Texas Dove Hunting Season: Load Up!



It’s mid-August and thoughts of the upcoming Texas dove hunting season are already dancing in my head. There is nothing more fun that some fast-paced wingshooting on a warm Texas evening by a receding stock tank with a couple of your buddies. I grew up hunting doves with my dad and it, along with rabbit hunting, was really my gateway to the hunting word. The September dove opener always marks the beginning of another fall of hunting. The seem to get here faster and faster every year.

Texas dove hunters should see plenty of opportunity this fall as conditions are shaping up for an above average season, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD). Dove season kicks off Sunday, September 1 across most of the state. Texas dove hunters number upwards of 250,000 and collectively bag between 5-6 million doves during the 70-day season. Thanks to new rules approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) this year, hunters can possess up to 45 birds — three times the daily bag limit. Previously, the possession limit was twice the daily bag. Daily bag limits still apply.

Texas Dove Hunting - Texas Dove Season


The USFWS also approved for this year an expanded Special White-wing Dove Area (SWWDA) in South Texas. The SWWDA will now extend eastward along its current boundary and continue south along Interstate 37 from San Antonio to Corpus Christi, effectively doubling its current size.

“For the last two decades, white-winged dove populations have steadily expanded both their numbers and their geographical extent,” said Dave Morrison, Small Game Program Director with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. “We believe, and the Service agrees, an expansion is appropriate to take advantage of additional dove hunting opportunities.”

To take advantage of the earliest possible opening dates for the special area, the season will run Sunday, September 1 through Labor Day, Monday, September 2, and then reopen Saturday, September 7 and Sunday, September 8. The daily bag limit during the combined four-day season is 15 doves in the aggregate to include no more than two mourning doves and two white-tipped doves and hunting during the early dove season in the SWWDA is permitted only from noon to sunset.

Dove season in the North and Central zones will run concurrent from September 1-October 23 and December 20-January 5. The South Zone dove season is set for September 20-October 27 and December 20-January 20, with the regular season in the SWWDA September 20-October 23 and December 20-January 20.

According to Shaun Oldenburger, TPWD’s Dove Program Leader, hunters can expect to see an increase from last year in dove numbers. “It appears that breeding dove numbers have increased from last year in many regions of the state,” he said. “Increased precipitation helped improve dove production and generate ample food supplies. It should be a good dove hunting season.”


Duck Hunting, Habitat Management at J.D. Murphree WMA

All reports from the north indicated that the upcoming duck and goose hunting seasons should be a good one since it was a good year for waterfowl reproduction. Some of the best public hunting lands in Texas can be found on the coastal wildlife management areas (WMA) for waterfowl, including J.D. Murphree WMA. The 30,000+ acre WMA has been busy with wetland habitat management projects for decades now, making the highly productive marshes even more attractive for wintering ducks and geese.

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department invites the public to attend an informational meeting regarding the upcoming migratory game bird hunting season and ongoing wetland restoration efforts on Wildlife Management Areas along the Upper Coast of Texas. The public meeting will be held on Wednesday, August 14, from 6-8 p.m. at the J.D. Murphree WMA Headquarters check station at 10 Parks and Wildlife Drive in Port Arthur, on the south side of Highway 73 near the intersection of Jade Avenue.

Public Duck Hunting at J.D. Murphree WMA


Wetland projects were completed on sites in the Lower Neches WMA and the J.D. Murphree WMA. Updates regarding public duck hunting access within the Upper Coast WMAs and information on rules and regulations, including leased public hunting sites, will also be available. Additional information regarding public hunting opportunity on TPWD owned lands is available by contacting the J.D. Murphree WMA at 409-736-2551.

Small Acreage Deer Management: High Fence Style

Question: “Interested in deer hunting and management on one of our ranches. We’ve got some whitetail deer on a property that is located near Brady, Texas. What is the carrying capacity for a small 150 acre ranch under high fence if we are supplemental feeding? Oh, and the property is about 50 percent brush and trees (oak, mesquite) with the remainder open grassland. Will probably put in some food plots too on the open areas. How many deer?”

