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Managing land and deer important for successful hunting
"Then folks started discovering deer tracks….They started hunting them with dogs. We had deer drives. We were pretty successful at it too." When Hutto was in college, his uncles were planting corn "and they would break it up and plant green stuff for the cattle. We got to seeing a lot of deer tracks….We started hunting around green fields." Hutto is the co-owner of Barfield Furniture in Grove Hill. Customers who visit the store can see his large number of deer trophy heads and antlers on display in the back. "Most of these were killed around green patches or killed in woods in the morning," he said. "My success hasn't been because I'm a good hunter. It's just that I've always had a good place to hunt….I've hunted the same place west of Grove Hill in the Blue Mountain area for 35 years." The family of Hutto's friend Watrous "Watty" Garrett, a local native, owns the property. Garrett lives in Texas, but his mother still lives here. Therefore, "I've always been the one to keep the stuff planted and take care of the place while he's gone," Hutto said. "He's retired now, and he gets back over here quite often. "….It's a fabulous place out there," he said of his hunting spot, which includes 1,700 acres. "He (Garrett) doesn't believe in clear cutting. "…A lot of folks believe these clear cuts are good habitat for deer. They are for three (to) five years." After that, it's not as good, he said. "I think big, mature timber with hard woods - the way nature intended it to be - is the best habitat." There is also another 1,300 acres that they lease which joins Garrett's property. "We've been managing the place now for about close to 20 years….I've been out there bush hogging and plowing ever since the first of the month, about to get everything in shape for planting. "…We don't kill anything but trophy deer," Hutto said. "We try to kill eight points or better. Some of the eight points are not trophy category, but most of them are. "When we were younger, we'd kill spikes, just kill anything we saw in the buck category. We never would see a lot of trophy deer, but when we started managing them, let them mature, that's when we started seeing a lot of improvement. It's nothing to kill five or six trophy bucks a year out there. "…You've got to let the deer mature," he said. "You've got to get him up to five or six-yearsold." Several of the trophy heads in Hutto's store came from deer that were mature. Hutto said he gets out almost every day during hunting season. "I leave here in the afternoon maybe about four o'clock, get in my stand and sit until dark. I'm off a couple a days a week for hunting, in the morning and afternoon." Although he hunts every day during the season, there's not a lot of hunting pressure on the deer on his property. "I never hunt the same area," Hutto said. "I try to space it out to where you don't go to the same food block but once every two weeks. It keeps things quiet where they don't feel like they are under any kind of pressure. Hutto almost enjoys managing the property as much as the hunting. Cameras have been placed on the property near feeding areas to view what deer are out there. "We feed them year round and plant stuff in the summer," he said. "…Most of the deer we've killed - we've got a picture of them. "...Another (buck photographed) we hunted the whole season, we never did get him. One guy that came over visiting, he saw him - but he didn't get a shot at him. He was talking on the cell phone - so he missed his opportunity." Hutto's youngest son, Kurt, will come down from Birmingham and hunt with his father. "He enjoys coming down here and hunting," he said. "We have a place we bought right in the middle of all that hunting land. We have a little camp house (in a 64 acre area). (Kurt) enjoys going out there and staying." Hutto had used a Mauser bolt action .30/6 rifle with a Leupold scope since 1973. "I kept a record, and I had killed probably 200 deer with that one gun," he said. He gave it to his son 10 years ago.
He then bought a Browning automatic .30/6 with a Nikon scope.
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