But it’s more than just the numbers and ready access to whitetails that have carried them to new heights in popularity. In fact, there was a time when the numbers themselves, along with indiscriminate and excessive buck harvests, threatened to take some of the luster off the sport. Overcrowding and, in many cases, excessive buck pressure stood to curb the enthusiasm of increasingly experienced and quality-conscious hunters.
You see, deer hunters as a group have evolved in their experience and their expectations. First, to just kill a deer was enough. Size didn’t really matter. Next, with a buck or two down, the goal was to run up an impressive tally. Then, with more experience and success, the priority became to take bucks using different techniques and equipment — archery, rifle, muzzleloader, etc. Then, with enough bucks under the belt, the emphasis shifted to quality. This is when overcrowding and over-harvest of bucks became an obstacle to be overcome for the more serious and experienced hunters who set the pace in the industry.
Happily, two things came to the rescue. The first, and lesser of the two, was that hunters began to travel far and wide in search of bigger whitetails. More than any other publication, North American Whitetail led the way in opening up new territories and featuring the great trophy whitetail hotspots of North America. Mexico, South Texas, Montana, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Iowa, Illinois, Kansas and other trophy destinations became a standard part of the whitetail nomenclature. A huge industry grew out of this search for giant bucks.
And to this day, every fall sees a huge migration of hunters to the great trophy whitetail lands of the continent. Also to this day, a preponderance of them depend on North American Whitetail to keep them informed and updated on the old standbys and to point the way to the latest “best last places.”
THE LEADER IN THE FIELD
The second, and by far the most important and enduring of the two factors that rescued our sport from poor quality animals and the subsequent threat of waning interest, was the great hope of hunting: deer management. Happily, the whitetail is one of the most manageable species on earth — it can be managed intensively, even in close association with man and on small tracts, with remarkable cause-and-effect results . . . without ever losing its wildness, challenge and intrigue.
And in management, North American Whitetail once again led the way, not just in encouraging management and reporting on management strategies and techniques, but also in actually conducting the research and playing a key role in developing the food plot management strategies now sweeping the nation. Food plots and nutritional management have changed everything we thought we knew about whitetail management, especially on small tracts.
At Steve Vaughn’s Fort Perry Plantation in Georgia, North American Whitetail conducted a 12-year research study that pioneered food plot management and nutrition. This study was done in conjunction with Dr. James C. Kroll and Stephen F. Austin University. And while our study was going on in Georgia, Dr. Gary Schwarz was independently developing almost the exact food plot strategies on his Tecomate Ranch in South Texas, under the scientific oversight of the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Institute.
North American Whitetall North American Whitetail is designed for the serious trophy hunter. It provides authoritative coverage of world-class whitetails, the latest approaches to deer management and advanced hunting techniques.
