Rifle Season Effects On Daylight Deer Activity - Research Results

The opener of gun season no doubt alters deer movement, but does it make deer movement nocturnal? This is a common claim among hunters and there is certainly a lot of anecdotal evidence reported from the deer woods on the subject, but what does science say? Dr. Marcus Lashley, Dr. Bronson Strickland, and Moriah Boggess discuss a research project that measured deer activity in Mississippi before and during rifle season. The results might surprise you, but there is much to be learned and applied from this study.

Transcript

Moriah Boggess: 0:01

Welcome to Wildlife Investments, where we discuss research, habitat, hunting, and land management with panel of leading resource managers. Wildlife Investments. Have you ever wondered how rifle season affects specifically in daylight? And as a manager, can you do anything to change how use your property in daylight during hunting season? Today we're discussing that question with a cool project out of Mississippi. We've got three of us on the podcast today. We've got Dr. Bronson Strickland out of Mississippi, one of our real deer focus experts. Bronson, how are you doing?

Dr. Bronson Strickland: 0:48

Man, I'm doing wonderful. I'm looking forward to this discussion and how we can educate people to be proactive about and increase their deer sighting and hunting

Moriah Boggess: 1:00

We're talking deer. It's a good day. Absolutely. We also got Dr. Marcus Lashley out of University of Florida, one of our very turkey-focused consultants, but Marcus has done a lot of research with deer over the years, and this uh set is actually from him, his lab, and one of his Marcus, glad to have you.

Dr. Marcus Lashley: 1:20

Yeah, thanks for having me, guys. And, you know, I echo what Bronson was saying. Uh a lot of my interest has come has stemmed from being a lifelong hunter, and that has driven a lot of research like this. And I'm really excited to get into it because I do get that question a lot, what where did all go? And also what can we do about it? And I think this is a perfect experiment to show some insights into how people might deal with it.

Moriah Boggess: 1:49

I love uh I love the topic we're discussing today, and it's very timely for deer season. So just to introduce myself, I'm Mariah Boggus, and I'm another one of the the deer management consultants with wildlife investments. into it. I'm gonna throw it over to Marcus and he can set up the study.

Dr. Marcus Lashley: 2:08

Yeah. Well, you know, we all of us have been hunters since we were little, and we've all probably said it. I know I have, and I know I've heard a lot of say it, and I commonly just hear this around the or whatever, that you know, rifle seasons come oh, the deer went nocturnal. And I think that's stemming from people don't right? Um you you especially in a pro place this uh, the deer that you were seeing disappear. So people assume they've stopped moving. And the data set that we have from Mississippi is uh spearheaded by Don Chance, one of my former students, and uh Bronson and I were working on this together, and uh he was on his committee. And it essentially we had a property, and have probably heard about it. We call it the Longview Property. Uh it's one of our research areas at Mississippi And uh he went out and put a grid of cameras all the property, and I think it worked out to one per less than five acres. I I don't remember exactly what it was. There was 80 plus cameras on this landscape that just running around the clock. And the reason he did that was that we were trying to evaluate deer and turkey use in particular of different habitat treatments, things that we recommend landowners do on their property to habitat for deer or turkeys. You know, this was a demonstration of those on a property, and he was monitoring how the species of interest re responded to it. So because he was running the cameras year-round, allowed us the opportunity to look at some other of interest like what happens to deer use of these areas when rifle season comes in. So that's what we wanted to talk about today is of a spin-off of the major project that we're able to get from this, that we get some pretty insights from what actually happens to deer

Dr. Bronson Strickland: 4:24

Yeah, it was uh it was very interesting to to see this response. And to be completely honest with you, Marcus, uh my interpretation of this uh has bit over time. And and what I mean by that is I think initially we attributed this response to being that that is certainly influencing it, but I there's also a hunting pressure aspect to it as well. So I think there's an interaction of the around us heavily pressured, the place we were managing not as pressured, and then we provided a habitat situation that was conducive to movement where deer felt secure moving during day because they had a little bit of cover.

