21 06, 2022

Will Drones Replace Helicopter Deer Surveys?

2022-06-21T08:28:48-04:00June 21st, 2022|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Deer Management, Deer Science, whitetail deer|Comments Off on Will Drones Replace Helicopter Deer Surveys?

In a recent Southeast Deer Study Group (SEDSG) meeting, wildlife specialist Jesse Exum presented a paper on estimating deer numbers with the use of drones. Drones were fitted with thermal-optical video cameras and flown at 5 different sites in South Texas. Result: The drone-captured thermal estimates of deer from the 5 surveys were comparable to much louder, time-consuming and expensive helicopter survey estimates. In another study conducted while doing his postdoctoral work, wildlife specialist Jared Beaver and colleagues equipped drones with thermal cameras and flew them over a 430-acre facility at Auburn University in Alabama, where the precise number of whitetails in the enclosure was known. After analyzing the results of their evening flights, the researchers found that the population [...]

9 03, 2022

4 Ways To Improve Your Deer Hunting Land With A Chainsaw

2022-03-09T08:28:18-05:00March 9th, 2022|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Deer Management, whitetail deer|Comments Off on 4 Ways To Improve Your Deer Hunting Land With A Chainsaw

March is a great time to fire up your Stihl saw and improve the hunting on your property next fall. Create Browse A honey hole that had produced a bunch of bucks over the years went cold on my Virginia land. Deer quit using the area, and it didn’t take me long to figure out why. The woods had simply grown too old. There was a heavy, dark canopy and little vegetation on the ground. A couple of buddies and I fired up chainsaws and dropped most of the scrub pole timber in a half-acre strip. Today briars and berry bushes grow everywhere in there. It’s once again a staging area for deer and one of my favorite bowhunting spots. [...]

1 03, 2022

Plant Sawtooth Oaks For Deer, Especially If You Bowhunt

2022-02-27T11:00:48-05:00March 1st, 2022|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Management, whitetail deer|Comments Off on Plant Sawtooth Oaks For Deer, Especially If You Bowhunt

This year you might want to plant some mast trees, especially if long-term habitat management for whitetails and turkeys is on your agenda. In the early 1990s, Trebark camo creator Jim Crumley purchased and planted 50 sawtooth oak seedlings on a 300-acre property he owns and hunts on the banks of Virginia’s James River. He clustered 30 of the fast-growing seedlings in one open area, and scattered the rest around. “They’ve done great. Some trees produced acorns in the eighth fall,” he says. “By the 12th year the trees were 8 to 10 feet tall, and all but four of them were bearing.” The best part about sawtooth oaks, which came from eastern Asia, is that unlike our native white [...]

9 03, 2021

Controlled (Prescribed) Burning For Wildlife

2021-03-09T15:11:11-05:00March 9th, 2021|Big Deer TV, BigDeer, Deer Hunting, Deer Management, whitetail deer|Comments Off on Controlled (Prescribed) Burning For Wildlife

Adapted from the post “Controlled Burns Top Tool for Wildlife, Land Managers” by David Rainer, Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (ADCNR). The downtime and prime weather conditions between the end of the white-tailed deer season and the opening of (spring) turkey season (is the time) to conduct controlled (prescribed) burns. Steven Mitchell of the ADCNR said, “Dormant season, winter and early spring, is when most of our burning occurs… “Burns can be conducted during the dormant season or growing season accordingly and, when used in proper scale and frequency, can attain a wide collection of land management objectives. Another added benefit of controlled burning is the reduction of fire hazards and fuel loads, lowering the chance of wildfires.” [...]

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