Quality Deer Management

Sylvan Springs, Alabama

I had the privilege of managing a small hunting property back in 2009. It was a small property near highway 269 which is close the home where I was raised. This property was owned by a local land owner, R. B. Stevens, and an old family relationship granted my best friend and myself the opportunity to manage the property. We started managing the property by scouting, photographing the deer herd and building food plots. This small, 40 acre plot of land was under tremendous hunting pressure as you can see from the aerial photo. There were four neighboring food plots that were all within a half mile of our land.

October 1, 2011

Jonathan, and I planted two fields to attract deer to our land. We decided to plant one of the fields this year with BioLogic's Full Draw. The purpose of the Full Draw product was to attract deer from the nearby over-hunted lease property. The Full Draw product is a blend of New Zealand brassicas, clover, wheat and special grains. This seed blend is designed to attract deer in the early season and provide nourishment for deer in the late winter months. We thought if we could establish an early season pattern that it would pay off with deer activity all season.

The small, concealed food plots along with the attractiveness of the Full Draw brought deer to our property throughout deer season. We had consistent sightings of several doe, a big 6 and a mature 4-point. The second picture summarizes what would eventually be the reason that we quit managing the property. This deer herd showed very little movement during the day and our food plots turned out to be the perfect spot for the majority of their late night activity. We used several different trail cameras over the years and we were never able to beat the affordability and performance of the Stealth Cam. 

Both the big 6 and the mature 4-point made it through the 2009-2010 season and we were able to track some of the antler development into the next season. One observation that we made in the 2009-2010 season was that the deer activity slowed down when the food plots became overgrown. 

In 2011, we were not able to get any good pictures of the bucks we saw in previous years. We observed that the bucks preferred the back field due to the cover it provided. The front field provided less cover and we were only able to get pictures of the more trusting doe herd. I compiled all of the pictures that we collected from the Stealth Cam and analyzed the deer activity. We found that 77% of our deer activity was occurring at night. This was due to the tremendous hunting pressure that was on this deer population. Of the 47 camera events, we were only able to capture 1 picture of a buck during daytime hours. This shows the importance of quality deer management and what hunting pressure can do to your deer activity. We stopped managing the property after the 2011 season.

Offshore Beginnings: Snapper Fishing in the Gulf

July 19, 2008

Gulf Shores, Alabama

Zeke's Lady

My first offshore fishing trip! My dad, my brother, Joseph, and my best friend, Jonathan, made the trip to Gulf Shores, Alabama and booked our first offshore fishing trip on the marina's group fishing boat, Zeke's Lady. We were nervous and full of Dramamine when we started the trip before dawn. We caught several red snapper that day and we were addicted to the offshore fishing experience when we made it back to the dock. We decided to make it a tradition to take at least one offshore fishing trip every year - usually during our annual family beach vacation.

Hometown Trophy

December 17, 2006

Sylvan Springs, Alabama

December is my favorite month of the year; December is the month of my birthday, Christmas and the first rut for the southeastern deer herd. December 2006 was a special month because I was able to land an incredible hunting opportunity for my dad, my Jonathan, and myself. I got a weekend pass to a hunting property that had just been became available for public hunting. Needless to say, the deer population on this property was not under any hunting pressure which is rare for Alabama. 

The hunt started well before daylight as my dad woke me up. Dad was always the first person awake. He would usually wake me up at least fifteen minutes before my alarm and I never knew why. We would then spend the next fifteen minutes putting on our hunting gear, making sure we had ammunition for our rifles and checking the weather. This was normally all completed in silence because we didn't want to wake anyone in the house. We stood there waiting in the driveway until we could hear Jonathan’s truck roaring down the highway towards our house. Our morning ride consisted of strategizing where the best hunting locations would be based on the weather and our scouting information. We didn't have much scouting information because the property had never been open to public hunting before this season. In this type of hunting situation we always preferred to hunt pieces of the property that offered the most visibility. We all three sat on different power lines in the morning with no luck. We all three met back around 10 AM and decided to go scout one last piece of the property for an afternoon hunt. We crept down an overgrown red dirt road that led to a ridge where we could oversee the northern property line. Who knew, as soon as we reached the vantage point we spotted three doe. I quickly knelt down and let Jonathan use my shoulder as a gun rest so he could take a shot at one of the deer. The deer spotted us and darted into the woods before he could make the shot.