Dr. Marcus Lashley: 5:16

Uh so just to go ahead and put it out there for I fully thought when we we were looking at deer patterns, and we can look at it for males and and we'll talk about that some, but I fully the last couple weeks of October, first week or two of November before rifle season for deer to sort be in their normal pattern, you know, that that peaking dawn and dusk pattern that we expect deer to be in. I fully expected to see that and then rifle season open and it took shift dramatically to be nocturnal. That's what I expected. But it actually did exactly the opposite of that. And uh when we actually graph out, interestingly, this property, which I've now looked at activity across probably hundreds of properties at this uh it is very common to see deer activity in morning and evening, but on this site, it has particularly prevalent in the morning. So you have a big peak in the morning, and then in the afternoon you have another peak around dusk. But what we saw when rifle season came in is we went from about 50% of the movement or the detections on these cameras. And think about this: when a camera detects a deer, that means it was on its feet walking around, It walked in front of our camera. The about half of those were during the day or the night, you know, so equal movement between the two before hunting season came in, and that around to like almost 75% of our detections are of deer walking around during the day. Exactly the opposite of what we thought was happen and what everybody says happens when rifle comes in.

Moriah Boggess: 7:07

And then Marcus, so I guess starting out to set this up, there's that 50-50 daylight night. Of that 50% that's daylight, can you speak to how much of that was how much of that proportion was morning? Was that another 50-50? You said it was more morning than evening.

Dr. Marcus Lashley: 7:23

No, I'd have to eyeball it, but I would say that probably 75% in the morning.

Moriah Boggess: 7:29

Yeah, that's crazy. And I know myself, and I think most people are evening hunters, it's a lot easier to get out after work or not get up super early and go. Bronson, can you speak to, I mean, with some of the deer movement collar research that you've been involved with over the years, is that morning time movement being larger than the evening? Is that typical? Or is that more unique to this property?

Dr. Bronson Strickland: 7:54

Yeah, I I I think that's real typical. When we look at the data from what we call the Big Black River study, we see the greatest movements, believe it or not, are going to be two hours after sunrise. And we attribute that to that is when we're have the longest or most linear movement meaning that is when the foraging bout is over and a buck or deer are going to their bedding That is when we see when we look at a movement rate, so distance moved over time, that's we see the greatest movement rate is about two hours after. This also speaks to um if if we go back to the data set that Andy Little analyzed from and just a reminder of that was in that there was unhunted and hunted, and we on those hunted areas and heavily hunted it took deer about three days. That was the average, about three days, and we noticed a very decided difference in movement meaning their movements were more tortuous complicated, more twists and turns and less long linear movements. And what what we determined from that is that deer, of course, are still moving during the but they're moving in areas where hunters were not. So we concluded observation rate would be because deer responded to pressure and changed their movement behavior. So, Marcus, this to me is just a great field of that is that we got rifle season coming in. We've saturated the landscape with Deer are moving to a place, they're still during the day, but they're moving on an area as pressured and in an area where they feel hours.

Dr. Marcus Lashley: 9:55

Yeah, I I agree with that. I mean, uh they still are at some risk, I guess, on this property, but probably not nearly to the around it, but we've also created a context in the vegetation structure that they feel safe. So those things are interacting, you know. Basically, I think uh Mariah, some of the the uh from this even supports this idea that we can move to. Um, you know, we kind of created a vacuum on this 500 acres, which by the way is a big long linear A deer could walk across it in five minutes, you from one side to the other and be on two different property owners on each side. It's it's not like it's a big block of timber. You know, it's uh, you know, we we have essentially created a vacuum on that property where we have the best cover in town and it's relatively low on top of that. And essentially, deer, when they, you know, they're going to move some during the day, but we made it that they concentrated that movement on this It's not that they're not going on the the properties, they almost certainly are, and they may be spending a lot of their time there, but during season at high risk, we had the safe haven, so the all the day movement was on us, and that to me really powerful thing. I mean, what is the most common thing that people is their problem? Not seeing them. Yeah. I hear them say, My neighbors are my problem. Well, yeah. Right? Well, I mean, you're not seeing the deer, but uh often attributed to the neighbors are getting my They're killing my deer, that my neighbors have them all or whatever. And I think this is a pretty powerful example where we can create high quality cover and ha and mod our hunting pressure on it, and we're just in the daytime data or uh deer activity. So pretty powerful thing to be able to wield property manager and deer manager.

