Last summer a friend asked me if I would take him and his six-year-old grandson fishing for a few hours and being that I’m all about kids learning to fish, of course I said yes. Well after an hour this little boy asked, “why and how do people trim their trees so close to the water?” and we both said they don’t.

While pointing towards the shoreline, the youngster said, the why are those trees so even? First of all, when I was his age I was just happy to be in a boat fishing and never noticed shoreline trees let alone if they were evenly cut, but this six-year-old sure did. I guess kids are more observant today than when I was a boy, but then again, they know more about the new cell phones and computers than adults do too.

Many years ago, I thought those trees looked evenly cut because of water levels and winter ice until I was schooled on the subject. While fishing with an old guide he told me those are white cedar trees, and the trees look even because of deer. Yes deer. He then explained in the winter like any other wild animal, food is critical for survival and white cedar is the number one choice of food for deer.

When winter sets in, forage starts to get covered with snow and deer still need to eat 2 to 5 pounds of food a day to survive. Once lakes freeze over, deer will walk onto the ice near shorelines and start to eat the white cedar trees as far as they can reach. How far can a deer reach? I have seen deer stand on their hind legs to spar with each other (mostly over food) so 8 feet or higher is not out of the question.

Then, being that deer are pretty much the same size, those white cedars look like someone trimmed them. So, if you didn’t know this already, the next time you are on your favorite lake in the Northwoods, those shoreline trees that look well-manicured are white cedar trees and deer trim them for the property owners.