What Happens With Successful Whitetail Property Management

I had been in the treestand for less than an hour when the largest-racked whitetail I’ve ever seen on the hoof materialized through a screen of brush. Having approached silently, he stood about 50 yards from the tree in which I was perched some 25 feet above the ground, and the sudden sight of him caused me to gasp. I raised my binocular for a better look and identified him as the Curved Brow 10 (CB10), a buck on Gregg Ritz’s do-not-shoot list. Justin Mueller, a videographer for Ritz’s television show Hunt Masters, was in a stand above and behind me and confirmed the buck’s identity. CB10 stood there for several thrilling minutes, surveying the timbered bottom, before casually ambling off.

About half an hour later, I heard footsteps in the dry leaves behind me and slowly turned by head to see a second buck, somehow even bigger than the first, slowly making his way toward our stand. While CB10 made me gasp, this one elevated my heart rate with every step he took. As he made his way into the open where we could see him better, Justin and I recognized him as Rip, another buck on the no-shoot list. Rip was completely oblivious to our presence and eventually passed within 10 yards of our tree before moseying on.

On one hand, it was excruciating not being able to shoot either of the two biggest whitetails I’ve ever seen in my life; on the other, it was thrilling just to be in the animals’ presence. Once I had determined that each was a no-shoot deer, it was nice to simply watch them be deer and not have to worry about readying myself for a shot. Their casual nature was somewhat jarring, though, given that it was the middle of November. But it was also a testament to Ritz’s determination to provide these deer with a true sanctuary while also limiting the hunting pressure on the farm.

A MAN WITH A PLAN

The stand I was hunting from, known as the Lost Stand, is positioned in the hub of a sort of wagon wheel in the timber, with multiple creeks and draws leading to it like spokes. It’s situated in a bowl below a couple different food plots; one that was planted in corn, the other in beans. It is a high-traffic area the deer pass through on their way to bed after leaving the plots at first light.

Some 100 stands and blinds dot Ritz’s 2,000-acre Hancock County, Ill., farm, and each is chosen to hunt from based on a set of criteria that includes wind and time of day. For instance, the stand I sat on the dawn of opening day of the 2024 Illinois firearms season is a morning-only stand that is exclusively hunted with a northwest wind.

“Our 2,000 acres are mapped out into four zones that we manage as their own ecosystems, and each stand location within a given zone or ecosystem is determined by ease of access and wind,” Ritz told me. “Up until the first few days of November, we’re always looking at the trail cameras to determine the deer activity, and when the deer is what we call a ‘day-walker,’ you go kill him. We’re always looking for day-walkers. It means that buck is comfortable with the weather cycle, the lunar cycle, the barometric cycle, etcetera. So, when a buck becomes a day-walker, that’s when you want to access and hunt from a stand that offers the best shot at the buck.

“Once the rut starts, we focus on travel corridors, pinch points and known doe bedding areas. At that point, it’s all about time in the seat. As long as the wind is right for a stand, it’s never wrong to hunt there during the rut. You might hunt for three days straight before you see him, but he’s going to cycle through eventually.”

I’ve been fortunate to hunt whitetails on many excellent properties over the course of my 25-year career in outdoor media, but none compares to Ritz’s farm. Gregg and property manager Rob Kivela invest hundreds if not thousands of hours every year modifying and improving the habitat to create an absolute whitetail wonderland that offers deer everything they need to live a happy and contented life—a wide variety of nutritional foods, ample water and lots of security cover—and no reason to venture onto neighboring farms. Western Illinois has been a bastion of giant whitetails for decades, and countless hunters have traveled there over that time, seeking to hang their tag on a true Midwest goliath. While Illinois has taken a backseat in recent years to states like Kansas and Iowa in terms of big-buck reputation, it is still capable of producing giant bucks as long as the deer are given the opportunity to grow old and reach their full potential.

