In 2014 TCHC was a shoot any deer club. The philosophy was, “If it’s
brown. It’s down”. Everyone was getting deer, plenty for the table and
freezer, but no one was shooting big bucks. In 2015 11 spikes were
killed during the first 2 weekends. The club had just expanded its
membership in 2014 and some of the new members walked away because of
the spike kill off. That started the conversation of what we were and
what we wanted to become as a club.
One thing was clear above all else,
members wanted the opportunity to kill big mature Whitetail Bucks.
Like
any group of people, we talked about it for some time. At our 2016
annual Club meeting the club membership decided to give a loose QDM
program a try for the 2017 season. The Club put rules in place with
fines for killing small young deer. We brought in a State of Tennessee
Biologist who told us we had too many does and that should be the focus
for the next few years. We had a plan, backed up by expert advice and
thought we were on the road to success.
As it turns out, members say they want to kill big bucks, but they
also don’t like going for a season without killing a buck. We had many 6
pointers killed that first year and the fines were not appreciated. A
few more members left the club. The Club was left with core members who
were committed to try to stick with QDM. In 2018 and 2019 bucks taken
were in the low numbers and some more fines were paid. There were no
shooter bucks, we had killed them as yearlings in the previous years.
Fast forward to 2020, we had harvested 3 years of does and very few
bucks. We were seeing much more rut activity then we had in the past.
Best of all, the big deer were back, they were still on the younger
side, but we were able to harvest several shooter bucks.
As a club, we renew our commitment to QDM at the annual meeting. We
are only recruiting likeminded hunters. We have worked with the
neighboring property owners, and they are on board as well, in most
cases before we were. With our neighbors and the club, we have over
3,500 acres committed to QDM.
