Raising Monster White-Tailed Bucks with Hurricane Creek’s Todd Ouellette
Day 2: Hurricane Creek’s Todd Ouellette Explains What the Facts Are for Growing Trophy Bucks
Editor’s Note: The number of deer in enclosures and under high fence is growing across the country as more of today’s hunters want to take trophy bucks but have less time in which to do it. In recent years, the solution to this problem has been enclosure hunting. Like most hunters, initially I wasn’t in favor of enclosure hunting, until I learned more about it. I’ve learned that the people in the high-fence business know how to raise big bucks quickly. Too, these business people have the entrepreneurial spirit of risk taking and problem solving. To learn more about how to raise big bucks quickly, I’ve talked with Todd Ouellette, president of Hurricane Creek Lodge in Red Bay, Alabama. Ouellete has been successful in raising big bucks in a short time for the hunters who want to take trophy bucks but don’t have the time or the money to buy land and invest 6 to 10 years in quality deer management.
Deer breeders have learned how to genetically engineer deer to produce bigger bucks in a shorter time. Americans aren’t noted for their patience. In general, we want the biggest and the best, and we want them now. We’ve seen this throughout the entire spectrum of wildlife, as evidenced in genetic-engineering programs at companies like American Sport Fish Hatchery in Montgomery, Alabama, that created the Tiger Bass, a cross between a female Florida bass with a proven history of producing bass that weigh 10 pounds or more and a super-aggressive northern bass. The female bass from this cross can reach a weight of 8 pounds in 4 years living in ponds that supplementally feed the bass throughout the year. This growth is phenomenal for a black bass, yet this size of bass is what the American bass fishermen want to catch. Since Mother Nature takes much longer to produce a bass of this size, American Sport Fish Hatchery has developed the Tiger Bass.
Most of the Tiger Bass produced are purchased by pond owners and grown in their ponds to provide bass for the pond owner and his friends to catch and/or to produce income. When fishing these trophy-bass ponds, you may catch and release 100 bass weighing 8 pounds or more, per day. To fish these trophy ponds, fishermen may pay $250 a day, per person, to as much as $500 a day or more, per person. Most bass fishermen are willing to pay this exorbitant amount because opportunities to catch 8-pound or larger bass are very rare. When fishing these types of ponds, fishermen know these bass are swimming in the ponds. So, their likelihood of catching a big bass, possibly the bass of their dreams, increases by 100%.
This same philosophy of growing big bass quickly and making them available to bass fishermen for a fee is the same philosophy that has sparked the growth of deer breeding and enclosure/high fence hunting. The questions include how quickly you can grow a buck, how big can he get, and how much time is required to grow a buck that will score 150, 200 or 300 points on the Boone & Crockett scale. Todd Ouellette will answer these questions today in the video.
If you’d like to learn more about Hurricane Creek Lodge’s deer, visit www.hurricanecreeklodge.com, or call 256-366-7910 or 256-710-8811.
