Sitting on stand waiting for the right time and the right deer to pass by with in bow range and to offer a good shot the archer looks to his left seeing the nice clover plot he had planted earlier in the spring. A young buck fawn and 2 turkeys are busy eating the great bounty of clover now and the archer feels a since of accomplishment in the hard work that he has done. Slowly looking to his right he can see the wood lot and how much new growth has occurred since he had the forester and logger come on to the property and do a selective harvest 4 years earlier. He knows now that the property has increased in valuable nutrition since the work has been done. Additionally he can no longer sit on that stand as in the past and see 100 yards into that wood lot. The timber harvest that left his wood lot very open that 1st year after being cut, now is supplying much food and cover for all of the wildlife that lives nearby.
 
As evening gets closer a doe fawn runs into the field followed by a large doe that is on edge from the moment she breaks cover. The doe stands like a rock looking over the field and surveys the area before continuing out into the clover. She never has her head down for long before looking up again and scanning for danger. Close behind are 2 more does, not quit as large but all of the deer seem fat and healthy on the mid October evening. A young 8 point slowly works his way  in to the field and past the archer. He gives the archer a clear shot, but the hunter restrains himself because he knows that in 2 more years that buck will likely be a great deer and make a prized mount in his home as well as good food for the family. As it is getting closer to dark finely one of the does passes by the archer slowly at 17 yards. He slowly draws his bow and takes aim behind the does shoulder and then releases the arrow. At the sound of the slap of the bow string the doe bolts about 20 yards and then stops. She collapses right there and the archer knows he has made a good decision and has harvested meat for the freezer for winter is coming soon.

Once again the archer go’s to his stand only this time it is early November. As he sit’s on stand looking over the same clover field a beautiful 10 point buck walk’s past him with nose to the ground. This buck is large and has his mind on the breeding rights of November . This time the archer is ready and draws his bow and as the buck pass’s at 20 yards the archer takes aim once again behind the front shoulder of the animal. At the release of the string the deer once again bolts several yards, stop’s to look back at what stung him. He collapse right there in the food plot. The archer descends from the tree and causally approaches the beautiful buck. The hunter had learned how to check the tooth wear of the animal recently and could tell that this buck was 4 ½ years old. It was the hunt of his dreams!

This scene is being repeated more and more across properties in the Great Lakes Region and North America. Hunters are learning that by improving the habitat on their properties and harvesting does instead of young bucks, our hunting and the health of our deer herds are going to get better. That is what Quality Deer Management is all about. QDM is about healthy habitats and healthy deer herds. It is also about people learning the difference between just taking from the resource and being a good deer manager.

Growing up in Northern Indiana and later moving to Michigan I could see the difference in the deer herds. As recent as the 1980’s deer populations in Northern Indiana were fairly low and in Northern Michigan were extremely high. Today at my farm in Northern Michigan we can still see the damage that the high numbers of deer caused to the habitat in the form of browse lines across the land. That damage happened some 10 or more years ago and is still visible in many areas today. When you start to see browse lines on a property or across the land it means that the deer don’t have enough to eat or that there are to many deer on the property. They are basically eating them selves out of house and home. That same situation is happening today in Southern Michigan. If you don’t know what a browse line is, stand up and put your arms out at shoulder height. That is a deer’s life, from that height down. On the trees along fields if you look you will see that evidence of the deer feeding on them and causing this damage. Folks it’s not natural to see this on the habitat unless the deer herds are getting to high in the area. Deer generally eat the best food first and then as that food source runs out then they move on to less quality food sources. Once the damage is done it will take many years to recover if ever.

Many people say that living in an agricultural area the deer have plenty to eat, they go on and try to justify that by saying that the deer are still having plenty of fawns. The fact of the mater is that yes the does will have fawns but in times of winter, after our farmers pick all of the crops with the new equipment that leaves literally nothing in those farm fields, what are the deer going to eat to remain healthily through out the months of winter until spring green up?  (Agricultural lands artificially build our deer herds in those areas). They eat or browse on twigs and tree sprouts (woody browse), and hard mast such as acorns. Don’t get me wrong, that can be good stuff if we can supply enough of the right things. They need the young and tender things that came with managing our wood lots and old farm fields for good re-growth. When good food supply’s are limited the deer actually use their body’s or their skeletal system to supply them enough nutrition to get through until spring green up. This causes winter stress.

Another area covered in the story above was the fact that the hunter harvested a doe. In the past under the management styles that we had across the country( restoration or traditional deer management) we protected our does so we could build our deer populations. Today our deer populations are as high as they have been in our life times as well as in the history of our country. Today the deer populations have reached around 30,000,000 across the Whitetails range.
It truly is a time that we really need to look at how we manage that resource for the future. The other thing that those same deer management styles that built our deer herds did was they created an unnatural ratio between the bucks and does as well as very little age structure with in our buck populations. We were harvesting our bucks at a different rate then we were our does, and basically very few bucks were surviving past that yearling stage of life.

The decision to harvest does in an area need to be made upon observations of the sex ratios of the adult deer herd. Not all areas need to have does harvested but in general at this point in most cases they do. Until our deer managers (hunters) start to balance our deer herd through 1 to 1 harvests (bucks to does) the general rule of thumb will be that yes does need to be harvested. Also harvesting does earlier in the season have great benefits. To help you understand this point let me tell you that bucks and does are born basically at the same rate. 1 to 1.  Many different factors effect the buck to doe ratio but it has been our management style that has caused the biggest difference in these natural ratios.

Would most hunters prefer to harvest big bucks? You bet they would, but many circumstances cause them to go on and shot young bucks that if left go for a couple of more years would be more mature like the buck of their dreams. Maturity for the Whitetail deer is around 5 to 7 years of age. These young or yearling bucks that are harvested are generally only 11/2 years of age. They are the easiest ones to harvest because they are the dumbest deer in the woods.

Doing good forestry management to improve the amount of natural browse available and to release hard mast species such as oaks and other nut producing trees, managing our old fields for forbs, soft mast, and fawning cover will increase the amount of food available and better cover for the existing deer. Actually managing the deer population to with in the carrying capacity of that land will make our deer herds much more healthy as well as more socially acceptable. As our deer herds grow the habitat quality declines.

So what is QDM? QDM is nothing more then  harvesting the right deer for the right reasons so we leave the deer herd and the habitat in better condition then we found it! The cornerstones of QDM are Herd Management, Habitat Management, Herd Monitoring and Hunter Management.

So are we ready for QDM? You bet we are. QDM is one of the biggest things to happen in this country to do the right things for our deer herds and habitat in our lifetimes. QDM is the future of deer hunting in our country.

To learn more about QDM or the QDMA you can ask me questions through this web site or go to qdma.com.

Happy Hunting,

Bob DuCharme
Great Lakes Regional Director
Quality Deer Management Assocation