That’s why Gregg and Rob are so meticulous in their habitat management practices and their cataloging of the bucks that live on the farm (Rob keeps folders on his laptop that are labeled with the bucks’ names and are full of dozens of trail cam photos and videos). It’s also why they only hunt certain stands on certain days and at certain times, and why they don’t kill any bucks that are younger than 6 years of age—including the two I encountered on the first morning of my hunt.

“The skeletal system of a whitetail is fully developed at age five,” says Ritz. “After that, they can take all the nutrition and put it into growing their antlers because they aren’t trying to grow bone in other parts of their body.”

CLOSE ENCOUNTER

The afternoon of Day 1 found Justin and me in a Grizzly box blind situated on the edge of the corn plot above my morning stand. Most of it was cut, but a few rows of stalks remained standing at the back side close to the edge of the woods. A hedgerow ran from the left of me and behind the blind, while an open pasture sat off to the right. It immediately struck me as a fine spot for an evening sit.

Before we’d left camp after lunch, Rob sat me down and showed me photos of a buck they’d dubbed the Vail 9. (The buck was named for the food plot where it grew up, which was the first plot on the property built using implements made by Kansas-based Vail Products. That’s probably not the most interesting deer naming story you’ve ever heard, but now you know.) According to trail cam photos, the Vail 9 had visited the plot the previous three evenings. He was an older buck, estimated to be 7 years of age. As such, his rack was likely maxed out in terms of potential and it sported a ton of character, including a bladed right G2 with a split tip. Rob was almost certain I would encounter him that evening.

Shortly after Justin and I got situated, several does began filtering into the plot to feed on the waste grain. They came and went as they pleased, feeding without a care in the world. As we watched the does do their thing, I caught a brief glimpse of a buck’s rack passing behind the standing stalks. Without hesitation, I eased the window open, positioned myself behind the shotgun, which was locked into a tripod shooting saddle, and waited for what I assumed was the Vail 9 to enter the plot.

However, as the brute turned the corner around the stalks, I immediately realized it was Rip, the larger of the two bucks I’d seen that morning. While I was somewhat disappointed it wasn’t a shootable deer, I was nonetheless elated to be able to spend more time up close and personal with Rip and watch him feed and interact with the does, which he did for the better part of an hour.

With about half an hour of shooting light left, I caught motion to the right side of the blind out of the corner of my eye and quickly realized it was a buck. Whereas the does and Rip had arrived at the plot from the timber and entered through the standing corn, this buck had come from the open pasture and was moving with purpose. As he entered the plot, I could see it was the Vail 9, so I opened the window once more and prepared for a shot. However, instead of stopping and feeding as all the other deer had done that afternoon, the old warrior made a hard right and walked straight away from the blind on a beeline for the standing corn and disappeared just as quickly as he had arrived. Dumbfounded by the Vail 9’s abbreviated visit, I sat tight until shooting light ran out, hoping that he might return, but he evidently had dinner plans elsewhere that night.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

On the second morning of the hunt, Justin and I sat in a blind positioned in the corner of a plot planted in turnips, a sea of lush green leaves surrounding us.

“There are five things to consider when it comes to deer nutrition,” Ritz told me later. “First is native browse, which makes up 80 percent of a whitetail’s diet and can be increased on a property through timber stand improvement [TSI]. We pick pockets and developmentally change the browse situation via TSI across the landscape. That way we know where we’re going to imprint the fawns and congregate deer within the ecosystem we’ve created for them. Second is water. You don’t want deer traveling very far for water, so we put water troughs in and build ponds and little water catches in order to have as much accessible water as possible.

“Then, as far as planting foods, there are three things that we introduce into the ecosystem. The first is green crops, things like clover and alfalfa, which provide 9 or 10 months of high-nutrition, high-protein, high-fiber food. We plant the greens as a border around the grains, stuff like corn and soybeans, which is the second introduced food type. The third is what we call our traditional food plots, which are predominantly brassicas—things like rape and turnips.”

