray utilizes for his own deer hunting.
Such plots are often referred to as kill or harvest plots. The general purpose is to allow hunters to view as many deer as possible. That extended viewing period of animals in the local herd increases the likelihood for hunters to harvest a proper number of mature does and bucks.
Basically, one can think of the time hunters spend on a food plot as the personal equivalent to the scouting done via game cameras. Animals that need to be harvested are identified and noted, making it easier for hunters and landowners to manage the herd.
“I use food plots to aid in deer removal. It is not a secret; I promote adequate doe harvest. Food plots allow me to reach this goal,” the AGFC’s deer-program coordinator said.
Just as Gray turns to food plots, especially during late-season hunts, to harvest his whitetails, he said many other Natural State hunters do the same.
“Typically, we see food plots are more beneficial in late season, or late winter, when the native food sources are scarce or depleted. This is when a wheat and oats and clover patch really shines. These supplements can aid the deer from the period prior until spring green-up,” he said.
“But, I will stress [food plots] are supplemental and not primary food sources. Proper habitat is the key, although not as sexy to talk about, but crucial.”
Enhancing habitat
“God knew what he was doing when he created native vegetation,” Gray said, further explaining why food sources already available to whitetails are more important to the animals than supplements. “I consider supplemental feeding (e.g., corn, food plots, minerals) to be just that — supplemental. They should not be considered the primary food source for deer.”
For instance, the AGFC’s Gray said, deer are more focused on natural food sources like persimmons early in the fall, then on acorns and pecans through the middle of hunting season. It is generally only after these sources have been depleted that the deer will turn to food plots as their major source of nutrition.
For the hunter, the key is to understand this transition, Gray said.
“I believe a vast majority of hunters focus on food sources while hunting,” he said. “The problem for hunters is when food is in abundance. Those who use bait don’t see the strong influence of the applied bait. Deer focus more on native food compared to bait.”
Gray knows that managing the herd for the deer and for the hunters is like the real-estate mantra of “Location, location, location” being the three most important facets in that trade. With deer and their diet, that saying is replaced by “Habitat, habitat, habitat.”
“I encourage hunters and landowners to walk through their woods and identify available food (5 feet high and below),” Gray said. “In some parts of the state, forested areas have a closed canopy, which results in no sunlight — no food. Hunters and private landowners are encouraged to contact the AGFC and discuss habitat management with our private-lands biologists located throughout the state.”
Enhancements can take the form of fertilization programs, plantings of native trees that produce hard or soft mast, proper removal of undesirable trees, or leaving areas to grow up in native vegetation.
Understanding deer needs
“We work with landowners who focus on deer year-round, but I am not certain these are the majority,” Gray said. “I do believe a large number of hunters start thinking about deer around October and stop after Thanksgiving.”
Changing that mentality is one key to providing for the deer, which in turn provides better opportunities for hunters.
Among the hardest times for deer in Arkansas are the days in late July through August and early September, Gray said. “The 100-degree weather is hard on us all.
“Does have finished weaning their fawns, and bucks are nearing completion of antler development,” Gray said of the often crucial period in late summer, adding that lactation has been a huge energy demand on the does for the preceding several weeks.
“In addition, when temperatures are extreme, native vegetation loses its palatability because of temperature and reduced rain amounts,” he said, then providing numbers to illustrate the significance of palatable vegetation.
“The summer of 2014 was above average on rainfall, which equated to vegetation being more palatable for a longer period of time. Native vegetation is the key — high diversity and plenty of it. Food must be on the ground,” Gray said, further emphasizing, “Keep in mind one deer will consume an average of 8 pounds of vegetation per day. That is 2,900 pounds of forage for one deer for one year. Multiple 2,900 by the total number of deer on the landscape — that is a huge amount of food that must be available every day.”
Of course, Gray continued, there are other times and needs that enhancing natural vegetation can satisfy.
“Lactating females require high energy demands from May through August,” he said. “We see an increase in female body weight beginning in September; fawns are weaned, and she can start eating for herself.
“A buck’s high energy demand is in fall and winter due to the rut. Buck body weight will start to decline in November
and will continue to drop until spring green-up. Bucks may lose 30 percent of their body weight during the rut.”
Measuring success
“Habitat management is key,” Gray said. “Yes, we work with private landowners and WMAs (wildlife management areas), where a great deal of habitat work takes place. This sort of work places green on the ground, which can be related back to herd condition.”
Of course, whenever words like habitat management are thrown into the conversation of herd management and hunting, some will respond that such work will not help them on their land for one or more myriad reasons, such as having only a small piece of property.
Regarding such negativity, Gray said, “We can always maximize a property. I have never visited a property that we couldn’t find some sort of way to increase habitat quality. In regard to deer, yes, more acreage is better, but even 100 acres is one puzzle piece to the deer’s range. You must maximize habitat to benefit the wildlife.”
Furthermore, Gray also addressed the issue of soil being a limiting factor.
“We have always said antlers are genetically based, but environmentally influenced, meaning you can have the genotype for a great set of antlers, but without proper nutrition, the body may never live up to its full potential. The same can also be said about age; if a buck doesn’t live long enough, you will never see his true antler potential.”
As far as manipulating the soil, Gray said, “Worry about the things that are controllable — placing food on the ground for deer to consume and ensuring the proper deer density and age structure.”
Basically, he said, maintaining quality hunting and a quality herd comes down to proper habitat and deer management.
Asked what activities that would entail, Gray summarily said, “I want to make sure I have proper, diverse habitat; provide some supplemental food by planting a wheat, oats and clover mixture in the fall (September); follow that up with some warm-season plantings (partridge peas, cow peas, forage soybeans, etc.) in the spring; and make sure I don’t underharvest my does and overharvest my bucks.”
For more information on deer-herd management, contact Gray at Cory.Gray@agfc.arkansas.gov or (877) 367-3559, or visit www.agfc.com.
Staff writer James K. Joslin can be reached at (501) 399-3693 or jjoslin@arkansasonline.com.