Moriah Boggess: 12:09

So, Marcus, speaking now towards those neighbors in that bigger context. Um, so just to paint a picture for everyone listening, it's a very pine-dominated landscape, right? High stocking densities on all those neighbors. They're not near as heavily thinned, and at the time of the study, I don't know if any of the the direct had actually thinned their pines anytime recently.

Dr. Marcus Lashley: 12:35

Yeah, all of it was uh in need of thinning for a or second thin and no burning as far as we're And then feeder use. Are they hunting over feeders? Yeah. Is there a lot of pressure? Lots of feeders around it. In fact, I used an aerial one time and could see on the aerial and marked a whole bunch of them to point out that there weren't any on the that we were doing the study on, but all the around it had feeders all over the place. And food pots for that matter. Although there were food pots on on the one that monitoring.

Moriah Boggess: 13:12

So And then and then our understory on this property, to paint that for everyone else, if you were to be in it, that's 40-50% canopy coverage of ponds, uh, from 40 to 60 basal area, and the understory is five tall, there's a lot of plume grass, goldenrod, late bone set, a lot of taller forbs. And so if you're standing in it, it you can't see far. And if you're at deer level, you can't see more than or three feet in front of you. But in a tree?

Dr. Marcus Lashley: 13:45

I would say a lot of so that there is some of the that looks like that at all times, but we were burning different units at different times, was also some that we had used in an herbicide and others that not. So there was some a lot of variability in across those stands, but all of them had better in the understory, and sometimes they also greater food availability that was responding after fire. Other times it might have been better bedding But I think in all cases, uh when you climb up a tree, deer are exposed to you, but the deer do not think that they are. They're walking around in there foraging around, around like they're safe. Whereas when we're elevated up in a stand, we easily see deer in it. We've seen quite a few in it. I have personally witnessed them in it. So uh a couple of things that, you know, just for thinking about it from a from a deer manager especially if you're on a smaller property, but in general, you know, that this was a pretty wild for me to see. Uh, we have other data, I think that you were to show Mariah, showing that we actually saw more and they were even more concentrated during the season.

Moriah Boggess: 15:09

Right. Yeah, I I was curious because I from talking to this, I was looking at the data, and obviously we saw big increase in day use of deer in general, but the next question is well, is that just a bunch of does using the property? Right. Does this translate to potentially you know buck use as well? And I I looked at the data a little bit differently. I just looked at the first week of rifle season and the week leading up to it, and in those two short windows time, um being prior to season, it was pretty much 50-50 buck use, daylight, and night, just like the whole And then during season, roughly 85% of buck on camera were in daylight. And you know that's pretty remarkable. It's the opposite of what you always hear in popular media.

Dr. Marcus Lashley: 16:00

But if you think about that, the these are the same deer that the neighbors now aren't seeing during day because they're on our property, which is and I what I wanted to get to is we're kind of this vacuum, and that is a really valuable thing for you to be able to leverage from a management regardless of whether you have 500 acres or 5,000 creating a place that there's high quality cover that also is a safe haven, and you can do that either by reducing pressure on it, or potentially if a large enough property, uh, you could even think it from having a safe haven sort of in the core of your property, and just something that's high cover that deer want to use that you're not I mean, w how powerful is this to suck in the day movement? Like we don't really care if they run around on neighbors at night, they should be safe, right? But during the daytime, we really have concentrated the activity on a small piece of land where they're safe. At least, you know, as long as we uh we don't to harvest one. Right. So we're we're making that decision. Right. And and we did that without any feeders. You know, that's another thing. I I hear people talk about that same kind of concept really commonly, where we're gonna put a bunch of in the middle of our property and try to concentrate activity around that food. And I'm not saying that that can't be helpful, I don't hear people thaw talking about it from context where we can strategically locate high cover and then reduce pressure on that to the day activity there so that animals are safe in that in that property.