I decided to hunt this location in the afternoon because I thought the doe activity in the morning may be promising for some buck activity in the afternoon. Jonathan had to work that afternoon and dad decided to stay home. I went back to the same ridge that we had found that morning and set up my chair where I could see most of the valley below. This ridge funneled and amplified all of the sounds coming out surrounding woods. This land feature made if very easy to hear the leaves crunching as the deer moved through the surrounding hardwoods.  

It was a hot day in December and I was sitting in the direct sunlight – perfect for an afternoon nap. So I dozed in and out and then I finally fell completely asleep only to be woken up by a crashing noise. The ridge had funneled the sound of a large buck crashing through the brush at 300 yards which was enough to wake me from my afternoon nap. The buck worked across the power line and I only had a few seconds to judge the large rack and flip my chair to make a shooting rest. The buck’s nose was touching the tree line by the time I was able to put the cross hairs on his shoulder. I knew I didn’t have much time so I squeezed the trigger and the deer instantly disappeared. I listened for a few minutes and never heard anything - not a sound. I called my dad and told him I had put a shot on the biggest deer I had ever seen. He told me he was on his way to come help me find the deer and I left to go search the valley for the monster.

I came to the place where I thought the deer was standing when I shot. To my surprise, there was no blood – not one drop. I searched the area and began sweating in the December heat. I sat down in the middle of a kudzu patch and tried to think of how to find this deer. I decided to search the area where I thought the deer would be if he was injured. There was a dense creek bottom inside the tree line not far from where the deer was standing when I made the shot. I walked the creek bottom and noticed the rack lying beside the creek. The deer hadn’t made it 20 yards before he collapsed! I safely ensured that the deer was dead and inspected the body for the kill shot. The rifle bullet had entered his rib cage and splintered on one of his bones leaving no exit wound, a very small entry wound and no blood trail. This deer was enormous. He was a very traditional, typical 8-point. 

Dad arrived and we starting pulling the deer up the ridge towards the truck. We made it about half way up the ridge when we realized there was no way that the two of us could pull this 200 pound animal up this bluff by ourselves. We made a call to my granddad and he brought my brother to help. The four of us were able to drag the deer to the top of the ridge with the help of a winch. 

My mom had several pictures of the deer developed for my birthday the following day. It took several months to have a local taxidermist complete the mount for the deer. It turned out the be a great, hometown trophy and has stayed on my wall until this day. I took the mount to Birmingham's Deer and Turkey Expo the following year and put it in the big buck completion. The deer scored 136 Boone and Crockett and won a prize for “Big 8” in the youth category. I will never forget this hunt or the people that were involved. 

Largemouth on the River

April 15, 2006
Sylvan Springs, Alabama

Warrior River 

The Black Warrior River runs through Alabama's black belt and is a fishing destination for many residents of central Alabama. The river is named after an Indian chief named Tuskaloosa. His name means "Black Warrior" in Muskogean. There are several species of game fish in the Warrior river including Largemouth Bass, Striped Bass, Spotted Bass, Bluegill and various species of catfish. This river is special to me because this is where I learned to fish. I've spent countless days on the banks of this river casting a rod and even more days navigating the tributaries on fishing boats. One day especially stands out to me.

It was early spring, when the bass start making their beds and laying their eggs. This is one of the few times in the year that you can spot large bass in shallow water. I was at one of my favorite fishing spots casting my favorite lures in the freshly made beds when I had a huge female bass swallow my bait. I didn't have to fight the bass long before I knew I had a good one on the line. I caught a nice 7 lb. 11 oz. Largemouth Bass. I had the fish mounted on a piece of driftwood that I found in the river.

Archer’s Delight

October 25, 2005

Sylvan Springs, Alabama

This was one of my most memorable hunts. I hunted from the ground, which is my favorite style because its the most engaging. I was dressed in full camo (except for my orange hat that I wore to get to my stand). I crouched down beside an early season green field and waited for the action to start. Admittingly, I had dozed off in the afternoon sun when a familiar leaf crunch caught my attention. It takes years spent in the woods to understand the difference between how birds sound fluttering in the leaves, the intermittent sound of a squirrel splashing in the leaves as he moves tree-to-tree and the sound of a deer trot. Deer typically make a the splashing sound of a squirrel but it's usually at a constant pace. Before I could determine whether the leaves were squirrels playing near me, I saw this small buck standing 20 yards in front on me having his afternoon dinner. I slowly moved to a crouched position and left an arrow fly. Then nothing happened. The deer didn't move and I saw the fletching sticking out of the ground beneath his belly. The deer was so close that my closest pin wasn't close enough. I knocked another arrow and this time I looked down the shaft of the arrow and thought to myself that this had better work. I let the second arrow fly and heard a hard thump right after. The deer bolted into the woods and almost jumped over me in his pursuit to leave the area. I trailed him for about a hundred yards before I found my first bow hunting trophy. This isn't the biggest deer that I had killed but it's so rewarding to have a successful hunt with a primitive weapon like a bow.

