Welcome to the Arkansas Wildlife Podcast, the official podcast of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

We are talking hunting, fishing and conservation with engaging guests and in-depth discussions with game and fish staff.

It's Arkansas Wildlife, the podcast for all things outdoors in the natural state.

Welcome to the Arkansas Wildlife Podcast.

I'm your host, Trey Reed.

Thank you for listening in.

And we have got a really special one today.

This is kind of an exclusive deal for our Deer Management Assistance Program clubs around the state.

Now, if you're not in the Map club and you're listening or watching this like, well, how did I get it?

Well, we gave it to the map clubs first.

They had an exclusive for a couple of weeks.

But we want everybody to know about, managing habitat better for deer, about what we're doing with Arkansas hunters feeding the hungry.

And, boy, we have got a great line up for you here.

First, I want to introduce our guests that traveled the farthest to be here, Doctor Craig Harper from the University of Tennessee and Tennessee Cooperative Extension.

He is, a leading expert on managing habitat for white tails and Turkey.

And we'll get a little bit deeper.

You're going to you're going to get to know what Craig Harper is all about as as we continue.

Craig, thank you for being here.

It's my pleasure.

You on his left is Ronnie Ritter.

He is, executive director of Arkansas Hunters feeding the Hungry.

Ronnie, welcome back to the podcast.

You've been here before?

Several times.

Thank you.

Try.

Yeah, I like that word executive.

It sounds.

Well, I mean, you you you are right to Maine.

And to my right is another important guy.

He is our deer management assistance Program, or D map because we love acronyms and government coordinator Jeremy Brown.

JB how you doing, man?

I'm just peachy.

Better than I ever deserve.

Just glad to be at the table.

Well, this is going to be a lot of fun.

We are going to talk about different aspects of deer management, donating deer for helping less fortunate Arkansans.

But, we're kind of speak to our map clubs because this is really kind of who this is for.

But everybody can take some great information out of here.

JB, I want to start with you and talk about, you know, why, why, why getting a D map club.

What's the benefit of that for for our hunters and folks that are in deer camps out there.

Well, there's a lot of reasons.

Trey.

Man, I could go on for a while here, but in reality, we give you a site specific, recommendations.

We're giving you, complete data set where we're taking data from the deer that you're collecting.

We're helping with your habitat management.

So you're not just getting the run of the mill.

We're better than Google.

I'll say that.

You're going to get some time with biologists.

What about, yeah.

What are.

It's kind of scary with the things I, But.

Yeah, we're getting there.

We'll power you up.

Site specific recommendations.

And it's not just what you learned in the 70s or 80s.

It's cutting edge.

We stay on top of the research, and we're constantly watching what Doctor Harper's putting out on the daily.

When it comes out, we're we're putting it to use as best we can.

Every year we're giving you back SAP, specific recommendations.

This is all a free program to.

This is something that it's you're not having to pay for.

In most places, that's that's, unheard of.

So Arkansas is pretty cool.

And we'll get a little bit deeper into some of the tell some success stories, because you got a lot of them.

There's there's a lot to talk about.

Doctor Harper, I mean, Habitat's kind of your thing, man.

What?

I want to kind of get some specific questions, but.

But let's start with where do you think Club Habitat's fall?

Short most often.

I don't look at the clubs that much different from landowners who have a desire to manage, for sure.

Deer or turkeys, just just and just property.

Yeah.

And, you know, and fortunate in being able to travel all over the country and meet with lots of different people.

And, coincidentally, as for this question, just had, PhD student Mark Turner finish up.

Gosh.

Time flies.

It's been two years now, and one of the things that we did in his project is he drove around all over the eastern US and he went to, I believe it was 44 different properties in 25 states.

And he and the technician and all of these properties had deer management as one of their top, priorities.

So they were people managing their property specifically for their their intent in deer hunting.

And that is exactly what you're talking about with these maps.

Yeah.

So they're wanting to get everything they can out of the, you know, their habitat for deer.

And so to answer your question, we looked at forage availability and quality in all of the major vegetation types on these properties.

And it was it was it was pretty depressing at what was available.

And so there are lots of things that they can do.