Dr. Bronson Strickland: 17:49

The way I think of that too, Marcus, is in the way that we advise people, and traditionally it is, you know, what should I do on my make it better for deer, see and deer, deer. And it's always, hey, we need to go to uh Earth or Onyx or whatever and zoom out and at the landscape and let's figure out what limiting around you. And so the example you you provided there, might be exactly the opposite of what a lot people would say. You you may not need a big destination food plot in the center of your property. You might need destination cover. Yeah. Oh, the center of your property, and then hunt the periphery of that cover as deer exit property and go to food plots on your neighbors. That that would create a perfect scenario for deer during daylight hours. Yeah.

Moriah Boggess: 18:42

I I was thinking about something else here too, um, make this more relatable to the average hunter. And I mean, in all transparency, myself and I'm probably both of you with our personal cameras, I know when I look at camera usage, and this is anecdotal I haven't actually looked at a large data set like it there's a lot of at least confirmation bias. When you're looking at photos during the season, you see a lot of nighttime photos, right? Especially if you're running on a scrape or something that. And we know a lot of a lot of use of scrapes happens in at nighttime. But I think the average listener will probably hear and say, well, that doesn't line up at all with my right? That just doesn't make sense. But one thing, a point I wanted to make was back to study design you were pointing out, Marcus, is these were distributed on a grid and they were placed in areas where you normally would not have a camera running. There were cameras running in a big block of cover in a random spot, and they might only be able to see 20 in front of them because of how thick it was. We would normally not have a camera sitting there. Uh, but they but for the sake of this study and being to actually measure deer movement across this the and not just selective areas, we were able to see use of the property. And I bet you at the same time, if we had only had running on road systems or on those few food plots on the property, or if we had had a corn feeder, I wager we probably would have seen the same thing most see, where in those openings and those higher um risk at nighttime, like most hunters witness.

Dr. Marcus Lashley: 20:22

Yeah, I'd I certainly agree. I would I wouldn't have expected it to skew And uh I think that's largely attributed to the in how we placed cameras, but uh I don't want people to read into that as it's not relevant. What what it is telling us is that deer are on their feet at those times of day. They're just on their feet in places we aren't I that exactly. You know, what you can ask Don, a lot of these are not places you would want to walk through to go check a camera all the time.

Moriah Boggess: 20:55

Yeah.

Dr. Marcus Lashley: 20:56

And that was my intent, and you know, w our the of that from the beginning was I'd I wanted to create a heat map of the use of the property for deer and turkeys, which we ultimately did. That was uh one of the major things from from Don's thesis that we produced, and it was really because it was the concentration of use is with more intense forest management. So the more we thinned and and uh herbicide use and burning to get that structure uh into that community structure in the understory where dominated and uh, you know, really thick ground that that's where we saw the concentration of both species. They almost look identical, to be honest with you. When you look at the two maps side by side, they look very similar. So that was why we did it that way, but it just to really speak well to something of great interest to the hunting community because we were able to at how the behavior of deer changed when we hunting season. And to me, this is about as good of an argument as I've ever heard for managing a property intensively habitat-wise, and also modulating hunting pressure to concentrate animals to keep them off the

Moriah Boggess: 22:16

One thing, and I think this is probably something is a bigger topic to discuss and break down in a you know a future podcast. But um, you know, managing a property like this for if you didn't manage every timber stand for cover, in words, if you had a shorter fire return interval in some than others, and those being uh shorter, maybe uh you but better forage availability there. And that way you would have some of your timber have thicker cover. You were talking about the variability of uh um you herbicide use and and retention of the canopy and all Uh for the study that was somewhat random across the but when we're working on properties, we often look creating patches of cover that are somewhat predictable in that we don't manage all of our pines to just be a sea of cover with random deer movement all across But you can actually be more strategic than that and how you manage them, put cover in some blocks, manage others to be uh a little bit shorter vegetation, more or more or less forage stands, and those forage stands between cover and a final destitution food source, you could take what we're talking about here and this curve, and if you're hunting right on the edge of that cover block, you could probably really capitalize on morning movement we're talking about.

