Category: Whitetail

Over the years we have all read plenty of magazines and have heard plenty of lip-service about how big whitetail bucks let down during the rut. This is only slightly true, because big bucks, which are usually old bucks, are not stupid, after all. The whitetail deer breeding season does make bucks move more during daylight hours, which makes them more likely to be seen by hunters and increases your chances for harvesting one. It may be the first day in January, but the rut is still on for those deer hunting in South Texas. It’s time to be in the stand!

Reports from South Texas indicate that the rut is in full swing, and will likely carry on for at least another week. One guide I spoke with said the deer were rutting hard in mid-December, but other ranches had yet to see any sign. The drought of 2011 not only put the hurt on native plants, but it impacted whitetail too. Hunting reports indicated that the whitetail rut was delayed a week or two in other regions of Texas, so why should South Texas be any different? It’s not.

Jim Medina of Encinal said, “Older bucks are finally starting to show themselves. Rains received over the past few weeks created a garden of high quality food for deer to eat, but the rut is finally making them come out of the brush. It’s really hard to hunt deer when you can’t see them. The quantity of green foods has kept them from coming to feeders.” This could still make things tough during the rut. After all, a hunter still needs to see deer.

In South Texas, deer hunting typically heats up during the rut which usually occurs right around Christmas day. With things running late this year, it’s time to be in the field and looking for rutting deer even though we are now into the new year. The precipitation received during the fall has allowed deer to put on weight and improve overall body condition. Body condition is important for breeding deer because deer in poor condition will sometimes abandon breeding altogether.

Field reports verify that bucks are now actively pursuing does, so that makes them more vulnerable. Not because they are stupid, but because they are more diurnal, moving more during daylight hours. The South Texas rut is always late compared to the rest of Texas, but this year it’s a little late even by South Texas standards. That said, it’s now time to go deer hunting if you hunt South Texas! Best of luck!

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Texas is well known for white-tailed deer hunting, but the east-central part of the state is really a hidden gem. Much of the glitz a glam belongs to South Texas, though the Texas Panhandle has really started to shine in recent years. One of the best places for big bucks, hidden within a one hour drive from Austin, is the Granger Wildlife Management Area (WMA). This place is managed by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and this public hunting land is home to some giant white-tailed bucks.

This year, the Granger WMA had four, five day hunts. One of my good friends was lucky enough to get drawn for the second hunt, but came up empty handed despite seeing many legal bucks (bucks with an inside spread of 13 inches or greater or bucks with at least one unbranched antlers). He did see two true-to-life monsters, but they never got within bow range. And for those not in the know, deer hunters do not go to the Granger WMA looking for legal bucks, they go out looking for big, Kansas-style deer. Check out this big buck shot at the Granger WMA earlier this week:

“Earlier this year, in August, I received a letter in the mail informing me that my dad, my buddy and me had drawn the Granger WMA Crossbow hunt the week of 12-16 of December. I didn’t know a whole lot about whitetail deer hunting on this place, so I started during a little research. I kept hearing over and over that Granger is home to some very high quality bucks. I also went to TBH as an avenue for more info. I was lucky enough to meet a good guy that gave me a wealth of information and really got me prepared for this deer hunt.

So, I had drawn the crossbow-only hunt and I didnt even own a crossbow, let alone shoot one. I knew I was gonna miss my carbon element. I picked up an Excalibur Axiom and started practicing. We arrived here on Sunday, a day early, to scout the place the out. We did a little scouting and figured out which hunting compartments looked real good and prayed to the good Lord that we would be lucky enough to draw one of these.

Monday morning we had the hunt orientation then received the word on which units we would be hunting. We got one of the ones we were wanting, so our spirits were high and were just ready to get out there and hang some stands.

We started scouting and hanging stands at noon and this took us until 4 in the afternoon. Back home in where I deer hunt in Oklahoma, I probably would of called it a day and not hunted that night, thinking I would be getting in to the stand too late. We had been walking all over the compartment, but something inside of me told me I needed to go get in the stand for the last hour of daylight.

