There has been a quiet, green revolution in the world of whitetail hunting over the past 25 years or so, and it’s not marked by any particular dramatic event, new hunting gadgets, or better weaponry. It is measured in the increase in the quality of whitetail herds and in the actions of America’s hunters.
Some of you may know me as the founder of the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society (BASS and Bassmaster), which I started in 1968. But 20 years later I launched another initiative that focused on white-tailed deer, and since that time it has been my privilege to work with the crown jewels of American fishing and hunting — the black bass and whitetails.
In 1967 I had a vision of bass tournaments and an organization for bass fishermen, because I felt the sport deserved respect and recognition. Then in 1987, while hunting over a greenfield buffet of wheat, rye, oats, and clover that had been planted in strips, I had a similar epiphany. I sat on a stand and watched deer step over the other plantings to get to the clover.
Before putting the seed in the ground, my buddy at the feed-and-seed store in Montgomery, Ala., had assured me that deer liked this particular mix. I listened with only half an ear, because I had planted clover previously and the whitetails didn’t seem to care much for it. But I had hardly climbed from my stand when I began tracking down the origins of the clover that had been so attractive to the deer.
In an amazing case of serendipity, the clover had been developed for cattle at my alma mater, Auburn University, by agronomist Dr. Wiley Johnson. When I first met Dr. Johnson I asked him, “Can you develop a clover that would be optimal, one specifically for whitetails?”
Dr. Johnson said he’d try and accepted my challenge to engineer a deer-specific perennial clover planting. After much real-world testing, and after everyone was assured that such a forage had indeed been developed, I founded the Whitetail Institute of North America in 1988. Since then the institute has been dedicated to improving the quality of whitetails through better nutrition. The patented clover seed was released to the public.
The result of that small flame ignited a whole new industry built around deer nutrition. The Whitetail Institute was the first and only company at the time with the sole purpose of researching and developing forages and nutrition products specifically for white-tailed-deer management. And a new term was coined as well: food plot.
When I first got into the world of whitetail nutrition, we knew that the quality of deer herds was determined by three primary factors: age, genetics, and nutrition. Hunters influenced age with their kills, Mother Nature dispensed the genes, and on a micro scale, hunters and herd managers could supplement nutrition through food plots. Better nutrition, better does and fawns, better bucks and racks. It was a revelation — and a revolution.
A trophy buck born of the author’s vision for food plots.
Protein provided the foundation for improved nutrition, and the clover, a legume, provided it. Unlike humans, deer instinctively know what they need to thrive, and the higher protein content of clover compared to other plants attracted deer.
At the time, protein was a seldom-used word in deer-hunting circles. However, at the institute, researchers quickly learned of the vital role protein plays in the deer’s life, especially antler growth, doe lactation, and muscle and bone growth.
In short, food plots not only attracted and held deer, but also improved the health of the herd. For that reason, most of our research and development at the Whitetail Institute focused on protein levels along with palatability and plant hardiness.
The power of protein and food-plot placement gave hunters an advantage in terms of hunting deer with bigger racks than deer that simply foraged the woods and fields, and strategically placed plots held deer in specific locations.
Nutrition control empowered sportsmen, and it didn’t take long for hunters across the country to embrace food plots. There were skeptics to be sure, but it was hard to ignore the anecdotal information that was pouring in from seed users everywhere, from cold northern climes to sizzling southern states. More and more dedicated hunters embraced food plots as their success became evident; food plots, once the dominion of a few die-hards, went mainstream.
About 20 years after the acceptance of food plots, statistics gathered by Pope and Young and Boone and Crockett showed a near 500 percent increase in record-book-quality bucks. I believe that stat mirrors the development of deer-specific food plots and the accompanying interest in quality-deer-management principles.
I watched in some amazement as hunters from Wall Street to Main Street increasingly traded their suits and ties for jeans and boots and put their hands to farming tools, hauling improvised planting implements behind their ATVs, and watching the weather like any concerned farmer. Today, food plotting is a lifestyle served by many products, from utility vehicles, small tractors, specialized plowing implements, and much more.
More important perhaps, American hunters returned to the soil and discovered the magic of seeing tender green things sprout out of the ground. They enjoyed the satisfaction of knowing it was their hard work — their plowing, planting, and TLC — that made their crops possible, and knowing that those crops could benefit both whitetails and whitetail hunting.
After all, you probably don’t have to go very far in most of our family trees to find farmers or those who lived off the land in some fashion.
Again, comparing bass and bucks …
As anglers embraced live-release and clean waters as preached through BASS, they saw they could not only protect and preserve the resource they loved, but actually improve it. So too did hunters become proactive in improving whitetail herds with improved nutrition and responsible management practices, and encouraging their neighbors to do so as well.
In each case, it was a gratifying journey toward stewardship that has served both hunter and angler well. And as usual, outdoorsmen lead the way.
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