Dr. Marcus Lashley: 23:40

I I think that's right on the mark. You know, when I have worked with with landowners commonly, even though they usually, when they come to me, are focused on turkey, but most of them a secondary deer interest at least. And uh not to say that I don't ever work with with deer number one, but in in every case, I'm talking to them about trying to design the management so that it makes it more huntable, is what you were just saying. And some of that is based on principles here and on principles from other work that that I have or Bronson or Craig Harper's work with the bedding blocks, that you know, we very clearly can see that deer are anchored to these cover patches, and just they don't have to necessarily be 500 acres, can be five acres. Five to ten acre bedding blocks are are pretty at anchoring deer to it, and if you strategically them so that they are huntable, that can really the the value of that property for hunting for you. It's just, you know, it's it takes some deliberate action, but you can definitely plan out and think from this, you know, based on this data, a lot of daytime use is occurring in that birth that block. And think about how powerful that could be if you're entering your property already knowing where all the deer are. Like they're all going to be in your bedding blocks, and now you can navigate around the landscape safely so that you're not pressuring them because you know where they're at. Yeah.

Dr. Bronson Strickland: 25:27

Literally, Marcus uh gave that recommendation on a site. There was a 15-acre block, and um the the of it was so we're trying to make a decision, do we and you know, pine overstory, but do do we to go in there and spray it and really get it to uh very low herbaceous understory, which is going to be good from a food perspective, or because there was already it's been uh three since the fire with no herbicide treatment, so there was some sweet gum encroachment, of But but we looked at it like this uh relative the property size, it was a small stand, it was situated perfectly the way the road system and it's tucked away in a corner where not a lot of human activity. That is gonna be a great place where we may use fire every three to four years and allow to become a little more woody dominated in the understory and mid-story, but we are relegating that to be deer cover and even deer sanctuary, and then adjacent to that, we're gonna have a greater frequency of spire and in the fire, in this case an herbicide treatment, so that we definitely have more of a this is more this is more food-centric, sets it right up for good hunting.

Dr. Marcus Lashley: 26:49

Yeah.

Moriah Boggess: 26:50

Let me let me pose one question as we're as we're about all this for both of you. Um, the average southern property has several food there's a lot of habitat work, uh, a well-managed there's a lot of habitat work in the forest, and then a food plot, but I would wager 99 plus percent of effort is on food plots in most properties. Do either I I have my answer, but do do do you guys that hunters are missing opportunities to capitalize mature buck you know uh susceptibility to harvest by only focusing on food plots? In other words, what's the hunting application of

Dr. Marcus Lashley: 27:34

You don't need to go any further, I guess.

Dr. Bronson Strickland: 27:37

I'm setting you up. Well, Mariah, like you you and I have on properties before, when you have the to do it, is absolutely keep a series of food or a big food plot. You know, we know with Natasha's work that three, four, five acre is really from an efficiency and attractiveness, that's like the size to be quote destination. But but let's not diminish the influence of plot by just sitting on it and hunting it all the time. Of course, if we got a lot of does to kill, let's open in day, opening weekend, you know, knock some does out into the season, let's some does out. So let's utilize it. But then what we can do, since we know that is going to be a hub of deer activity, let's off of that food plot a hundred yards plus. Let's concentrate some cover patches and make on the periphery of that several different cover patches, and then based on wind, you strategically hunt the cover and go from cover to that food plot and connect cover patches, and what a great buck hunt during the rut. You can just envision those bucks going from patch to cover patch, and then also to the plot.

Moriah Boggess: 29:00

Yeah, it's it's got me thinking, um, you know, the the average hunting effort on a property is and I I'm using this average by saying I I look at a lot of effort uh logs, sign in, sign out data that we we gather across properties and analyze and look at sighting and everything. Oh the vast majority of of hunting effort on on a lot of these well-managed properties is in the evening. And like we're talking about, it's on a food plot. So now compare that to this activity curve we're looking at. The bulk of daylight movement is in the morning. Speaking, you know, Bronson to the the to the big black data you reference, those long movements where deer are most susceptible, where they're they're going long are in the morning, in daylight. They're in the morning. And if anyone is hunting in the morning, a lot of they're just going to a food plot. It's a generally a low effort. They they wake up 30 minutes before sunrise, get to a plot. And I'm I'm generalizing, I know there's people differently. But when we look at at what the data is telling us, are missing out on the biggest opportunity to kill one of these deer when they're most susceptible, which be a morning hunt in cover or adjacent to cover off of a food plot.