I climbed up in a stand we had set in a grove of cottonwood trees in the middle of a field that had a tonic sign. It looked like deer congregated in this area, then headed to the field to feed through the night. I was sitting there at 4:30, not expecting to really see anything during this deer hunting sit, but was surprised—to say the least—when 10 does started working their way down through the trees, right to my stand.

Then, another group showed and I am thinking at this point, man, we picked the right tree! Right at dark I see another deer coming from the field on a trot. I threw my binos up to see the widest buck I have ever laid my eyes on! He is 80 yards and has multiple trails he could choose—and he ended walking to the base of my tree! I was in utter disbelief when I lifted my crossbow up and aimed at this deer, only 10 yards away!

The big buck was slightly quartering to, so I put my scope on his shoulder and squeezed the trigger. I heard a thwack and watched as he ran 100 yards and bedded down on the edge of the timber. I thought I had made a good hit, but we decided to let him lay until 11:00.

We got back out there later and followed the trail exactly to where I saw this buck bed down to find his was dead right in his bed. It was an awesome feeling shooting this deer out of a stand I had just hung two hours earlier, with no bait or food plot. The best part is that it was only our first night and we still have a lot of deer hunting on the Granger WMA until Friday for my buddy to fill his buck tag!”

Increased interest in white-tailed deer hunting over the decades has pushed the hypothetical gas pedal to the floor with regards to deer management. One component of most deer management plans is predator control, and coyotes get most of the attention in this category. But coyotes are smart, not easy to control. One Oklahoma deer hunter was shocked to find what his game camera found when he placed it out at his deer lease—two coyotes that kill a nice buck! If ever there was justification for reducing coyote populations, these photos would be it.

The photo shows a nice buck that is attacked and ultimately killed by two, possibly more, coyotes (more photos of coyotes kill buck). It’s a nice buck, but there must have been something up with the deer. I find it hard to believe that a buck like that could ever be taken down by two coyotes if it was completely healthy. In fact, I don’t think two coyotes would even consider attacking that deer if it was totally healthy. Most predators, coyotes included, kill the weak, sick, and very young or old. I bet this unlucky whitetail buck had to fit one of those categories.

That being said, I have read research studies on coyotes. In all cases, there local numbers are controlled by food availability more than anything else. Coyotes control is more about making you feel good as a deer hunter, deer manager, than actually reducing their impact. As long as there is ample food, primarily rabbits and mice, coyote numbers will grow. The animals will breed earlier, more often, and have bigger litters when there is plenty of food.

When the rodent numbers drop, coyote numbers follow suite. Killing coyotes only leaves more food for the ones left behind, thus resulting in more offspring. It’s just like whitetail deer management. Shooting more makes the rest more prolific because of decreased competition. It may be hard to stomach these two coyotes killing a big buck, but my guess is that this deer was not in the best condition. It’s just too bad it was so close to deer hunting season, any hunter would have been proud to fill their hunting license tag with him.

Hunters love to discuss deer hunting and deer management. It’s just something that we do, whether it’s after checking out our latest batch of game camera photos or around the campfire after an evening hunt. The longest-standing debate going is the argument over whether or not spike bucks are actually genetically inferior bucks. One study, centered on the white-tailed deer hunting lands of South Texas, aimed to find out if shooting spike bucks really is justified.

Although a spike antlered buck rarely remains a spike after its first set of antlers, many hunters still believe the mantra of “once a spike, always a spike.” Now, the majority of hunters know that this is not true, but will spike bucks produce less on top of their heads in future years than their multi-pointed (yearling) brothers? Past research has only confounded the issue with different studies resulting in conflicting conclusions. Could there be a study that answers this age old question for the deer hunting community once and for all?

