Big Bucks on Small Plots: Killing big deer on small tracts of land

You don’t need thousands of acres of land to grow bucks that would look great on anyone’s wall.

Clayton Brister Jr. of Monticello has proved the old adage “less is more”, especially when planning green fields and plots for big bucks. Most hunters search for large tracts of land to hunt, thinking that the more property they have to hunt, the more and bigger bucks they can take. But with Brister’s method of creating small magic plots, he’s demonstrated that by intensively managing small sections of land, he can take more and larger bucks than those who hunt sizeable tracts.

“Forty acres of land, if properly managed, can draw and hold three or more mature bucks,” Brister says.

So when you discover a little piece of property that no one else hunts because they believe it’s too small to hold adult deer, it may be home to large bucks. Brister has taken 12 bucks that have scored high on both the Pope & Young and the Boone & Crockett scales.

“To take big deer, you need the right place to hunt them and the patience to hunt for long periods,” he said. “I was probably 30 years old before I started taking large bucks because before then, I couldn’t endure sitting in a stand from before daylight until after dark.”

Brister hunted one deer last season for 15 consecutive days from daylight to dark.

“The day I took this buck, I’d only been hunting him for 45 minutes before harvesting him,” he said.

Find a monster buck

A friend of Brister’s had agreed to let him hunt the less-than-200 acres of land he owned in Pike County just outside McComb that no one ever hunted.

“When I scouted this land, I found really good deer sign, including big tracks and plenty of rubs and scrapes,” Brister said. “Judging by the rubs against the cedar trees, the buck had to have an 18- to 20-inch inside spread of his main beams. Big bucks in my region love to rub against cedar trees and scar them up with their antlers because this wood is soft. This buck had a line of scrapes about 500 yards long, and he was tearing up every tree in this section.”

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