Story and photography by Bob Zaiglin

Maintaining records is the only method of monitoring success and time invested on one’s favorite piece of deer country. 

I can’t imagine how someone would contribute to a monetary nest egg for most of their working life without monitoring the fluctuations in their investments.  Some rely on professional help, but it is really up to the individual to know when their investment is beneficial or needs replacing.  Knowledge of one’s investments allows one to make critical decisions that could impact their financial security years down the road.  Maintaining records on a deer herd on one’s property or lease is no different.

Once a hunting season is over, one can determine just how well their deer herd performed by measuring the impact their management scheme had on deer quality, particularly those cherished antlers, and it all starts with the collection of data from deer harvested.

Rain is of paramount importance to those in the agriculture profession, and it’s equally important to deer managers, in turn management-oriented sportsmen cognizant of the impact precipitation has on antler size and reproduction.  Maintaining records on how much, and more importantly, when precipitation occurs on a particular piece of deer turf is also useful when determining when food plots should be planted, or a high protein supplement should be made available to the deer.  Spring rainfall has a psychological impact on sportsmen, elevating their spirits because of what they may see antler-wise during the upcoming hunting season, and every drop of rain that hits the ground counts.

Throughout the hunting season, deer hunting enthusiasts will often collect information on the number of bucks, does, and fawns they see as well as measurements collected from harvested animals such as weight, Boone and Crockett score, and age of deer, but unless the data is tabulated in an easy-to-understand format, it is essentially never looked at.  I refer to harvest data as the management-oriented deer hunter’s report card based on what management practices they employed to how effective they were at improving the habitat, in turn elevating deer quality, particularly antler size.

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