Whitetail Properties "Dream Dirt" Life on a Hunting Farm

We’ve spent countless hours in our lives reviewing criteria that buyers are looking for in farms.   Everybody has their preferences and everybody has tastes that are different.  Some fella might tell me he wants solid timber, while another might say it has to have a pond, and the next guy might say he doesn’t care as long as it’s a good investment for him.   With so many options available everybody has those couple things they can’t live without but to this day I still have never had anybody ask me for a certain soil type.   Are they missing the most important characteristic of the land?

I’ve always been one of those guys that has to have facts.  Scientific facts are my favorite proof that something is true.  Believe me, I love to read some of the stuff that some folks state as fact fool-proof ways to grow huge deer with nothing more than their own personal observations to back them up ….I have little trouble treating it as anything more than entertainment.  I don’t think it would be hard to argue that soil is the most basic building block where nearly everything on earth starts.  Think about a deers growth of antlers, they must be a direct result of the soil because everything that deer puts in its body is a result of the soil.  Fertile soils grow more lush foliage, fertile soil has more minerals in it and antlers are made of 11 different minerals.  Would it make sense that the more minerals a deer has access to, the larger its antlers will grow?  Does it make sense to you that soil must be at the very least an important part of the equation?  Soil can be fascinating study for the whitetail hunter!

Some years ago while doing  research it dawned on me that many of the top whitetail hunting counties in the country have a common parent material soil type called “Loess”  which is essentially crushed calcium.  Calcium also happens to make up the largest part of a deers antlers!  I like most other whitetail fanatics knew that fertile soil was a part of the equation but the newly discovered correlation excited me.   I point to a report done by Joel Helmer for Boone & Crockett in 2006 titled “Boone & Crockett Whitetails: A Geographic Analysis“  which can be found on the web by clicking here.   Joel’s report narrowed the nation down to 10 top counties in the United States based on the number of B&C whitetails that had been entered into the record books from those particular counties. Joel ranked the counties in this order 

1. Buffalo County Wisconsin
2. St. Louis County Minnesota
3. Dimmit County Texas
4. Pike County Illinois
5. Adams County Illinois
6. Fulton County Illinois
7. McHenry County Illinois
8. Allamakee County Iowa
9. Monona County Iowa
10. Webb County Texas

For several years I dug into the soil data and soil surveys for these counties and found that 8 out of 10 have soil types where Loess is the parent material.  Those in Texas, despite the lack of Loess have calcium from other sources and in fact had the highest calcium levels of all the counties up to 50% in some cases while much of the Midwestern calcium levels ran in the 35-40% range.    If you have never used the Web Soil Survey that USDA offers online you are missing out on a very useful research tool.  Below is a graphic showing the Loess distribution across the United States.

You notice that those Midwestern states well known for huge whitetails also happen to be covered in Loess.  Each area has varying depths of Loess.  Where I live I can look out the window here in Western Iowa and look at 250 tall Loess Hills but as you travel east from here the Loess layer gets thinner and thinner to where it is only a few inches thick and I’ll explain that shortly. It should be noted that not all soil types derived from Loess are as equally high in calcium content.  The Loess soil types can range from 5% to 45% calcium levels.   Below is a graphic from Joel Helmers report that shows the distribution of B&C entries from across the US.  See if you can compare it with the previous graphic and find any correlation.

When I compare the two closely I see certain correlations between the Loess layer and the distribution of Booners registered.  I’ve heard it argued that the best deer are only along the Mississippi River because of the fertile soils there but that makes it pretty tough to explain whats happening in southern Iowa, or along the Missouri River in western Iowa or northeast Illinois.  Let me tell you something about the Mississippi River Corridor that makes sense to me, and the same is true of the Missouri River Corridor. 

Many many years ago the upper Midwest was covered by glaciers that moved from the north to the south.  As those glaciers moved south they did two thing.  First they crushed limestone and sandstone to a powder fine flour consistency dust AND they melted as they got closer to the equator and as our climate warmed.  This happened several times actually.  What was left was a sea that had a bed of powder fine calcium rich crushed limestone at the bottom.  As the climate continued to warm the sea dried up exposing the bed of Loess on the bottom which also eventually dried and was picked up by northwesterly winds that blew it southeast.    This happened in the Missouri River Corridor and the Mississippi River Corridor. 

The result of this was that the much smaller rivers (Missouri and Mississippi) were left and each had a huge drift of this flowery soil to their east now.  If you are familiar with the rugged landscape following the east side of either river you know that instead of one massive drift of this soil there is no ridges that give way to valley’s.  The topography in these areas are rugged near the western edge of the mass and eventually flattens out as you move east.  Here is a photo of where I live near the Missouri River in western Iowa’s Loess Hills.

You can see how the Missouri River Valley gives way to the bluffs of Loess that have now become a series of ridges and valleys after thousands of years of rain and erosion have made them the beautiful place they are.  If you were to move east to the Mississippi River valley you would see something very similar.  Here is a photo from Pike County Illinois right along the Mississippi River Delta that shows the identical topography and formation.

Here again along the Mississippi you can see the flat river bottom Delta gives way to the taller bluffs of Loess that were the material at the bottom of the sea bed.

This is a view looking north up the Mississippi River Valley in Pike County Illinois.

This is a view looking north up the Missouri River Valley at Harrison County Iowa.

The Loess layer is always most rugged on the western edge of the hills because it was closest to the sea bed and the heaviest particles that could not be carried by the wind were deposited early in larger quantities.  The layer things as it moves east because only the finest and lightest particles could be carried that distance.   To look at a cross-section you would notice the major distribution is much like this.

Is it just a coincidence that these big buck producing counties are covered in Loess?  How does Loess affect a deers antler growth?  I’ve only begun to scratch the surface with where I am going with this post, but obviously it’s getting pretty long.  In part 2 I will be talking about Loess Hills and besides the Calcium why they are better whitetail habitat.  The best part of this series will come in part 3 so don’t miss the next two if you read part 1.