The Latest Research on Deer
The Importance of Photographing Deer and Developing
a Hit List to Learn the Most about Your Land’s
Deer Herd
 Editor’s
Note: Brian Murphy, avid deer hunter, wildlife biologist
and executive director of the Quality Deer Management
Association (QDMA), gives hunters tips on how to have
more success afield by using motion-sensor cameras,
which will give them the latest information on the deer
herds where they hunt.
“Developing a catalogue of the bucks on a property
allows you to successfully manage your deer herd,”
Brian Murphy explains. “This practice enables
you to determine the number of bucks on your property
and assigns them into age groups. Many hunting properties
try to protect bucks 3-1/2-years of age or older. By
looking at multiple photographs, you can tell the age
of your herd, and by studying the antlers, you can identify
individual deer and track them over time, determining
which ones are desirable for harvest and which ones
should be protected. By taking those pictures and distributing
them to the hunters on your property before the season
starts, then you’ll give the hunters a good idea
of what bucks they can expect to see, and what they
should do when they see one of these bucks. Cataloging
your bucks allows a much-higher degree of precision
in taking the bucks that need to be taken and protecting
those that need to be protected to produce a quality
management-type program. You can use your motion-sensor
cameras to inventory your deer and especially your bucks
prior to the season and then after the season. This
way, you know which bucks will be available for harvest
at the end of the season, and what bucks are still on
the property and available for harvest at the beginning
of the season.”
“Obviously, motion-sensor cameras are highly
effective when used to catalogue deer of various sexes
and ages. Most hunters are interested in cataloguing
the numbers or the sizes of bucks on their properties,
but if they’ll spend more time looking at the
deer and dividing them into age categories like yearling,
1-1/2, 2-1/2-, 3-1/2- and 4-years or older, the hunters
will know each age class of deer living on the property
and also can help to identify the individual bucks they
may want to try and harvest during deer season. Quality
motion-sensor cameras allow you to determine how good
a job of deer management you’re actually doing.
Trail cameras have been proven during a number of extensive
studies to be as good, if not better than the vast majority
of deer-census techniques known to be used for white-tailed
deer, particularly in forested habitat, primarily what’s
found in the southern and the eastern portions of the
country. In other sections of the country like Texas
and other arid states, helicopter- and fixed-winged
plane censuses have shown to be effective, however,
even these aerial censuses don’t seem to be as
accurate as the censuses motion-sensor cameras make.”
Developing a Hit List and a Protect List:
“In my opinion, this is one of the most exciting
and fun ways to manage deer,” Murphy reports.
“If you’ll go to the time and the trouble
to adequately service your deer herd with motion-sensor
cameras, then you can set up a hit list and a protect
list for your bucks. Here’s how. If you do a deer
census before hunting season, you can choose the bucks
you or members of your hunting lease want to harvest.
Once you’ve selected the photographs of the bucks
you want to take, you can create a mug shot catalogue
of the bucks for each of the members in your hunting
lease. The bucks you’ve chosen to be harvested
are on the hit list. Likewise, the bucks you want to
leave in the herd to grow and reproduce another year
are on the protected list. Before the season starts,
all the hunters who will hunt that particular piece
of property should receive a copy of the hit and protect
lists, so they can identify the bucks they need to look
for and take in the upcoming season. Too, the hunters
will know what bucks have been chosen for protection.
“Hit and protect lists provide hunters with a
great preview of the bucks they’re likely to see
while hunting in the upcoming season. Then hunters are
more likely to make the right decisions about which
bucks to harvest and which bucks to leave in the herd.
The hit and protect list will allow hunters to see and
identify most of the bucks on th e
property. Some hunting clubs break their hunting lease
into sections and then give their members a hit and
pass list based on the section where the buck has been
photographed. If you see the bucks that have been photographed,
you’ll know which ones you should and shouldn’t
take. Another advantage to the hit and protect list
is that it enables you to identify bucks that fall through
the cracks of a management system. For instance, if
you’re managing your land to take 3-1/2-year-old
bucks and older, along with an 8-point and an 18-inch-spread
minimum for bucks that are to be harvested, then if
you do your photo survey before the season, and you
identify a 3-1/2, a 4-1/2 or a 5-1/2 year-old buck that’s
only a 6 or a 7 point, you can put him on the hit list.
Then he’ll be available for harvest even though
he may not have 8 points and may not be 18 inches or
wider between his main beams. If you do your photo census
every year, you can identify individual bucks often
by their racks and see and recognize whether there are
bucks that aren’t performing up to standard and
that need to be removed out of the herd. Motion-sensor
cameras are very effective tools to determine when and
if individual bucks that are substandard need to be
removed from the herd, especially if you do a photo
census every year so that you have a good knowledge
of the growth rate of the bucks on your property.”
To learn more about QDMA, go to http://www.qdma.com
or call 1-800-209-DEER.
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