EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT DEER NUTRITION (AND A LITTLE BIT MORE)

At some point in life when we all get a bit long in the tooth and our hair begins to migrate from the scalp to the nose and ear canals, a curious obsession develops with reminiscing about the glory days of youth.

For many, the exalted events of the “Friday Night Lights” dominate the conversation when two or more aged gridiron warriors meet. The field goal that barely missed right to dash the hopes of a conference title, or the dropped pass that would have sealed a state championship; these are the memories that don’t go away with the passage of time.

I, too, have memories of Friday night high school football games, but none of them involve state championships. We practiced and played hard but normally had more marks in the “L” column than in the “W” column. What I remember most was our coach’s mantra, “We will learn the basics before we do anything else.”

Later in life, I learned how important this philosophy was no matter the endeavor. Too many times, people wade far too deep into a specific pursuit without first knowing the primary principles of that pursuit. The result is typically confusion and inaccuracy that often leads to the abandonment of the original goal.

In my work as a nutrition specialist for private-land wildlife managers, I see these words ring loud and clear on a regular basis. Whether it involves food plots, minerals, supplements or complete feeding programs, the explosion of information concerning whitetail nutrition has left the minds of deer hunters deluged with facts, theories, and sometimes even pure marketing ploys. The problem with this circumstance is that in many