Number one, to change their property composition, to change the composition of deer habitat on their property.

That means, okay, maybe we need to convert some woods to fields.

Maybe.

Maybe we need to convert some old hay land to better early succession.

Then what are you doing specifically in those fields and in those woods?

And we can get to some of this later.

But how exactly are you managing your woods?

How exactly are you managing your fields, and how exactly are you managing your food plots?

Because one thing that we found is the forage availability and quality that they're getting out of their management is not equal to what we're seeing in the literature when we put in these experiments.

And so we have information to to enable them to do to, to up their management a little bit.

And so I wouldn't point at any one particular thing, but there are several things in their woods, several things in their fields, and several things with their food plot management that they can do.

Did it surprise you in this PhD student when you read the results that that these people who were intentionally managing, you know, habitat for deer, that it was falling shorter than than I'd hoped?

Well, you know, I visit a lot of research.

I have just done this for a year or two.

Yeah.

Have you been alright?

So, actually not it was something that I expected.

Okay.

But nobody had quantified that I. Gotcha.

And so a lot of it and of course there's a gradient there.

Some people do a great job, some people, you know, kind of middle of the road and some people and I'm not it's not that somebody is not trying, but maybe they don't know the correct steps, or maybe they don't have time to do every little thing.

And so there's things that we can pull out there.

Okay.

If time is your limitation, then here are some things that that you should do that are not as detailed, that will get you farther.

Instead of trying to spend time doing these little detailed things, that it's not going to happen because you're not there enough.

Jeremy, I was going to ask you, I mean, with as being a map coordinator, you're working with a lot of clubs in Arkansas, you and your staff.

And a lot of times when we think about the map, I think everybody's mind first goes to antlers, like, you know, getting that age on on the deer.

Obviously we're focusing more on habitat because that's something else you can, you can control.

Besides, when you pull the trigger, what do you see out there?

I mean, does what Doctor Harper's talking about kind of line up with what you're saying?

Well, it does to me.

What he's talking about really drives home the point that we've said for a while, habitat quality really does matter.

Everybody's got habitat, but is it good habitat?

Is it moderate?

Is it okay?

Is it great?

There are a couple things that we see is one, they normally have way more deer on their property than they need to be carrying.

Okay.

Or at least the number.

The deer density is not matching the quality of habitat, not enough to feed the amount of deer they have.

And so we're typically fighting the battle of how do we reduce the deer densities.

And that's where Ronnie comes in.

When we when we can channel some of those, deer carcasses.

What do I do with all the.

Right.

But we have a taste for those.

You got a place for?

We got hunters feeding the hungry, for sure.

But really, in our clubs, we're trying to find that balance of what is your habitat or is it the right composition?

Is it the right quality for your goals?

And so we balance our deer numbers to match that habitat.

And that's why I thought these two folks was a perfect complement to one another.

Because if we're shooting more deer, we can give them the round.

And we need to hear from the exports experts to make sure we're getting the right habitat on the ground.

Craig, getting in a little bit of specific stuff as we're as people are listening to this.

It's late August, early September is hot and we're in a wicked drought here in Arkansas.

We got a little bit of rain actually the last couple of days, but I think we're going to have about two feet to come out of drought.

And I noticed a lot of trees browning up when flying into the little rock.

So if you're I can tell it's been very dry.

Absolutely.

And I've been hearing about it.

But if you're a deer hunter and you're you're you're getting ready for this season.

What do you mean?

How do you dress that?

How do you prepare for deer season when everything's so dang dry?

Well, I got a saying.

Let's make lemonade out of lemons.

Okay?

And so when it's dry, what can you do more easily than when it's wet?

Working on that land, you can.

You can burn.

You can.

Oh, well, yeah.

Yeah.

And so, I realize some portions of the state are in a better plan right now, but if you have your firebreaks in place when the burn ban comes off going into September, October, early November, that is an excellent time to be conducting more prescribed fire, because prescribed fire at that time will lead to more forb coverage next spring and summer.

And forbs are king with regard to nutritional quality for deer, flowers for pollinators cover for turkey broods.

