The Briarwood Difference

Briarwood is Sugar Creek’s high fence option. Briarwood was established in the early nineties, a sprawling 1550 acre farm was purchased. The fence was erected and a number of native deer were in the enclosure when the final stretch of fence was raised. The captured herd has been the basis for the deer that roam Briarwood today. The popularity for trophy management wasn’t there in the early nineties as it is today. So Briarwood was created in hopes to trophy manage a herd with the assurance that the deer you let walk lives, unless of course he dies of natural mortality. One of the major factors in trophy managing is genetics and the native Illinois genetics have produced some of the biggest bucks taken in the world.

Throughout the early years Briarwood concentrated on the buck to doe ratio and gaining some older age structure in the bucks, the payoff was monumental. Hunting of the bucks with the trophy status was forbidden allowing them to breed as much as possible.

We began hunting some of the trophies when we estimated their age to be 6 ½ yrs. Several bucks scoring over 170 have been taken including 8 over 200 inches many in the 180-190 range, this is ultra impressive for any 1550 acre property to claim. It is safe to say that the genetics are here. More recently we have decided to fine tune our trophy management moving it to the next level. The last two years we have went back to the basics so to speak and concentrated on hunting only the management bucks (bucks not showing trophy potential) and once again making it forbidden to hunt a buck with the trophy status. The results are already evident, bucks scoring near 150 at 2 years of age and by age 3 some scoring up to 170. Our intention is to continue on this path for another year, maybe two. We will sell only management hunts at this time. The goal is to produce more trophy class bucks than ever before and allowing them to maximize the amount of breeding they do. Trophy hunting will be reopened and a limited number of hunts will be available to book. This is a rare opportunity to have a real chance at a buck of a lifetime at a first class operation. Follow the progress of our goals and trophy hunt availability in our newsletter.

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