FIVE MOST CRITICAL INGREDIENTS FOR BAGGING A BUCK WITH A GUN

Dr. Keith Causey -- Food

Editor's Note: The five most-critical ingredients for taking a buck with your gun at any time during the season include the wind, the weather, hunting pressure, food availability and the rut. Most hunters will tell you one of these factors has more importance to successful deer hunting than any other element. However, you'll need to consider all these ingredients to develop a successful hunt plan. This week we'll talk with some of the nation's best gun hunters about their ideas. For more than three decades, Dr. Keith Causey, a professor of wildlife science at Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama, has researched the white-tailed deer, specifically on the role food plays in the life cycle of the deer.

Research suggests that deer select the food they eat based on the nutritional value of that food. In one study, researchers planted a green field in wheat and rye. The middle of the field received fertilizer while the outer edges of the field remained untouched. Deer walked through the unfertilized wheat and rye to reach the fertilized crop. Most hunters know you can plant green fields and properly lime and fertilize them to create a winter-feeding site for deer. However, many sportsmen don't realize you can fertilize naturally-occurring plants and often attract as many if not more deer. On the property I hunt, I fertilize blackberry bushes, Japanese honeysuckle and newly-cleared fields to produce lush foliage containing more protein than unfertilized plants. The deer always will feed on the fertilized plants. You can put out fertilizer any place where you have a cleared field. Then the naturally occurring plants in the cleared field will yield more lush foliage than other plants growing in the field. If you hunt large clear-cuts, fertilize blackberry bushes and honeysuckle plants on one side of the clear-cut. Then take a stand near the area you fertilize. I also fertilize certain trees like plums and persimmons for early-season hunting and selected white oak and red oak for late-season hunting. I know the trees I fertilize put on more and larger acorns than the trees I don't fertilize. Although I can't prove my idea scientifically, I believe deer feed on the acorns under the fertilized trees more heavily -- either because these acorns taste better or perhaps have more nutritional value. Or, maybe the deer have to eat less of these acorns than the smaller acorns to feel satisfied. Food also helps determine the size of bucks you have to hunt. The more high-quality food available for both bucks and does to feed on, the better a buck's rack will be and the heavier his body weight. This fertilizing program will increase any hunter's odds of bagging a buck. Therefore you need to:
* determined the types of food deer will feed on in your area throughout hunting season.
* fertilize specific regions containing that kind of food for early-, middle- and late-season hunting.
* hunt the trails going to the fertilized food source.
* hunt within shooting distance of that food source.

TOMORROW: RONNIE GROOM -- THE RUT