There are there is no other suite of plants that is more important for deer and turkeys than than forbs.

And that's that.

Your broadleaved herbaceous plants, not grasses, not sedges, not ferns or rushes, but forbs, which most of us would call weeds.

Right.

What were deer eating in 1492?

It wasn't soybeans and it wasn't clover.

It was these natural forages and knowing which ones of those are the best and which ones of those that deer select, and then knowing how to promote them, own your property without even having to plant them.

That's powerful information.

Well, and you almost read my mind because I about one of my next question was food plot verses, native and natural vegetation.

And I know a lot of your work and your students work has been in that native vegetation managing what you already have.

I mean, what give us your thoughts on those, you know, food plot versus versus native vegetation.

You've kind of made a pretty strong case for forbs already.

I'm guessing you're going to give us a little bit more of that.

I'm for both.

Okay.

Number one, if you have fields and you should have some areas of early successional vegetation and early successional vegetation, are those shade intolerant herbaceous plants that you would find out in fields, getting rid of a majority of the grass, whether that be, non-native native, warm season, cool season.

So right now it's dry.

Fields are wilted down in many areas, but lots of fields have Johnson grass and crabgrass and Bermuda grass and tall fescue preparing those fields right now by mowing.

So when rain returns and they green back up, you will be more effective with an herbicide application to actually kill them.

And then you allow the seed bank, that collection of seed occur naturally in the soil to germinate and grow.

And there's free food.

Now, not all of that is going to be you know what you want.

It's kind of like a Christmas present, you know, some open, revenue have, as you know, but you can get rid of that next spring.

So we have this little mantra instead of planting what you want in early succession, kill what you don't want, okay?

And let Mother Nature fill in the rest.

And then, of course, all these folks are interested in hunting, of course, just like I am.

And so by having, cool season food plots such as annual clovers, homeless wheat, oats, etc., you can have outstanding spots to, to hunt around, if you wish.

And of course, that's providing a supplemental source of energy through through winter.

You know, we only get about two years out of five that are good Aiken produce in years.

And so we should be viewing acorns as a periodic bonus, not as something that we have to have don't count.

Or to have, you know, good deer and target numbers or, and, healthy individuals.

So working in your woods, working in your fields to improve the plant composition is key.

And so in your wood right now doesn't matter how dry it is.

This is an excellent time to go into your woods and kill many of those tree species that are not producing foods for deer and turkeys simply by girdling and spray in the womb, letting those trees die, giving room for the crowns of the desirable trees to enlarge.

And what we found is by doing that, we're increasing acorn production in a stand that has oaks by, on average, 65%.

So we're not planting anything, we're not fertilizing anything.

We're simply killing the competition and letting the desirable, trees respond.

I got a new I got a new monitor for you.

Addition by subtraction.

Yeah, that's exactly right, Jeremy.

What?

That expand on that from an Arkansas perspective.

Like we did some news to use for our map club to how they can sort of execute some of that.

What do you see when you're working with these clubs or.

I see mostly they come to us and they're going to say, what do I plant?

I mean, that's the first thing out of their mind.

And I say, well, I need to see your property.

I need to be on your property because I can tell you some things to plant that I mean, anybody can really.

But is it the right way to do it?

The number one take home is you need to feed a deer for 12 months out of a year.

And I need to know what you got around on your property, where your food sources are, and what times that's going to be a food source.

Because most of their limiting factor is they don't have food 12 months out of a year.

And so, yes, we do plant, but if I can just spray something and get rid of the competition and provide more protein, that's probably gonna be cheaper.

It's going to be faster than me constantly going to the store and buying, large bags of seed that may or may not get a rain on it and germinate.

You know, you know, something a lot of people, something that a lot of people don't realize is the nutritional quality of many of these weeds and the ability for these and I hate to say weeds, weed is actually an unwanted plant.

And so many of these forbs obviously are very much so wanted.

I'm just using the word sure.

That's what most people say, but they also can withstand grazing pressure way better than many food plot forages.

And so for the person who is out there trying to plant soybeans, for example, and, and even caps, and they can't get them to grow because the deer are overgrazing them and they've put a lot of money into lime, seed, fertilizer, diesel fuel, etc., etc.. And then the food plot is, is overgrazed and you get nothing out of it.

