Holding bucks on your hunting property takes work. Timber stand improvement, food plot placement and design, waterholes, improving access routes, you name it. Once improvements are made and deer are spending significant time on your land, it’s bound to get any hunter excited.
But can you really influence the buck age structure if you don’t own a large chunk of land? If you do own a lot of land, can you even make that big of a difference?
How Many Acres Does It Take?
Your ability to advance and protect certain age classes of bucks depends on the layout of your property, terrain, personality of the deer on your land, and of course, neighbors. Ben Rising of Whitetail Edge told me, “If the neighborhood is on board with the same goals, I think buck age structure can be influenced greatly with as little as 150 acres. But if one neighbor is not, this greatly reduces the chance of the herd being impacted in a good way for age structure.”
Terrain plays a huge role in whether deer tend to advance to older age classes, so it might take less acres to influence age classes of bucks in hill country. Take a quick peek at the Boone and Crockett map. Counties known for big bucks typically have varying terrain that hides deer and advances them to older age classes.
“One 500-acre neighborhood can be completely different than another 500 acre one. The cover and topography both help a buck’s chances of surviving”, Jared Mills told me. In hilly terrain, it’s been my experience that deer will prioritize a bedding area that gives them a good sightline for viewing approaching danger, rather than holding to the thickest cover.
Mills continued, “Hunting pressure, the cohesiveness of the neighbors and their management goals all come into play. If everyone is on the same page with passing deer, the age structure can certainly be influenced within a few hundred acres. If not, it’s going to take significantly more than that.” Rising said, “If hardly any neighbors are on board with passing deer, even owning 1,000 acres is tough to get a good number of bucks to the maturity status.”
If you think improving habitat could encourage bucks to pump the breaks on traveling far and wide, you might be right, but bucks still tend to venture. A 2014 study that took place in South Carolina on a well-manicured hunting property of 6,400 acres showed that individual personality, not age, played a significant role in determining the home range size for bucks.
Of the 37 bucks collared, it was found the average home range of these deer was 350 acres—which is pretty small compared to the likely home range of deer you encounter. Interestingly, two different 4.5-year-old bucks had home ranges of 521 and just 108 acres, further explaining how deer ranges could be closely tied to personality and habitat needs.
When asked if food can significantly influence a deer to stay on a property, Jared Mills told me “Yes, it is possible. I have seen food play a role in keeping bucks throughout the year. With that being said, oftentimes bucks don’t seek the same type of food or cover during the summer that they do in the fall.”
A recent Mississippi State University study led by Steve Demarais found that of the 92 bucks collared in their study, nearly 30% of them had multiple home ranges. These seasonal ranges varied anywhere from half a mile to 18 miles apart!
Where I hunt in Wisconsin, I have found that bucks 3.5-years old or younger will travel far distances throughout the fall months. After running years of trail cameras, if you have neighbors that shoot any legal buck, you will have a difficult time advancing a lot of deer to the next age class unless you own at least 1,000 acres, which is unrealistic for most of us. Bucks travel large distances during the rut and covering 100 acres over the course of a few minutes of chasing is nothing for a whitetail.
Once bucks reach 4.5 years old, I have seen their home range shrink to the areas with superior habitat. It’s almost like the human equivalent of a young person traveling the world before settling down to start a family.
How to Hold Bucks
You will never keep 100% of the bucks that show up throughout the year. Some bucks will have multiple different home ranges depending on the time of year and habitat availability. You are bound to lose a few after velvet shed. Luckily, you will have a few roamers move in and call your property home for the bulk of October and into November, upping your odds for a mature deer. We also know that some bucks take excursions throughout fall, and the average distance of those excursions takes bucks approximately 1.5 miles, with a few exceptions for much further distances.
To keep bucks on your property, you must fulfill their needs. When asked if they would prefer a property with great fall cover, or a property with excellent food sources but lacking fall cover, both Jared Mills and Ben Rising would choose a property with great fall cover. Ben said, “I’ll take a farm with good security cover and browse, with a water source. A big deer will travel at night to eat if he can, but he’ll bed where he feels safe in the daytime.”
Jared echoed Ben’s exact thoughts, not knowing he would be asked the same question. Jared said, “I’ll take the property with great fall cover. Oftentimes, especially as hunting pressure picks up, I’ve seen deer seek the best cover first, and then will travel for the food. Within good cover, there is usually enough browse for the deer during the day, and then they can travel out to the destination food sources at night.”
Going back to fulfilling a deer’s needs and desires, Ben continued, “Keeping mature bucks around after velvet truly revolves around having everything a big deer wants. Food, security, and water. Keep social pressure from high deer numbers and human intrusion to a minimum in primary zones, such as bedding areas and daytime hangouts.”
We all know for a few weeks of the year, bucks will drop everything to meet their desire to breed. But, it’s hard to know exactly how many antlerless deer you should have on your property. Extremely good deer habitat can house more does and bucks, but keep in mind you will also attract outside deer. Keeping that giant buck around could depend on breeding availability, but there comes a point where too many deer could hurt your chances at a mature buck.
Jared Mills said, “During the fall, so much of holding bucks is influenced by the doe population. If I have a property that doesn’t tend to hold many bucks in general throughout the year, but I know I have a healthy doe population, I don’t get concerned as I know the bucks will eventually be there.”
But if your food plots struggle to grow or you’re seeing tons of antlerless deer no matter where you sit, you should shoot a few does. Mature bucks are no different than an older gentleman needing to step outside during a loud family gathering, most don’t enjoy commotion or social stress, they require a little solitude off the beaten path.
Wrapping Up
In the end, it really depends on the terrain, habitat, and neighbors you’re surrounded by. Sometimes, properties less than 100 acres can help protect bucks from being killed, other times, 100 acres wouldn’t make a dent because of the habitat and lay of the land.
Don’t forget, if you want to shoot bigger deer, you could be the person you need to fix first. I talk to countless hunters who will shoot the deer they know they shouldn’t and come back with a “Well, if I didn’t shoot him, the neighbors would have.” If you really want deer to advance, that can’t be the outlook.
Additionally, you have to be willing to go to great lengths. Why do you think all the TV hunting personalities moved to states like Iowa and purchased land in the same general neighborhood? Because they knew pooling together in a region with great soil and habitat could create world-class hunting neighborhoods.
Are you willing to travel out of state, purchase land elsewhere and leave behind hunting neighborhoods that won’t stray from their small buck traditions?