Dr. Marcus Lashley: 30:20

Yeah, and I you know, just to reiterate, you're hunting cover and you know that the deer activity going to be anchored to that cover and locating it so that you can access it without it up is where the management comes in, the in managing a property to not just make it more for deer, but also more huntable has to include are you going to access it, knowing the deer are to be anchored to it without screwing that up.

Dr. Bronson Strickland: 30:53

It is really empowering when you can do it and you have the landowner willing willing to do it, is that it it literally changes the the whole and it changes opportunity so much when we as much effort on where is a good food plot to be and how am I going to access that food to where is the really good cover and how am I going to access that cover and hunt the or hunt in between food and cover. I mean, it it's just a game changer. But and I don't think it's a game changer not in seeing some deer, seeing some mature bucks, but just in that overall thing where we started, Marcus, about hunting pressure and You don't have the opportunity in the in that hunt to disturb so many deer on that food plot if you're just hunting a corridor from cover to food. It just decreases the likelihood you're so many deer.

Dr. Marcus Lashley: 31:54

Yeah. Well, and I was just thinking through like how for people that are listening to this, how much do you want to see the bucks that you see on camera? I mean, how much how often do you guys hear that? It's like, oh, I got you know, I got four or five deer on camera, but we don't ever see them during day. Completely nocturnal. And Bronson's put tags on how I don't even know many deer. They're definitely not up nocturnal. They're just moving in a place that you aren't. Precisely. We're talking about being strategic about how you the property so that you can not only produce higher quality deer, but you're also making them more so that you can see them somewhere other than on camera at night. Yeah.

Dr. Bronson Strickland: 32:46

Yeah, I like the way you phrase that. Be strategic of how you manage the property so you can be strategic of how you hunt the

Dr. Marcus Lashley: 32:53

I I listen to people a lot because I really value the hunting community is thinking about. And, you know, I'm I'm trying to hear what the thoughts are about things. And when we're talking about an issue like deer then of course everybody has an opinion on what movement is actually doing. And uh, there's probably plenty of listeners that better data than what we presented here. Uh, at least that's what they're gonna tell us. But I hear it really commonly that my neighbors the problem or something along those lines, and I'm thinking about we need to put a bunch of food in middle of our property to try to get all the deer there. And I don't hear people think about it, you know, that's a defensive baiting or defensive of strategy. But I don't hear people say, you know what, I need to put really high quality cover where deer will safe in the middle and then leave it alone, and how I'm gonna defend against deer going on the property. But I mean, our data show that as clear as it can that that would be a really effective strategy.

Moriah Boggess: 34:00

Kind of uh I was gonna say it's kind of circular almost, that uh a lot of times the same hunter who tell you they're not seeing that deer in daylight, not getting an opportunity to to kill a buck or or, know, a deer they're watching because he's quote unquote nocturnal, but they're scared, they're very afraid the neighbor's gonna kill him on his corn pile versus But logic would dictate that, and I think this is you're getting that with that statement, is that deer's no more susceptible across the line than on them, but if they had better cover, the deer would only really be that that cover during daylight.

Dr. Marcus Lashley: 34:46

Yeah, I mean all of not all of it, but 85% of our in the cover during the day when you can shoot

Moriah Boggess: 34:54

Yeah. That's something that I so um I was looking through data this morning and I was um I was looking at the and I was putting them into into 30 minute bins. And as I went through the day, whenever rifle the thing that struck me the most was yes, daylight increased a little bit. Actually, when you look at it, afternoon movement off in daylight, but nighttime movement dropped off the most. And it made me wonder if if we had talked to the during this study, I bet you they would have all told us all of our bucks went nocturnal, our deer went and that's probably the reason that in the data set not seeing a lot of nighttime movement. Yeah, the fact that proportion is daylight.

Dr. Marcus Lashley: 35:46

Their neighbors eating out their corn pile at night when they're safe. And then they all everybody scurries back to our to hang out all day long in the cover and they walk around picking around in there, eating all day it's safe, waiting on night, the the cover of to go back. And I'm perfectly good with that because aren't gonna get shot over there when that happens.

