LITTLE ROCK — Despite all the time, money and effort hunters devote to growing big bucks in Arkansas, chances are they’ll never produce one big enough to qualify for the Boone & Crockett all-time records book.
To make the all-time B&C awards book, a whitetailed deer with a typical rack must net 170 points. A nontypical rack must net 195 B&C. Hunters kill a few record-book bucks in Arkansas every year, but generally not on property specifically managed in a way that one might expect to produce record-book antlers. Those bucks always seem to be happy surprises that turn up in random places.
Property in a quality deer management program usually produces deer with racks that top out in the 150-160-inch range. That’s a fine specimen,but it falls somewhere south of world class.
For example, Freddie Black of Lake Village, who served on the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission in 2003-2009, hunts at two such clubs. One requires a legal buck to have a minimum inside spread of 17 inches or one main beam of at least 21 inches. A 10-point buck must have a 20-inch minimum inside spread and a 24-inch main beam. At the other club, called “Island 82,” a legal buck must have a 16-inch minimum inside spread and a 20-inch main beam. Such strict requirements are designed to allow bucks to reach full maturity before they’re eligible to be killed. Even so, in more than 40 years of hunting prime property along the Mississippi River, Black has never killed a Boone & Crockett buck.
“Anybody that gets into trophy deer management hasunrealistic expectations in Arkansas,” Black said. “We want to think if we let all our deer grow to 6 years old and kill a lot of does, that we’re going to have Boone & Crockett deer, but you probably will not. There hasn’t been a Boone & Crockett deer killed on the properties I hunt in living memory. Some people have gone as long as six years without killing a buck. You won’t have many deer over 150 [B&C].”
Properties like those that Black hunts, as well as the land that makes up Turner Neal Hunt Club, employ several basic strategies to allow bucks to live long enough to grow trophy racks. One involves shooting female deer to reduce competition for food and to even buck-to-doe ratios. When Turner Neal began its management program about six years ago, it received 120doe permits for 38 members. Bill Knoedl, the club president, said the club got 88 doe permits this year.
Also, members can only kill one buck with antlers that meet certain measurements. The club also plants plenty of high-protein food, including 500 acres of soybeans. After the beans are gone, the club plants winter wheat. In addition, most of the members plant food plots and maintain corn feeders around their stands.
Last year, club members killed about 15 bucks, but none qualified for the all-time B&C book. If record-book bucks are a club’s goal, then members will probably be disappointed. If the goal is to support a healthy deer herd containing a large percentage of mature bucks, then a quality management program will be successful and popular.
Sports, Pages 40 on 10/31/2010