In those instances in particular, you literally can grow weeds that have better nutritional quality than the soybeans.

And something else.

Think about when natural forages begin to grow.

That would be spring green up, you know, early to mid April.

When do you plant soybeans and other warm season crops?

Typically only into May.

And so then you've got another 2 to 3 weeks before you really have a grazing portion of the planet food plot.

You've just missed a month and a half of one of the most critical times for another production.

And so you need to have not just a lot of food, but you need to have a lot of high quality food from early April through the end of July, when 90% of the antler production is taking place.

That is when deer grow.

Deer do not grow antlers in November and December on acorns or on on corn that they're, filling up a feeder with.

Acorns and corn literally do not have the nutrients necessary to grow bone.

And so that's not growing antlers.

It's that forage that's available from April through July is what counts will be.

That's kind of how you get to the next level of management.

You know, I'm going to pretty proud to say this 25 year anniversary this year.

Thank you for bringing that up.

I was supposed to lead with that.

I'm sorry.

You know, it's a big milestone for us.

Honestly, they may have been around for much longer.

It's like a 50 year anniversary for Matt, but for Arkansas is 25 years.

And one of the things I feel like I'm most proud of in that 25 years is we started off kind of as a bullet program.

Come get some tags.

That kind of nickname was the Doe Tag Welfare Program.

Just come up here and get you some tags.

And it did help.

But but in reality one of the biggest achievements really is the work we do with our habitat and taking these clubs to another level that they did not have in the late 90s, early 2000.

If you had a piece of property and you had some tags, you did good.

But now I feel like we're doing great.

And it's that point of we were waiting on soybeans a lot.

We were missing a month and a half of grow in those antlers.

And so when the antlers drops, guess what?

They start growing back and it's time to have food available for them right then and there.

When you when you get excellent food, you get increased deer production.

You have a productive herd, you produce more.

So now I can have a smaller deer density that produces more deer, which bodes well for running in the deer donation program.

So high quality habitat is kind of a very much an anchor point in the map, because not only are we growing bigger antlers at the right time of the year, providing food to grow bigger antlers for our our books, we're making our dogs more productive with that.

And then when it's always fun to shoot deer, I ain't found anybody that says it's no fun shooting deer now, gutting them or doing something with them.

Process mess.

A different story, but that's why it's a such a wonderful partnership with Ronnie is if we can convince these folks to increase their, their doe harvest.

We've got a spot for these and can help Arkansans all across the state.

Let's talk a little bit about that, Ronnie, before we get back to some habitat.

I mean, I mean, gosh, what?

You've been involved up 25 years now, plus.

Yeah, is actually our 25th, year anniversary.

So, yeah, you know, I dreamed of this many, many years ago.

I know that there was these large clubs that had a lot of doe.

And actually, I sent an email out through the D map probably 15 years ago.

I got zero response, but we weren't ready for what we're doing now.

So this has been a real bonus for 100ft and hungry and been able to produce these snack sticks.

I don't have one with me right now, but, all of you have had those snack sticks.

The schools that are just overjoyed with those snack sticks, it's it's phenomenal.

I get calls and that's the monster that lives in the room.

Yeah.

That that that, you hear I believe is it's barely was growling when they started talking about snacks.

Six.

Oh oh yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So you know, our partnership with, with Germany and our targeting of fish is that's been phenomenal.

It's just increased what we're been able to do.

Running I followed the the success and talked about and written about and done videos about, hunters feeding the hungry for a number of years.

But I've seen it just really grow exponentially just in the last 5 or 6 years.

Do you attribute that to the expansion of D map to the to get a more of the map clubs involved?

Absolutely.

You know, we have these refrigerated trailers we place at the large clubs.

And then with the extra biologist that, work in all these areas of the state.

So yeah, I mean, we told you last year, Jeremy, 700 deer from the D map clubs.

Yeah, a little over 700 deer were donated.

Almost a little over 24,000 pounds.

Just venison meat alone.

So that's that's about 30% of the total deer we get per year.

