Ive been on some good ones in TN, but world class is stretching it quite a bit IMO.

A "World Class" lease in TN would be a two thousand acres of mixed ag/timber in Williamson County!

Mabey they meant "third world."

i would agree with that

Wes...We just bumped our minimum size restriction from 120" to 125" this year. Hopefully this will allow some of the 2 year olds being killed another year to grow.

I don't know that I'd consider Ames to be world class but it's a great place to see lots of deer and bunches of 115-120" bucks running around.

Give me a couple thousand acres of heavily wooded land in west tn. and five years to 'get it in shape" and you might be surprised what will come off of it....


I'm not saying that I know what I'm doing, but I do have that much faith in West Tn. deer.......I've seen too many BIG deer come out of heavily hunted areas.....

BH

Give me a couple thousand acres of heavily wooded land in west tn. and five years to 'get it in shape" and you might be surprised what will come off of it....

I don't think I would be surprised. However, the topography would be the biggest factor. Are we talking all ridge-and-hollow hardwoods or river-bottom hardwoods? The difference between the two in results would be substantial.

keeping the deer on the property is the main question, 2000 acres is only 3.125 sq miles, we had a 130 +/- killed on Chaney 2-3 years ago that 24 hours earlier a guy had him on a game camera about 6 miles away, when the "scent" gets in their nose they are going to travel

That used to be the biggest management problem. However, that problem is slowly fading. Little by little, hunters are understanding and practicing older buck management. . . . . . Education is working, albeit slowly...

Looks like Bowater, which IMO arent world class leases!

Looks like W Tn timber company land to me, maybe RiverOaks Timber Co. They are in the process of severing their leases with most of their current clubs in Tn and KY. Their new business model will open their places up for bids, with the winning bidder getting a 3 year lease. One half or so of the places will be control leases where no improvements are made, and the other half will have improvements made by RiverOak.

Wes,

I agree high-grading of the best 2 1/2s is taking place, but what percent of all deer hunters in TN are good enough to seriously affect the 3 1/2 year-old age-class? I'll bet a very, very small percentage.

Secondly, if you consider in Bottom Hunter's 2,000-acre scenario that the hunters/managers can fully manage the habitat, they can produce the kind of sanctuary needed to draw most of the surrounding 3 1/2+ year-old bucks to the property during the hunting season hence protect them from high-grading or over-harvest. In that scenario, they WILL have harvestable numbers of mature bucks.

. . . . . I passed up two different 120 class deer last year looking for something bigger.

I need to stop watching so much television.

I must be surrounded by much better than average deer hunters.
Seriously, I know I'm not the only one who typically gets multiple opportunities at any particular 2 1/2 or 3 1/2 each season.

But this is not just an issue of hunter skill.
Very long gun seasons and the 3-buck limit may be as much a factor in this antler high-grading as collective hunter skills.

Much of my point was that MOST of the better 2 1/2's simply don't make it to 3 1/2. It's mainly the smaller-than-average-antlered 2 1/2's that are moving up to 3 1/2 and older.

And regarding those few better 2 1/2's that do make it to 3 1/2, they are the ones least likely to make it to 4 1/2.

True, they WILL have harvestable numbers of mature bucks.
But they also WILL still have the antler-high-grading problem, i.e. they'll have lot's of 3 1/2 & older bucks with relatively small antlers.

I'm having no problem growing mature bucks, but getting those 2 1/2's with above average antlers to 3 1/2 or older is a totally different issue.

I don't profess to have the answer to how to make this high-grading problem significantly less. On a personal level, I'm trying to focus more on age than antlers.

That sanctuary will draw all bucks pressured by surrounding hunters, including 2 1/2s and the yearlings smart enough to learn hunter avoidance tactics.

I agree with much of what you posted above Wes, but I think you underestimate what could be accomplished with 2,000 acres if the habitat was INTENSIVELY managed.

According to the "averages", the average "hunter" is only killing a deer about every 3 or 4 years? Yet, within a group of over 50 hunters that I know pretty well, nearly all kill several deer annually.

Even the Ames Plantation is not managed THAT INTENSIVELY...

...as I believe their 120 - 125 antler restrictions are still going to take out most of their best 3 1/2's and the very best top-end 2 1/2's.

My take is that (on about 2,000 acres) ALL male deer would have to be passed until they reach at least 4 1/2 years of age;
- or-
There would have to be almost no hunting, i.e. like President's Island (essentially no "management" at all), to even approach "World Class".