A new, ten-year, landmark study done in South Texas on free-ranging whitetail deer by Dr. James C. Kroll and Ben H. Koerth of the Institute for White-tailed Deer Management and Research at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches may provide us deer hunters with an answer. “Because past spike buck studies were conducted on penned animals, the effects of social pressure could not be measured,” Dr. Kroll says. “And social pressure has been shown in other deer species to have a significant impact on antler growth.”

Furthermore, the previous studies never really examined genetics in the classical sense. So about ten years ago Kroll and Koerth decided to add a field of study to their program that would examine the issue and try to answer a very basic question that went beyond genetics: “Can we look at a yearling buck and predict what he will score at maturity?”

Because of geographic conditions and the fact that Dr. Kroll and Ben Koerth had worked with many South Texas ranch owners in the area on previous projects, it was decided to conduct the landmark spike buck study in the Brush Country of South Texas. “Our research methodology was simple,” says Dr. Kroll. “First, we decided to capture only buck fawns and yearlings. Because so much controversy exists about aging deer by tooth wear, we wanted to make sure we knew the age of the bucks we were capturing.

The researcher’s plan was to capture as many buck fawns and yearling bucks as they could each year, and then attempt to recapture them over the next eight or nine years so that they would have a large enough sample size for statistical analysis. Whitetail deer hunting in South Texas is a big deal, but so has been the debate over shooting spike bucks. Read the rest of this article on whitetail deer management and hunting: Shooting spike bucks for deer management.

Dr. James C. Kroll and Ben H. Koerth of the Institute for White-tailed Deer Management and Research at Stephen F. Austin State University set out to determine if yearling (1.5 years old) spike and three point bucks are actually are inferior to other bucks with four or more antler points. The results could impact deer hunting on private lands across Texas, as well as the rest of the US. So how did these researchers go about getting the data they needed?

They turned to ranch owners in South Texas. One of the first questions the researchers attempted to answer was: “How many spikes and 3-point yearlings are out there and do their numbers change over a period of time?” As of 2006, they captured, marked and released a total of 884 whitetail buck fawns and 1,132 yearlings. Numbered, color-coded ear tags were placed in the ears of each buck along with tattoos in the event the ear tags were lost.

The study began in 1997 and took place on twelve different South Texas ranches over a five-county area. During the following years attempts were made to recapture as many of the previously tagged bucks as possible. Antler measurement data was taken from all of the recaptured bucks as well as the newly captured buck fawns and yearlings each year, and the results were quite dramatic.

Data gathered over an eight year period showed that the number of spikes and 3 point bucks changed significantly from year to year on the same properties. If spike antlers were caused by poor genetics, would these yearly changes have occurred in such short periods of time? “Absolutely not,” Dr. Kroll says. “The overall genetics of a deer herd simply cannot change that fast.”

However, the real meat of this landmark spike buck study goes well beyond the question of how many spikes and 3-pointers are in the herd. “We divided all of the yearling bucks we captured into two categories,” Dr. Kroll continues. “Yearlings that had only spikes or 3-point antlers were in one category, and yearlings with four or more antler points on their first set were in the other. We did this because we reasoned that these two classes of yearling bucks are easy for hunters to identify. We got some very interesting results on the 21⁄2- and 31⁄2-year-old bucks that were recaptured, but the age of 41⁄2 is where the results were the most dramatic.

“Studies repeatedly have shown that whitetail bucks do not reach maturity until four years of age, and by the time the bucks in our study had reached 4 1⁄2, there was no significant difference in any of the antler measurements, no matter what the buck started out with his first year. The antlers were just as wide, just as heavy and had just as many points. Furthermore, there was no significant difference in gross Boone and Crockett (B&C) score for the bucks,” he says.

Many of the bucks that had been yearling spikes had grown 130-inch racks by age 4 1⁄2. Ironically, the average B&C score of all bucks killed across Texas each year is about 131 inches. “It appears from our data that the spikes and 3 point bucks are genetically equal at birth to multi-point yearlings for antler growth potential,” Dr. Kroll concludes. “It just seems to take some deer a little longer to show their capability. The trick is, you have to let them grow up before it becomes obvious. Genetics certainly is an interesting aspect of whitetail management, and fun to debate around the campfire, but genetics is the least important of all the factors leading to the production of quality bucks.”