The Garner Legacy

Central Alabama

Hunting is a tradition that has been passed down through my family for many generations. My passion for hunting and the outdoors started around my 10th birthday when my dad gave me my first gun - a Remington youth model pump-action 20 gauge shotgun. This was much better than the pellet guns and BB guns that I had used to learn how to shoot. I couldn't wait to get in the woods and see what it could do. During deer season, my dad and I spent most Saturday mornings driving to the local management areas and ground stalking whitetails. Dad taught me what deer tracks looked like and the difference between scrapes and rubs. I also learned that an early morning hunt in January could be pretty cold. We were always trying to find new ways to stay warm. We put heating pads in our boots and our gloves so we could site longer. We never saw or killed any deer for the first few seasons. But looking back, Dad was there to spend time with me and teach me about hunting. It didn't matter whether we saw anything or not. My first deer came a few years after my 10th birthday.

My first deer was a hunt that I'll never forget. My granddad had an old friend, Ben, that he knew from his rabbit hunting days. I convinced my grandad, or Pawpaw as I called him, to give his friend a call and ask if we could come hunt with him again. He did and we got an invitation to come hunt. We struck out in the morning well before dawn headed to Millport, Alabama. We had our lunches that my grandmother had made and our rifles. We got to Ben's house before sunrise and started talking about the hunt. Ben let me use one of his rifles that morning because I only had my shotgun. Ben walked us to the blind that morning over a frost-covered dirt road. The road was frozen and I was having trouble not crunching the ice with my boots. We made it to the blind and watched the sun come up. The blind was overlooking a huge food plot - several hundred yards in each direction. We saw 3 or 4 deer that morning but they were all does. We came down from the stand and met Ben back at his house for lunch. Ben razzed me for not shooting one of the deer that morning, telling me there is no size limit for my first deer. We got back in the blind that afternoon and saw the same deer and this time they were not so lucky. Pawpaw tried to convince me to wait a little later for a bigger deer but I had an itchy trigger finger combined with Ben's earlier criticism. I was ready to shoot. I picked the biggest deer in the group, lined up the rifle, put the crosshairs on her shoulder and squeezed the trigger. It was over so fast and there was my trophy laying in the field. My granddad later admitted that the only reason he allowed me to shoot was because he thought I would miss. 

After my first deer, I couldn't get enough. I had waited so long for my first shot opportunity and couldn't stop thinking about my next. Over the years, I learned how hunting is a social event. I made some of my closest friendships in the field. I started hunting with my best friend, Jonathan, shortly after this and we plan to continue this tradition throughout our lives. We've hunted local hunting clubs and management areas. We've hunted dog drives, tree stands and box blinds. We even started travel hunting together - we took a week-long trip to Michigan to get a taste of hunting in the snow. I remember nights where we would stay up for hours after we had cleaned a deer so that we could grill the backstraps that night. I also have been able to pass on this tradition. I taught my buddy Blake everything he knows about hunting. I even let him borrow my boots and wore my tennis shoes one evening so he could get in the woods with us.

Hunting was not only a way to make friendships but was a way to strengthen family connections. I can remember countless Christmas parties where my granddad would tell stories about when he owned rabbit dogs. He would also tell us funny stories about my dad and my uncle how they fell in a creek or couldn't hit a rabbit. These stories remind me of my heritage and where I came from.

Our family also has a rich history in industrial work: my great granddad was an industrial carpenter for U.S. Steel, my granddad was a crane rigger for U.S. Steel, my dad is a machinist, my brother is an electrical motor specialist and I've worked as a chemical engineer in the paper, oil and petrochemical industries.

Not that any of that is related to the outdoors but it also reminds me of my heritage. I also hunted several times with my mom's brother, Tim, and his son, Jordan. I even went to his camp in south Alabama one year. We always had a good time when we hunted together. The last photo is of my Uncle Joey who killed a very nice elk while hunting out west.