Deer Hunting Pros: Though small acreage places can provide good deer hunting, the high fence situation will really limit what you can do, primarily because you will have little deer movement into and out of the place and the deer herd will be relatively limited. That being said, there is no doubt that you can support some number of deer on the place, and probably even produce some good bucks. Although the ranch is 150 acres, it sounds like the functioning amount of habitat may be more like 90 to 100 acres because of limited cover. 

Of course, the grassland areas can grow up and become deer habitat in 5 to 10 years, and that will help, but right now let’s look at it from the standpoint of 100 acres. In that part of Texas, 100 acres of deer habitat can support about 1 deer to every 10 to 15 acres. If you plan on providing year round supplemental feeding then I would think you could get away with a deer to every 8 to 10 acres. This would only be about 10 to 12 deer early on. I would recommend against any more than this early on OR the grassland areas will not grow into deer habitat. The deer will eat preferred browse plants as they grow and prevent establishment. Continue reading Small Acreage Deer Management: High Fence Style

Texas Deer Hunting: Tracking Wounded Deer with Dogs?

Although hunters take every precaution to make good shots resulting in clean kills while deer hunting, it is inevitable that there will be times that deer must be tracked for longer than expected distances. Tracking wounded deer with dogs is an effective way to locate deer, and it’s commonplace in most areas. In East Texas, however, dogs have been banned for some time, but now Texas Parks & Wildlife Department (TPWD) is revisiting this regulation. Hunters could use dogs to trail a wounded deer in 12 counties in East Texas, a practice that has been prohibited in this area of the state since 1990, under a proposal being considered by TPWD.

A series of public meetings will be held to provide details of the proposal and give the public an opportunity to comment. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission is expected to take action on the proposed change at its August 22. In 1990 TPWD adopted rules prohibiting the use of dogs to trail wounded deer in 34 East Texas counties. The rule making was necessary because the department determined that dogs were being used unlawfully for deer hunting, which was causing depletion of the resource.

Texas Deer Hunting

By 2000, TPWD determined that the practice of using dogs for whitetail hunting had declined to the point of being nonexistent in some of those counties and removed the prohibition in 10 of those East Texas counties. TPWD now believes the prohibition could be lifted in an additional 12 counties, including: Harris, Harrison, Houston, Jefferson, Liberty, Montgomery, Panola, Polk, Rusk, San Jacinto, Trinity, and Walker.

Details about the proposal, along with an opportunity to provide public comment, can be found online. TPWD says that comments may also be made in writing to Robert Macdonald, TPWD Regulations Coordinator, 4200 Smith School Rd., Austin, TX 78744, in person at any of the following public hearings or at the TPWD annual public hearing on August 21 at 2 p.m. at the above address.


TPWD Public Hearing Calendar for East Texas Deer Hunting Regulations

  • Tuesday, July 30 in Woodville at the Woodville Elementary School Community Room, 306 Kirby Drive.
  • Wednesday, July 31 in Lufkin at the Angelina County Courthouse District Courtroom, 215 East Lufkin Avenue.
  • Thursday, Aug. 1 in Hemphill at the Sabine County Courthouse District Courtroom, 201 Main Street.

All meetings are set to begin at 6 p.m. each evening. At the conclusion of each public hearing, wildlife officials will conduct a brief presentation on deer management and hunting regulations in the Pineywoods. TPWD staff will present information related to regulations and data collection and take questions regarding deer management, deer hunting and regulations.

Deer Hunting in Texas: A Season of Change?

There is no doubt that white-tailed deer hunting in Texas has changed over the past few decades. The terminology has definitely has: management bucks, breeder bucks, shooter bucks, deer pens, managed lands deer permits (MLDP), so on and so on. Anyone heading out hunting on a commercial operation had better sign up for a short-course on hunting terminology before even entering the gate. It’s not just deer hunting in Texas as it once was. It’s Texas trophy hunting in Texas. But I’m not even sure about the hunting part anymore.

There’s been some stuff brewing in the state for quite some time regarding deer ownership. It’s a gray area, to say the least. Landowners can buy deer, raise deer and offer deer for sale, but they only own them up to a point. You see, you can only shoot a state-owned deer. After all, every hunter needs either a hunting license tag or a state-issued deer permit. This argument over deer ownership is definitely a hot button, with both sides having valid arguments in my opinion. All I ask is that the good of the whitetail deer population be protected.