Having some idea of what you've accomplished on about 500 acres (and am most favorably impressed)...

this type management will basically never work in areas of Tn where the land is good production land, trees-crops, the deer are just not that important to the land owner, just as in Chaney property, sure we seem to kill above average deer on the property, this is due to antler restrictions only, the mature hardwood trees on this piece of property are more important than the deer or any other game species

its interesting to discuss the what ifs though

I've seen enough older bucks on our 1000 acres the last few years (game cams) to know that if I had 18,600 acres of much better habitat that I could have some big bucks as Ames seems to have.

Truth is, most hunters aren't good enough hunters to shoot 3.5+ year old bucks so getting them to 4.5 and 5.5 wouldn't be to hard unless mother nature took them out. How many do you know that do it on a yearly basis? Heck, every 3 years? I feel pretty confident, that on most properties, most hunters can't shoot 2.5 year old bucks consistently. Most of the hunters on our lease can't. If they could, trust me, they would. At least the ones making the minimum.

Not putting hunters down, just stating the facts. One thing I've learned through game cameras is they are there, in much larger numbers than most think and if most hunters could shoot them with ease, there would be a bunch more in the harvest every year.

World Class is also a term only defined by the individual. Unless there is leases (non fenced) in TN that consistently produces 170"+ bucks, then my personal opinion is there is no "world class" leases here. I don't know of any in the southeast except one in Mississippi and one is Arkansas and I don't have the $100,000+ to join those.

I've seen enough older bucks on our 1000 acres the last few years (game cams) to know that if I had 18,600 acres of much better habitat that I could have some big bucks as Ames seems to have.

Truth is, most hunters aren't good enough hunters to shoot 3.5+ year old bucks so getting them to 4.5 and 5.5 wouldn't be to hard unless mother nature took them out. How many do you know that do it on a yearly basis? Heck, every 3 years? I feel pretty confident, that on most properties, most hunters can't shoot 2.5 year old bucks consistently. Most of the hunters on our lease can't. If they could, trust me, they would. At least the ones making the minimum.

Not putting hunters down, just stating the facts. One thing I've learned through game cameras is they are there, in much larger numbers than most think and if most hunters could shoot them with ease, there would be a bunch more in the harvest every year.

World Class is also a term only defined by the individual. Unless there is leases (non fenced) in TN that consistently produces 170"+ bucks, then my personal opinion is there is no "world class" leases here. I don't know of any in the southeast except one in Mississippi and one is Arkansas and I don't have the $100,000+ to join those.

$100,000 a year seriously? that's unreal!

Clubs exist in TN that cost more than that to join.

what's so good about them, understand that it is probably a very good place to hunt but $100,000 or more

Are they worth that much? In my opinion, no. But what people do with their money is up them them.

If I had that much money to spend, I would join a lease in Iowa!

I saw a Fred Bear interview a couple days ago. He was 83 at the time and had taken just about all the "big" game species in the world except Rhino and a couple more. When asked which ONE big game animal was his favorite, and the MOST challenging to kill, he replied the whitetail. He said he thought that there was nothing harder to kill than a deer with a bow. He mentioned a few specifics like how incredibly "smart" (probably interpreted survival conscious)deer are. I also interpreted that he meant that killing a mature whitetail deer was, in his opinion "the hardest big game animal to kill with a bow".

I think we all often FORGET just how tough these animals are to kill. The TV makes it look easier at times, but chasing free ranging wild, especially pressured deer, can be RIDICULOUSLY frustrating.

I find it more than a little amusing that in just my short lifetime, I have watched deer hunting evolve from that of being VERY excited over just seeing a track, to talking managing for LARGE antlered bucks and actually PASSING on young or small antlered bucks. All in a span of only about 30 years of hunting.

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Very true! But also think how much the deer population as exploded in those 30 years! I'm 31years old and starting hunting in the early 90s, man even then I can remember only seeing 4 to 5 deer a year and that was something amazing! I think especially in TN that the deer population explosion is the main contributor to changes in the way we hunt JMO

THE FACTS STILL AND PROBABLY ALWAYS WILL REMAIN THAT VERY FEW HUNTERS WILL EVER KILL A 150 INCH PLUS BUCK.

In my opinion, the majority of Southeastern hunters will never even see a legit 150-class buck in their hunting career.

sad,but true ,but the are no gates going NORTH!

. . . . . It's in the soil folks.

Wes,
SPOT-ON!
and to beat all, a hunter might just kill a 170 inch grossing buck once in a while!

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