A Deer Waterhole - For Wildlife Management
from the September 2005 Issue

Clearly deer do not live on grazing alone…they have to have water. Here we give you just one of the more practical methods to manage wildlife on your acreage. Not only is it a sensible suggestion it's a project you can knock out in an afternoon.

It's all about management
Most everybody that is even a little bit into deer management these days tries to improve their hunting or viewing ground to hold deer longer and grow them bigger. That is awesome and I'm totally into that as well! But few go to the full extent and complete the package. By this I mean the biggest thing that managers do to enhance their property and make it more desirable to games animals of all sorts is to install strategically placed food plots. They range from winter wheat and oats in the fall to several different types of legumes and clovers during the summer months when deer really need tons of protein for antler development. Another common practice is to let designated areas of the property grow up and get really thick in order to provide a secure zone. This is a great idea for farms that do not have ample cover. We all know if there is no cover the deer will not hang around a certain area for any length of time before making their way out.

Keep them home
Now we have briefly discussed two parts to the growing and holding deer formula. These parts have put you on the right track to reach your ultimate goal, but there is still one important resource that is still missing to provide the ultimate deer hang out and that is- water. Believe me when I tell you this, a water source is the difference between seeing a big buck from a distance in your food plot to actually have them live in the area. My point here is, no matter how good you feed an animal or how big of a house you provide him with, if he or she has no source of water, they are going to leave your property. It is our ultimate goal to provide deer with everything they need so they do not have to venture off our property. Yes, they are going to slip off every once in a while, but the less they do the better it is.

Everything but a waterhole
Let me give you a scenario of what I'm talking about and the results I have had from this very subject. This past summer I purchased a piece of the best whitetail ground in this country. I bought a farm up in Brown County, Illinois which is the northern county to the world famous Pike County. Now, I already have ample amounts of food on this place with the abundance of agriculture crops on it and the cover is not too bad in the river bottoms either. I'm not sure if you caught that or not but I said river bottoms. Yes, there is a big body of water that goes right through my place but it is not the right kind of water. It is moving water and all wildlife prefer still water to drink from because the sound of the rippling water destroys their ability to hear and they cannot see as their face is in the water. I'm not sure if that makes any sense to you yet and at first it did not to me either, but the more I thought on the subject the more sense it made.

Back in early fall I had some friends of mine, Lee and Tiffany Lakosky, over to the farm and Lee was the first to suggest building a few water holes on the property. If he was not known as a whitetail expert I might have blown him off, but being that he manages several thousand acres of his own and he and his wife consistently harvest above average deer on a yearly basis, I took his advice to the bank.

Waterhole makes the difference
After only owning the farm for a few weeks I hired a local farmer to bring in a bulldozer to dig a few small ponds in areas that deer seemed to like to hang out in or travel through. When I talk about small I mean about the size of a full size truck, but deep enough so that they do not dry up when things get hot and dry during the summer months. While doing this pond construction I was also in the process of building a six acre clover field about forty yards from the creek. You're going to think I wasted my money here, but I put a pond in between the clover and the creek. The pond actually lays only twenty yards for the moving water. But believe it or not, I hunted that field this fall and actually saw deer wade through the creek in route to the food plot and stop and drink from the pond before eating in the plot. Yep, that is the real deal I tell you!

Since the introduction of the water holes I am having trouble keeping the banks from eroding into the ponds do to the shear amount of traffic that they are seeing. Actually, just last week I went up to check on things and I reseeded the banks again for the second time in order to cut down on erosion. Talk about a grand slam idea! I now have everything a deer could want: abundance of food varieties, cover, and plenty of water they prefer. That is the total equation for growing, holding and keeping deer on your property.

Water is a big percentage of all living, breathing things and we cannot do with out it nor can big whitetail bucks. I am telling you this first hand and I am a believer in small water holes and you should be too