And we're looking maybe to increase that a little bit this year.

Yeah.

Not to interrupt but 25 year anniversaries.

Right.

So you always want to do something big on your end of archery.

Last year we did about 128,000 snack sticks for the the whole time.

No, no, we did 150,000 150,000.

Okay.

So we got our goal this year since this 25 year anniversary, we want to hit the 1 million mark total overall, which if we can do 200,000 snack sticks this year, we're going to hit that mark.

All right.

I actually just been laid down actually during we just made 188,000.

Don't lie with more all them.

So we've done when we started doing this seven eight years ago, we started off just not really knowing if there was a need out there.

So I contacted a couple of schools and they said, oh yes, we need protein.

And obviously there's a great protein.

So, to date we've done 812,000 packages, something over 250 school backpack programs across the state.

I think we're in every county except maybe Bradley.

There's only a couple of counties were not.

And so the success been phenomenal.

And a large part to this, the de Mayo program, when you're not an area we're talking a snack six but you got a lot of ground.

Venison is going to food pantries on a lot of ground venison.

Yeah 50 to 60,000 pounds plus each year in the food pantries.

If you ask them what they need the most.

It's not a can of beans or a bag of rice.

It's that protein.

With regard to the schools number one, that's outstanding what you're doing.

But I'm curious when you give them snack sticks, does it say deer or venison?

Do the kids readily eat there or some of them like, oh, I don't to eat deer.

How do they respond?

They respond, give me more.

Yeah.

They were, especially today.

Craig, clearly you've not eaten any of these.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, I know, but I also I also know how kids are these days.

I like Arkansas, so Arkansas is a pretty rural state, so I never had a school say, don't send it right.

Never.

Never.

Yeah.

So I mean I think when they need great it.

Yeah.

But they are delicious.

I have to get a pack from Ronnie pretty pretty regularly to keep, keep my kids stocked up.

And and my hunting and fishing bag stocked up well, too.

Shifting back to habitat a little bit.

One thing I was sitting here thinking about, you know, it, you're.

What I'm hearing you say is that in this, this is kind of like, you know, it's a win win.

What's really best in some ways is one of the most.

It was one of the easiest and least expensive things to do is managing your native habitat.

Right.

It's it's almost too good to be true.

Right.

And when I mentioned this to a lot of people, you know, their eyes kind of glaze over.

Like, you know what, you want me to grow weeds.

And, you know, I've, I've worked with some pretty high profile landowners and of course, the vast majority think, oh, I'm rotating corn and soybeans.

And they'll have, you know, a few, a few green plots.

And in the winter they do nothing to their woods.

And they think, this is great.

When I convince them to stop renting the fields to row, crop in and let those fields grow to weeds, and then manage that plant composition in those fields accordingly, their deer weights go up pretty consistently according to how much acreage they're converting ten, sometimes 20 and 30%.

I've had properties even in the the mountains of North Carolina.

Not exactly what you would think of as big deer country or super fertile ground, or improve their management and their average doe weight.

Adult doe weight has climbed to 150 pounds, with some weighing 170 pounds.

That's remarkable.

And in other areas, and this is even in areas with relatively poor souls, which does not dictate nutrition for deer.

But it does have a lot to do with the amount of food that that deer have for them.

Increases of 30% of adult doe body weight.

And another of Mark Turner's chapters, where we looked at deer morphometrics across the country and how much influence additional high quality food made both on doe body weight as well as adult, buck antlers by our size.

And Buck's not exactly, but it's almost a 1 to 1.

So when you realize a 10 pound increase average increase in adult doe body weight, you're seeing a ten inch increase in mature male antler size.

And so a lot of people don't care.

They don't kill enough mature Buck's dad to really get an accurate average.

But they do kill enough dose to get an average of Doe body weight.

And they can see how their increased management is leading to increased Doe body weight.

And so that also is true on the flip side with the antler size of Buck's man.

Fascinating stuff.

Okay, that's going to wrap up part one.

If you are listening on our regular podcast platforms or perhaps watching on Arkansas TV.

But if you're at the Map Club, we're going to keep going right now.

Rest of y'all, we'll see you next time.