Deer Hunting Texas

Source: If a judge orders TPW to compensate Anderton for them, the decision may prove private ownership in a state where every whitetail, even those conceived artificially and born in a pen, belongs ultimately to Texas and its people. It would signal a fundamental shift in the concept of wildlife as an irrevocable public trust. That outlook dates to the backlash to market hunting and the near extinction of whole deer species for the sale of pelts and venison. Beginning with Teddy Roosevelt’s presidency, a movement to set aside federal wildlife refuges took shape. The secretary of agriculture created hunting seasons and bag limits, effectively ending the mass harvesting of game species for personal gain. Deer populations rebounded.

Now wildlife conservationists can’t help but wonder if this isn’t somehow a creeping return to the bad old days. “We recognize that wildlife is a public trust, and it belongs to all people in the state, held in trust and managed on behalf of the people by private landowners,” says Doug Slack, director of the Wildlife Society’s Texas Chapter. “[Breeders] consider me old-fashioned, but they’re promoting new legislation that’s promoting ideas and concepts that came up in the 1800s.”

But because game species like whitetail deer are no longer in danger of extinction, the industry wonders whether the prevailing public trust model is outdated.

“There’s a lot of religious zeal and elitism in my profession that hangs tenaciously to that old belief that wildlife belongs to everybody, and that wildlife in commerce is an evil thing,” says Dr. James Kroll, a deer breeder and director of Stephen F. Austin State University’s Institute for White-tailed Deer Management and Research. “They’re looking at the days of market hunting, but those were days when there was no regulation.

Texas Deer Hunting Season Looks Bright

The upcoming white-tailed deer hunting season should be a good one in Texas. Though the past couple of years have been tough for everyone, 2013 has been good for deer and other wildlife. Timely rains were delivered, especially in the front half of the year keeping whitetail food levels in good shape to date. The Texas sun has dried things out as of late, but that’s nothing new for the summer season in any part of the state. It’s mid-July but it is already setting up to be a good deer season for many parts of the state.

Without a doubt, herd recruitment has taken a hit the past few years, but the years of 2007 and 2008 were great for whitetail. I realize that many of the deer that were born back during those years have already been turned into some sort of tasty smoked product and consumed long ago, but there are likely some bucks from that cohort that are still out there. Those bucks would be 5 1/2 and 6 1/2 this hunting season. I don’t know about you, but that’s exactly the type of deer that I will be looking for.

Texas Deer Hunting Season Coming Up!

Properties involved in deer management will reap the rewards of the 2007 and 2008 fawn crops. Many ranches involved in management programs have reduced their annual buck harvest in recent years because of lower fawn crops, meaning there should be good numbers of bucks and does of these older age classes. It’s now time to harvest of all of those fawns that have grown up to be big, heavy-horned, mature buckss. We are still a few months away from deer hunting season, but I am already getting pumped up. The property we manage will have some great deer out there. I think a lot of other properties will too.

The icing on the cake is the fact that it has been a good year for antler growth. Much of Texas has had enough rain to keep food levels ta good to even high levels in the field. That bodes not only for improved buck quality this year, but also for good fawn numbers. More recruitment into the herd means more animals that will may need to be removed. This deer hunting season will probably not be a recorder breaker by Texas standards, but the hunting should be good. The total number of bucks out there may be lower, but there should be decent numbers of good, mature bucks. Look for more fawns, too.

Teal Season Sees Bag Limit Upped in Texas

The Texas Teal Season is already looking good with bag limits going up. Texas bird hunters might consider need a little more ammo this fall to take advantage of increased bag and possession limits and expanded teal hunting opportunities. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has approved for Texas this year an expanded Special White-wing Dove Area (SWWDA), a six bird daily bag during the September teal season and increased possession limits for all migratory game birds.

Also new this year, teal hunters will be able to take up to six teal daily during the statewide September teal season, set to run September 14-29. The higher possession limit will be especially helpful for the thousands of waterfowl hunters who travel for duck hunting trips each year and want to take their birds home with them. For hunters that take week-long trips across the country to harvest waterfowl, this change will make a difference.

The early Canada goose season will also run September 14-29 in the Eastern Goose Zone with a daily bag limit of three Canada geese. Under new rules, the possession limit for all migratory game birds is three times the daily bag.