Moriah Boggess: 36:13

So if you use that pressure, you can use them hunting those corn feeders and over those food plots to your In other words, they are driving those deer to be active, diurnal on your property if you had the right

Dr. Marcus Lashley: 36:30

What a phenomenal outcome, right? Now, instead of your neighbor being a problem, they are ensuring that it's so unsafe during the day their property that all the daytime movement, which is going to happen, the deer aren't going to not during the day based on all these tags on all these deer everywhere. Isn't that right, Bronson? They're gone they're gonna still move. They're just going to now do it on your property you are moderating pressure and providing a safe place for them to forge around during the day. And that's exactly what happened in the data As soon as rifle season started, uh, we literally seeing more bucks during the day. And and that also, like you said, it appears that see less bucks at night because they're on the

Dr. Bronson Strickland: 37:20

So it begs the question why can't more people this? Um well there there's one thing is that a people hunt on leased property, so they can't the habitat. But something I always wonder about too I say marketing, it it typically has this connotation, and I I I don't mean that. But it's a lot easier to teach someone, I to plant a food plot and to, of course, go buy a feeder and fill it full of corn than it is to examine a timber stand or an area and manage for cover. I think that's another level of expertise and complication that's involved with

Dr. Marcus Lashley: 38:12

And investment. Yeah. It takes more time to do it and it's harder work

Dr. Bronson Strickland: 38:18

But then look at opportunity, be all that be it may, what may be most limiting on your is this quality cover. And instead of spending a lot of time and of course we're gonna want to have food on a but to me, this just says look at what can be as much. And from a landscape perspective, even more is gonna be setting up good cover on your You may see better results from that than from food.

Dr. Marcus Lashley: 38:48

You know, uh it made me I don't know if this wants if we want this to go on the air or not. Uh, but I also just kind of thought about when you were saying that, Bronson, I was like, wait a What how many feeders does well you actually have data on this? How many feeders and food plots does the average buck have access to? We'll just say a lot. Lot. So adding another feeder or food plot, why do that to transform how he's behaving? Diminishing returns. But in many of these places, and I I go on a lot of them, and you guys go on a lot of them, bedding and place to feel safe is usually more limiting. And I would say far even more limiting is that cover being located and structured such that you can advantage of it as a hunter. You know, I know people hunt around the edges of but I mean on this property, you can literally in the cover. You can just get up behind a pine tree and see deer walking around in it, and they think they're good. But you can clearly see them walking around in

Moriah Boggess: 39:57

So, um speaking to Your point there, Marcus. I just looked this up. I remember this report from South Carolina DNR from ago. They reported it from a survey, they surveyed and this is uh obviously a baiting state, 10,600 of bait available on the landscape per year. And um so you think about that number and then your and you and I would challenge some of the people out that have this frustration. Are your neighbors the problem or are you just like neighbors? And a lot of the time when folks are complaining their neighbors, their actions aren't that different what their neighbors are doing. What is a lot of times different is what they believe doing or their intention. Um and I I know in the psychology world there's there's an explanation for this that like we all believe that are more well-intended than people around us, we always think that that we're the reasonable person in a situation. And I could see where that might extend even into subject, but the deer doesn't know any different. Your cornpile and your overgrazed food plot full of doesn't look any different than anyone else's. And so even though you think that you're doing the thing, and I know people are probably upset hearing I just don't know that that a lot of people are moving the needle like they think they are.

Dr. Marcus Lashley: 41:33

Yeah. Well, I I just maybe that will help people work this, you know, that uh when Bronson's saying zoom out and look at what's going on around you, that's not just food. But, you know, we we can differentiate, and one that we know to be true is that deer are gonna to cover, and you can be strategic about how you it around your property. One note, Mariah, a little more updated and to home for you, in North Carolina, it's about three thousand pounds per square mile per year. It's still a lot of food. That's a literally a ton of food. Yeah.

Moriah Boggess: 42:20

that's just feeding, not food plots. I just think about the intangible or they're m probably measurable, but we don't necessarily know how that's the ecology of the animal and plant world on that because you just think about the food that's being out there and what it's subsidizing and well, here's I do know putting more of it out there is not gonna the animal's behavior to make them concentrate on property.

