|
|
|
|
Tiger Ridge Experiment showcases small tract management
By Hugh McAloon |
|
|
|
“Everything happens for a reason.” “The right place at the right time.”
“It’s better to be lucky than good.”
Take your pick, because all these old adages apply to the best buck of my life. (At least it was the best buck for three weeks.) My job as the group publisher for Deer & Deer Hunting magazine and producer of D&DH TV allows me great opportunities to travel the United States chasing whitetail deer. However, I’d argue that when it comes to bow-hunting, central Wisconsin near my office is awfully difficult to beat. The launch of D&DH’s Tiger Ridge Experiment had me excited as work began on the property in 2006. But wow, was I disappointed to be taking a stand at one of the best Tiger Ridge food plots the evening of Oct. 10, 2006.
Let’s flash back to the start. The beginning of Tiger Ridge Experiment was in 2004, when D&DH staffers came up with the idea to take a piece of “worthless” deer habitat and try to build it into a whitetail mecca in five years. The plan was to take no more than a 200-acre parcel and show the world how — with proper management, food and nutrition — you could create a whitetail nirvana.
We didn’t want anything larger then 200 acres because we wanted to illustrate why you don’t need thousands of acres to manage deer. Rather, the plan was to show hunters how to work with neighbors (cooperative and uncooperative), and illustrate how proper placement of food sources and sanctuaries will hold deer on small tracts. The final requirement was to find a piece of land with very poor habitat. We wanted to start with the worst of the worst to show that Tiger Ridge-like success was possible anywhere.
We found ideal land just 20 miles from the D&DH office. And we were lucky to find the perfect partner in Whitetail Institute. The land we chose had been in a managed forest program for more than 100 years and hadn’t been logged for at least 40 years. It had 150 acres of rolling mature hardwoods with a 50-acre swamp through the middle. During good years, scattered white oak trees produced a few acorns, but there was very little food to hold deer.
The last thing that made this parcel perfect for our plan was it had been open to public hunting for the past 100-plus years. Public land in central Wisconsin is hunted very hard, assuring us there were few deer inhabiting the property.
The first year, we mapped, planned, studied and logged. We marked where we wanted food plots, where we wanted sanctuaries and what areas needed to be logged. We did everything but hunt the property the first year. Neil Dougherty of Whitetail Institute was the driving influence behind this process. He studied everything from prevailing winds, contours and thermals, to where hunting pressure would come from neighboring properties, and then chose sanctuaries and food plot locations and designs.
The real work began in Spring 2006. Loggers took care of the cutting, but we cleared five food plots ranging from one to three acres. We also selected several smaller locations on old logging decks and roads. Honestly, we bit off way more then we could chew the first year. We attacked it hard and solicited the help of the local high-school baseball team, which was trying to raise money for a spring trip to Florida, to pick rocks and clear debris.
The cleared areas were then limed and fertilized, and it was time to plant.
I’ll be the first to admit that we rushed into the project, and the soil preparation was not ideal. However, we were running out of time. Neil and the Whitetail Institute staff again chose the best seeds based on soil, sunlight and the period of fall we wanted to hunt the various plots. We — and I use that word because my 16-year-old son, Dustin, actually did all the planting — planted Imperial Whitetail Clover, No-Plow, Extreme, Chicory Plus and Whitetail Institute’s new blend, Winter-Greens. It was a smorgasbord that would let us see what seeds and plants adapted best to our soils and which deer preferred.
But then a drought came. I would classify Spring 2006 as one of the driest on record for central Wisconsin. We didn’t receive a raindrop for three weeks after we seeded our plots, and I was prepared for the worst. Much to our surprise, after finally getting some rain, our plots began to grow. Our ground preparation of the two plots on the northern side of the swamp was the best, and not surprisingly, those plots produced better then those to the south.
As the plots began to green up and produce forage, I can only imagine what deer were thinking. “Where did these big openings full of great-tasting food come from? This used to be wide-open mature hardwoods.” OK, maybe I try to think too much like a deer, but it had to be a shock for them.
Our most pleasant surprise came from our trail cameras. In fact, the first picture we saw was one of the largest 8-point bucks I’d ever seen. It was later killed on a neighboring property and scored 156 inches. That photo was followed by pictures of buck after buck after big buck. You might argue these deer were already there, but I’ll argue that the food plots attracted them to the area. This was not supposed to happen after only two years.
However, the proof was in the pictures. We had CuddeBack photos of at least five bucks in our Whitetail Institute plots that measured more than 130 inches and two more that topped 150.
Wisconsin’s 2006 bow season opened Sept. 16, and we were greeted with unseasonably warm 80-degree weather. Opening morning produced a blank, and we saw only a few does and fawns that night. The next night educated Dustin about how difficult it is to kill a mature whitetail on film, as a deer we called “Pretty Boy” caught scent or movement from our double-occupancy tree stand.