Texas Teal Hunting Season and Bag Limits

Blue-winged Teal Fall Season Migration

Source: “Blue-winged teal are generally the first ducks south in the fall and the last north in the spring. They migrate from the Prairie Pothole Region to wintering areas in Florida, the Caribbean Islands, the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana, Mexico and Central and South America. Wintering habitats are diverse, including mangrove swamps, fresh and brackish estuaries and shallow wetlands. In the United States, the highest winter densities occur in southern Texas and peninsular Florida. Blue-winged teal are common in winter from Central America, the Caribbean and South America south to Peru and northeastern Brazil. They also stay regularly in small numbers in the Galapagos Islands and are vagrants to Chile, southeastern Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina.”

Texas Dove Hunting Expands for Upcoming Season

It’s hot outside but that won’t stop me from thinking about the upcoming dove hunting season that is now only a month and half away. And it looks like there will be plenty of bird hunting action to go around. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has once again approved for Texas this year a 15 bird daily dove bag limit and increased possession limits for all migratory game birds. The SWWDA will now extend eastward along its current boundary and continue south along Interstate 37 from San Antonio to Corpus Christi, effectively doubling its current size.

“For the last two decades, white-winged dove populations have steadily expanded both their numbers and their geographical extent,” said Dave Morrison, Small Game Program Director with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. “We believe, and the Service agrees, an expansion is appropriate to take advantage of additional dove hunting opportunities.”

Dove Hunting in Texas

To take advantage of the earliest possible opening dates for the special area, the season will run Sunday, September 1 through Labor Day, Monday, September 2, and then reopen Saturday, September 7 and Sunday, September 8. The bag limit during the four-day season is 15 doves in the aggregate to include no more than two mourning doves and two white-tipped doves and hunting is permitted only from noon to sunset.

Dove season in the North and Central zones will run concurrent from September 1-October 20 and December 20-January 8. The South Zone dove season is set for September 20-October 27 and December 20-January 20, with the season in the SWWDA September 20-October 23 and December 20-January 20.

Under new rules, the possession limit for all migratory game birds, including mourning and white-winged dove, is three times the daily bag. That’s great news for Texas dove hunters because that means they can hunt longer and bring home more birds. Hey, I love dove hunting not only for the great wing-shooting, but also because those suckers are downright tasty when sandwiched between a jalepeno and an onion, then wrapped in bacon and grilled!

Deer Hunting in Lampasas County

Question: “We are going to start deer hunting in Lampasas County this coming season. We have hunted on the western edge of the hill country for two decades, but now we are on the east side and it’s a whole new game. Got on a 700 acre deer lease about 10 miles south of Lampasas that is located just off of Highway 183. One of the guys we met in town said that some decent bucks come out of Lampasas County. Do you have any knowledge of the area.”

Deer Hunting Pros: All of the Texas Hill Country can produce good deer, but Lampasas County really has the potential to grow some big bucks. I’m quite familiar with the Lampasas area because two of my good friends have hunted up there for years. Still do. I think Lampasas County is a sleeper county that not many talk about, but I’ve seen some good bucks in the back of trucks up that way. The deer hunting up that way can be good, but of course the productivity of your lease will depend on many factors.

Based on the location you gave, it sounds like you will actually be deer hunting near the town of Watson, which is in Burnet County. This area is similar to Lampasas County in that the habitat can vary quite a bit. Depending on the location of your lease, it can range from wide open prairie lands with a low deer density to wooded creeks and pockets of habitat that are basically overpopulated with deer. Either way can be good hunting. The areas with low deer densities will produce larger bucks without a doubt. Continue reading Deer Hunting in Lampasas County

Quail Management in Texas – Habitat & Hunting

The key to great bobwhite quail hunting can be found in providing high quality habitat. The South Texas Plains and the Rolling Plains of north-central Texas offer the best overall areas for quail hunting and habitat in the state. In relative terms, the overall habitat types occurring in other regions, such as the Edwards Plateau or the eastern side of the Cross Timbers region of central Texas are not known as some of the better quail producing areas of the state. The truth of the matter though is that it can be difficult to manage for quail, even in areas and on properties that provide good quail habitat.