Numerous deer, including a few immature bucks, came and went over the course of the dreary, drizzly late-November morning, and I was grateful to be able to take in the show from the cozy confines of an elevated box blind.

Over lunch, it was decided that I would return to the same blind I sat in the previous evening, in hopes that the Vail 9 or another mature buck might show up. The clouds that had covered the sky in the morning gave way to a clear and cold afternoon. Just like the previous evening, the deer activity began almost immediately after I had secured the Encore in the tripod saddle and Justin had set up his camera.

Wanting to avoid being caught off guard by a buck slipping into the plot as the Vail 9 had done the previous evening, my head was on a swivel as I constantly monitored the full 180-degree view that the blind afforded me. Around 3:30, the plot having been devoid of deer for the previous half hour or so, I could hear the distinct, rhythmic footfalls of a buck in the dried leaves beyond the screen of standing corn. Then, like Shoeless Joe Jackson in Field of Dreams, a buck appeared through the stalks. It was the Vail 9.

As soon as he emerged, he turned to his left and began walking along the standing stalks, just 30 yards from the blind. Hoping to avoid a repeat of our fleeting encounter the evening before, I quickly found him in my scope. When he took a step with his front right leg, I squeezed off a shot, sending a 200-plus-grain rifled slug into his vitals. The Vail 9 lurched forward like a sprinter leaving the starting blocks, turned left into a cut in the stalks and crashed to the ground not 15 yards from where he had stood when I shot.

LABOR OF LOVE

Back at camp that night, over a dinner of venison tomahawk steaks and food plot turnips prepared by wild game chef Jeremiah Doughty, I asked Ritz about the challenges and rewards of maintaining 2,000 acres of whitetail paradise to consistently produce exceptional, mature bucks.

“The joy of hunting whitetails, for me, has transitioned to managing the landscape—to creating an ecosystem that allows these deer to realize their top genetic potential by giving them all the nutrition they need,” said Ritz. “It’s the year-round dedication and passion that drives us to do what we do. The satisfaction comes from the sweat equity, not from pulling the trigger. That’s the saddest part. When you close the chapter, it’s heart-breaking. But it always resets, and the cycle continues with new bucks.”

UP FROM THE ASHES

• After a 5-year hiatus, Thompson/Center Arms returns to the scene.

In addition to being the host of Hunt Masters, Ritz is also President and CEO of Thompson/Center Arms, the beloved New Hampshire-based firearm manufacturer that was acquired by Smith & Wesson in 2007 and was left to languish during the Covid years. Ritz purchased the company, including all of its intellectual property, in April of 2024 and relocated it back to its original home state of New Hampshire. In a year’s time, they’ve expanded to a 68,000-foot facility and a workforce of 80 people, half of whom worked at T/C in the past.

The primary purpose of my hunt on Ritz’s farm was to use the first pre-production models of the brand’s signature Encore ProHunter, a break-open, single-shot platform with interchangeable barrels. I used and Encore ProHunter Rifled Slug Gun chambered in 20 gauge. Additional barrels include the Encore ProHunter XT .50-caliber muzzleloader and Encore ProHunter Centerfire Rifle.

“There are a few key differences between the new Encores and the old ones,” says Ritz. “On the frame, the trigger, the sear, the firing pin bushing and the firing pin are all nitride-treated. On the rifle barrels, we went to 5R rifling and we threaded the muzzles for a suppressor or brake.

“On top of that, there are improved manufacturing processes made possible by the technology in the CNC equipment that has aided the accuracy, fit-and-finish and performance of the gun. So now, someone who picks up a Thompson/Center gun will notice that it opens nicely, it shuts like a vault, the trigger feels better than it’s ever felt. And, of course, the accuracy we’re getting out of the centerfire barrels is the best that it’s ever been because now when we machine the lug and the extractor slot and the chamber all on one machine, instead of four different operations, the tolerances we can hold are so much better.”

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• This article was featured in the November 2025 issue of Game & Fish magazine. Click to subscribe.

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