Pretty Boy became our pet. He was the most photogenic buck I’ve ever encountered. The buck was in the Horseshoe food plot almost every day, and we have 30 CuddeBack photos of him. We also filmed him several times. He finally made a mistake and became the best buck of Neil Bretl’s brief hunting career, at 130 inches.
September and early October passed with deer sightings during every Tiger Ridge hunt, but we just couldn’t get a shot at one of the big boys.
So, you’re probably asking yourself, “Why was he so disappointed to be hunting there Oct. 10?” Was it the October lull? Actually, with our new food plots, we never saw a lull in deer movement at Tiger Ridge all fall.
Weather? Moon? Nope.
I was scheduled to hunt Missouri Oct. 9 through 12, but my host ran into some scheduling conflicts, and we had to reschedule my visit for the end of the month.
I was stuck with an open work schedule and Tiger Ridge for the next four days. The moon was actually perfect, having been full Oct. 7, so Oct. 10 was the third day after the first full moon of October.
Wind direction had dictated that our previous evening hunts had occurred at the two food plots north of the swamp. But Oct. 10, the wind was from the north, and I was chomping at the bit to take a stand overlooking a food plot on the southern side of the swamp. We had some great CuddeBack pictures of a 4-year-old near that stand, but I hadn’t planned to shoot anything. I was just eager to see what would appear at our southern plots. Halfway through the 15-minute walk to the stand, the wind switched and was again coming from the south. I could hike to the northern side or just go home. It was an easy decision.
I covered the half-hour walk in less than 20 minutes but still bumped several deer from the horseshoe plot. By the time I settled into Dustin’s favorite stand, I was sweating and wondering if anything would — or could — possibly go right. I had spent numerous hours at that stand with a video camera in hand. However, Dustin had done 100 percent of the work at the stand.
He did all the food plot work, picked the stand location, hung both stands and placed and checked all the cameras. It was the stand where we had encountered Pretty Boy. There was no way I was going to shoot anything from Dustin’s stand, and the sweat pouring off my brow reinforced that.
Not five minutes after I was on stand, a mature doe moved into the plot from the north. Certainly, if the chance had arisen, I would have shot her, but she was straight downwind and still 100 yards out, so my bow stayed on the hanger. As I watched and waited for her to wind me, a red squirrel was running around behind me. He even ran over an old garbage pile of pop, beer and tin cans. Then, he made one heck of a racket running up the loose-bark birch tree behind me. Wait? Squirrels typically stay away from birch trees, especially when their bark is loose and peeling.
I looked over my shoulder to see a big buck tearing the birch to shreds only
15 yards behind me. Great! Fortunately, the stand provided lots of cover, and when the buck looked away, I removed my Mathews bow from the hanger. The next time the deer looked back, I moved the arrow around the double tree and got the bow pointed in the right direction. The next time, I repositioned my feet. The buck never moved from the birch. He needed to take two more steps for a 12-yard broadside shot. Finally, he scent-checked the entire area before moving toward the food plot. The shot was perfect, and the big buck went crashing back into the swamp. I was positive the shot was fatal. The only doubt I had was that the arrow didn’t pass through the deer. I waited as long as possible and picked up the blood trail.
The swamp is pretty wet, with dense cedars and full of black mud. It was very difficult to see blood on the cedar-root islands. I went only 25 yards and decided it would be best to come back in the morning. There was no sense risking it.
I made the half-hour drive home and told my friends, neighbors and father that I had just arrowed the biggest buck of my life. I couldn’t get in touch with Dustin on his cell phone, but I finally caught up with him at home.
“Let’s go get him” Dustin said.
I wanted to wait, but the Weather Channel predicted severe thunderstorms moving in at midnight. So back we went.
Dustin and my 70-year old father joined me for the track. It was fairly difficult tracking the buck through the swamp, but I knew he was headed toward a nearby island. After we were on the island, the blood trail was pretty easy to follow, and my dad quickly yelled, “There he is.”
I’m a firm believer in “act-like-you’ve-been-there-before” behavior, but we yelled, screamed and high-fived to celebrate the best buck of my life. The 9-pointer, which we later nicknamed “Brow Tine” for obvious reasons, scored
155 inches.
So, take your pick of any of the old adages at the beginning of this story.
They all apply. The last huge piece of luck is to have been blessed with such great friends and family, who share in and support my passion for hunting. To recover the best deer of my life with my father, who taught me to enjoy hunting, and my son, whose company I enjoy more then anyone else, combined to make great memories. I’m truly lucky.
Speaking of lucky, on Halloween night in Missouri, I shot a 160-inch 10- pointer. Spooky.
|
|
|