That is because quail populations vary greatly from year to year, even in the best quail producing parts of Texas. The timing and amount of fall and winter rainfall are thought to be the most critical factors that determine quail breeding success and survivability during the next year. Adequate amounts of fall/winter rains are necessary for the soil moisture that promotes the early growth of herbaceous plants, which quail require. It takes several good years to really grow a quail population. Many quail die naturally each winter, whether or not they are hunted, so it takes decent conditions year-in and year-out to maintain a population. Quail populations, like quail hunting in Texas, are boom or bust. The land, however, must be managed for quail in order to take advantage of the rainfall that nature provides.

Quail Hunting and Management in Texas

Quail Habitat Management for Food Production

Bobwhite quail must have a year-round adequate supply of food and reasonable protection from hazards. This includes protection from predators while feeding, resting, loafing, roosting, traveling, and nesting, as well as protection from inclement weather conditions. Both food and cover supply must be stable or continuously renewed during the entire year. It is not enough that food and cover be adequate for 11 months, if either is lacking during a single month.

Food and cover must occur in an well-arranged pattern if they are to comprise quail habitat. The distance between a source of ample food and adequate cover must not be greater than bobwhites can negotiate with safety. As a rule of thumb, bobwhites venture no further than 200 yards from patches of cover. Ideally, escape cover should be linked to food supplies with more or less continuous screening cover. The screening cover must not be dense enough to prove an obstacle to the quail’s short-legged gait. Overgrazed pastures do not provide adequate screening cover. On the flip side, dense stands of thick grass cannot be easily negotiated. Without a suitable space relationship, a range will not be habitable for quail regardless of the quality or amount of food and cover present.

Food supplies are usually most abundant during the spring and summer when seeds are ripening and insects and green plant material are available. The quail food supply begins to diminish at the time of the first killing frost in the fall, and continues to decline throughout the winter due to competition from other animals and from weathering. Seeds from forbs such as croton (doveweed), ragweed, sunflower, partridge pea, and many others are staple winter foods. A number of woody plants provide winter quail food.

Fruits and mast such as small acorns, sumac berries, hackberries, and gum elastic berries supplement quail diets. Most grasses, except for paspalums and panic grasses, do not produce seeds large enough to be worthwhile quail food. In general, forbs are the most important and most widely distributed sources of winter quail food. Green material from cool season forbs and grasses that germinate in the late winter if rainfall is adequate is essential to get quail in good body condition for the upcoming breeding season.

Quail Cover – Necessary for Good Habitat

Bobwhite quail need several types of cover: screening overhead cover for security while feeding and traveling, “tangled” woody cover to retreat into to escape enemies, a “living room” type of cover for dusting or resting, and nesting cover. Roosting cover is also needed, but if other types of cover are present, the roosting cover requirement is usually adequately met.

Cover can take many forms and a patch of cover can meet several of the cover requirements. A stand of broomweed, or similar tall plants with bushy canopies and an open understory at ground level, can provide screening overhead cover. Thickets of low brush, trees, and vines can provide escape and loafing cover. In general, a habitat with between 5% and 15% canopy coverage of good woody cover is adequate, if it occurs in small, well-distributed patches (no more than 200 yards between patches as discussed above).

Patches of residual grasses left over from the previous growing season can provide nesting cover. Individual patches should be at least 8 inches tall and 12 inches in diameter (the size of a cake pan). Ideally, there should be more than 250 well distributed clumps of suitable nesting cover per acre, or 1 clump every 15 to 20 steps. Too little nesting cover makes it easier for predators to find and destroy nests.

Quail Habitat Management Practices

A primary quail management objective is to maintain or create the mosaic of small thickets of low growing woody brush throughout a ranch, as described above in woody cover requirements. Thickets of sumac, briers, agarito, elbowbush, etc. should be retained and encouraged to form in the more open areas of the ranch. Although not as desirable, small clumps of low growing cedars could have some value as cover where other species do not grow or are in short supply. Small patches of low growing cover should be retained during brush clearing operations in the more densely wooded portions of the ranch.