Dr. Marcus Lashley: 42:52

I I don't believe that that's gonna happen.

Moriah Boggess: 42:55

Well, that's where I was going with like the are you any different than your neighbor? Because to if you want to have a property that's truly special, you have to be willing to step away from the And oftentimes that means uh it's going to be at least mentally, trusting the process and following habitat improvement versus the typical corn on the small food plot and hunt the food situation. Not that I'm against hunting food, I don't think any of us are, but well, here's another topic for another

Dr. Bronson Strickland: 43:32

You're talking about adding all this food landscape, and the data are clear that there So why doesn't everybody have big fat deer all this food? Again, there's some answers there, and we need to devote that to an episode of just question would be interesting.

Dr. Marcus Lashley: 43:52

I think that'd be a great episode. If there's so much food, why aren't there big fat

Dr. Bronson Strickland: 43:57

Why doesn't everybody have big old boonin' everywhere? So there's that's still not addressing the factor, is it?

Moriah Boggess: 44:04

And why do we still have coal bucks if people have been calling bucks for decades?

Dr. Bronson Strickland: 44:10

Why are there still coal bucks? If they've improved genetics with all this why why isn't every deer 170?

Moriah Boggess: 44:18

I I re I remember even as a kid logically thinking like, why are there still coal bucks if we've been Because it's not, you know, everybody has that that Or I I say that like it's pretty common. Um both great discussions for the future. Yep, absolutely. And I I'm gonna use this to tease a future episode that I want us to have, which is talking about how to set up pine stands and how to break up pine stands for this very thing. Because a lot of properties are rectangular or they large rectangular stands, and they might only have one age of pine on their property. Um in the the general forestry approach would be that as one large one large even age stand. The same year across the stand, a management uh activity is implemented and so on. And in the future, we we need to sit down and hash out and discuss how we are all approaching those types of because I know we we're splitting those up in some we're managing some parts of them differently, whether that's variable overstory retention, understory uh with herbicide or fire. And there's a lot of options I think landowners um maybe sometimes don't realize they have for making a even more intricate and man and hunable, even in a like the Southeast where we are swamped with cover.

Dr. Marcus Lashley: 45:48

Yeah. Along those lines, Mariah, I think we also ought talk about how to make it not here, but in the we should talk about how to make it more hunnible turkeys. Yes. I know you guys are deer nuts, but there's a whole bunch of folks out there who want to know how to do that for turkeys.

Dr. Bronson Strickland: 46:07

Hey, I've got no problem with that. I'm not any good at it, but I got no problem that.

Moriah Boggess: 46:12

Well, then I'll drop this right here for uh this is one of our earliest podcast episodes, but all these will be discussed more. We're just uh, you know, scratching the surface on some of these topics, but we'll be alternating through um, you know, the guys that are on right now, the three of us, but also the rest of our team. So there's seven, eight, nine, ten more of us to to through on different uh topics of expertise. And when it's time to talk turkey, we'll let the turkey guys talk.

Dr. Marcus Lashley: 46:42

Well, uh, I'll just remind the audience, you know, one of the things that helps these podcasts be is for you to to give us feedback and rate it and it with people. But, you know, if you have topics that you want us to cover like this, drop us a comment when you the podcast, and we will come back to those if when we get a lot of them. That uh, you know, that feedback for both uh, but guess Bronson, I'm assuming you would be in this so I don't want to speak for you, but we'll let you agree. Uh, the feedback from our audience from all of our other endeavors has been a driver of not only making us want, you know, have the motivation to bringing content, but it's also helped drive content is because we want it to be relevant to And here I think we're able to connect this much more specifically to hunters and land managers than we in other venues. So, you know, drop us a line on what you'd like to hear about and we'll come back to it.

Dr. Bronson Strickland: 47:48

Yeah, that that has been um that has been one the most fulfilling aspects of my career is we hear from people, Marcus, and they tell us of how this information is helping them manage land and their hunting is better and they're and they're more satisfied. That's what it's all about. And so, yeah, it truly does motivate me to and to get more information out. All right, fellas, if y'all gotten what you out of me, partially.

Moriah Boggess: 48:24

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