How do you manage your hunters with your expectations?  I am trying to grow bucks to the best potential that I can.  I have a 1000 acre farm, pay the mortgage and plant all the 60 acres of food.  I do expect some help from my hunters in return for the excellent opportunity I give them.  Every year they shoot the biggest deer (that I had asked to be left alone).  These are usually 3.5 – 4.5 year old 10 – 14 pointers in the mid 160’s.  They hunt many sites on the farm all fall and I only get to hunt 10 – 18 times every fall as I need to work to afford to keep this place.  My friends feel they do some work and the reward is that they can shoot which deer they like.  I don’t really want any of these deer shot until they are 5.5 – 6.5 years old and have expressed their full potential.  I asked each of these guys to limit their time to 10 – 14 hunts a year on my farm and only shoot the hit list bucks of 8 – 9 pointers in the 135 – 150 range and to leave all those other 10+ pointers alone unless it was on the hit list.  I received some unhappy feedback from them and one hunter actually told me he wouldn’t hunt here because my expectations were too high for anyone to follow.  All 7 of my hunters have killed their largest deer on my farm (157” – 193”).  The guy who left has killed a 160+ buck 4 straight years on this farm.  I have not killed a deer like this, although I have many chances each year, because I’m waiting for that one deer to explode and get to that 180 inch range.

Gary