Where vines have grown up into a tree but it is too open at ground level to serve as quail cover, the tree can be cut half through a few feet above ground and pushed over, bringing the living vines closer to the ground. The trunks of multi-stemmed mesquites can be half-cut and pushed over to where the limbs touch the ground but they still continue to grow, forming small areas protected from cattle grazing/deer browsing. Half-cutting mesquite should be done during the early and middle parts of the growing season, not during the dormant season. The “skeletons” of large cut cedars can also form small areas protected from grazing/browsing where patches of herbaceous and woody plants suitable for cover can become established.

The number of browsing animals on the range (combination of wildlife and domestic livestock) needs to be maintained at a level where browsing pressure on low growing woody cover is not excessive. The objective should be to improve the amount and quality of herbaceous cover. A well-planned deferred-rotation livestock grazing system can be used to create the patchy pattern of lightly grazed areas interspersed among more heavily grazed areas needed for nesting cover.

Most good seed producing forbs are early successional stage annuals that respond to soil disturbance that sets back plant succession. Disking the soil is a good habitat management practice for quail that encourages the growth of forbs and other annual plants. Disked strips should be long and meandering and 1 or 2 disc widths wide. The same strips can be disked annually, or side-by-side strips can be disked on an alternating basis every other year to create adjacent strips in various stages of succession. The best plant response will occur in areas of deeper soils. It is important that disked strips be located near escape cover so they are useable by quail. Disking can be done anytime between the first killing frost in the fall and the last frost in the spring, but the optimum time is near the end of winter (January, February) shortly before spring growth gets underway.

Heavy spot grazing by cattle, such as occurs around salt blocks, feed areas, and water, causes soil disturbance that encourages forb growth. Salt blocks and feeding areas should be moved around the ranch to create small patches of disturbed ground.

Managing the habitat for the production of native food plants and cover should be the primary management goal. Supplemental feeding and/or the planting of food plots are not a substitute for good habitat management. These practices should only be considered as “supplements” to the native habitat, not as “cure-alls” for low quality and/or poorly managed habitats. Food plots and feeders alone will not increase the number of quail a range can support if the supplies of other required habitat elements such as cover are limited.

Food Plots for Quail Management

Small food plots of seed producing plants including but not limited to millets, sorghum alum, and sorghum planted on deeper soils near cover can provide supplemental food sources during periods of extreme weather conditions. A limiting factor of supplemental food plots is the insufficient amount of rainfall received in central Texas during most years. During dry years when the production of native foods is limited and supplemental foods are most needed, supplemental plantings will also be failures. During good years in Texas when the production of native foods is adequate, food plots for quail may do well, but are not as necessary. Another limiting factor is that most types of supplemental plantings will have to be protected from livestock grazing by fencing the plot or deferring the pasture.

Supplemental Feeding for Quail Management

Feeding can provide supplemental food during extreme weather conditions, help hold quail in an area, and give hunters areas to key on while quail hunting. Broadcasting corn or sorghum along roads from a vehicle is one method of distributing supplemental feed. It can also be distributed from fixed feeders. An intensive feeding program would be one that provides 1 feeder per every 40 to 60 acres of quail habitat (feeders placed 440 to 540 yards apart in a grid pattern) so that every quail covey has access to several feeders.

One feeder per 75 acres may be sufficient. Feeders less dense than 1 per 160 acres may not provide much benefit. As with all other types of food sources, feeders need to be located near escape and screening cover to be useable by quail. Some limitations of supplemental feeding are: an intensive program can be expensive and labor intensive, feed use by other “non-target” birds and animals may be substantial, diseases and parasites can be spread at heavily used sites, predators learn to key on sites regularly used by quail, and, depending on the type of feeder used, they may have to be fenced from livestock and hogs (in areas where feral hogs are present).

Prescribed burning is an effective, low-cost habitat management tool that can be used to enhance plant diversity by stimulating production of a variety of woody plants, forbs, and grasses. Burning can be used to remove rank stands of herbaceous vegetation and plant litter that hinder quail movements.

Quail Management in a Nutshell

In summary, quail need good habitat to persist on any property and to provide recreational hunting opportunities. Food and all the different types of cover must be available year around and suitably arranged to have a good quail habitat. The number of quail a range can produce and support will be dependent on the habitat element that is most limited. In other words, if cover is the limiting factor, increasing the amount of food beyond that needed for the number of quail that can be supported by the cover will not increase the range’s quail carrying capacity, and vice versa. The rest is up to Mother Nature.