So should spikes, or, for that matter, any bucks, ever be culled from the herd? According to Dr. Kroll, perhaps in some cases. It seems to be a very complicated issue, and it depends on the deer management goals of each ranch. “In our opinion, instead of trying to cull bucks, landowners and hunters are far better off focusing their attention on things they can do something about, such as deer nutrition.

Today the question of shooting more does is the only issue that generates as much controversy as that of what to do about spike bucks, and that’s a no-brainer for most hunters. We should all do our part in trying to shoot more does. It’s essential for the well being of the deer herd.” Fewer deer on the landscape means more food for the remaining animals and well-fed deer equates to improved whitetail deer hunting for the property owners. Habitat management is one of the most important—but often overlooked—aspects of growing better deer.

White-tailed deer populations can be impacted by a variety of deer diseases, most of which affect localized populations. Chronic wasting disease (CWD), however, has implications that can be more widespread. CWD is a fatal disease of North American elk and deer, including both white-tailed deer and mule deer. The recent discovery of CWD in breeder deer in Missouri reiterates the need for continuance in monitoring whitetails and taking action when questionable deer are discovered in Texas captive deer breeding pens.

The whitetail deer that tested positive for CWD was a captive white-tailed deer inspected as part of Missouri’s CWD disease surveillance and testing program. Preliminary CWD tests were conducted by the USDA National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, and a “tested positive” result was disclosed last week. That one positive test meant Missouri had to add its name to the long list of CWD-positive states. Will it happen to Texas too?

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) has investigated several deer smuggling cases involving whitetails brought into Texas from several states where CWD has been confirmed through testing, including Missouri. “This is why we banned importation of deer from out of state and why we continue to monitor for illegal activity,” said Carter Smith, Executive Director of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

In February 2010 a case of CWD was confirmed in Linn County, Missouri, on a captive hunting preserve operated by the same entity, Heartland Wildlife Ranches, LLC. The Linn County facility was depopulated and no further CWD infection was identified at that facility. The current case was identified through increased surveillance required by the deer disease management plan implemented from the previous CWD incident.

Since TPWD implemented a CWD surveillance initiative 10 years ago, more than 35,000 whitetail deer have been tested in Texas. But to date, all CWD test in Texas have come back “not detected.” Whitetail deer important both socially and economically to the people of Texas. Just because CWD has yet to be found does not mean it’s time to quit monitoring.

“The absence of any disease findings is by no means a reason to stop CWD testing whitetail deer in Texas,” Smith said. “The best measures we can take are proactive ones, and our goal is to keep CWD out of the state at all costs.”

There is no indication that CWD in deer can lead to disease in native livestock or people. Wildlife officials regard prevention as the primary and most effective tool to combat CWD. Once established in a wild whitetail population, deer diseases are extremely difficult, and sometimes impossible, to eradicate. Many believe it’s only a matter of time before CWD makes its way into Texas, one way or another. The state will begin CWD testing of elk in Texas starting on January 1, 2012.

Deer hunters in Texas know that it has been one a heck of a dry year, and the Hill Country has been no exception. Dry is never good for wildlife. The whitetail deer hunting forecasts have been poor, with habitat taking it on the chin. What else is there to say after drought, a lack of forb production, no fawn cover, below average antler growth and no rainfall since last September. It’s a grim deer hunting forecast if you look at just range and habitat conditions. However, there’s more to a deer season than just the habitat and game conditions.

Deer biologists always talk about buck antler development as a three-legged stool, with each leg being genetics, nutrition and age. Genetics is beyond the scope of a deer hunting forecast. In fact, genetics are the hardest factor to delineate across a ranch or area. Deer nutrition gets more press from year to year because changes in rainfall are so visible, as they certainly have been for the last 12 months. With most of Texas in an exceptional drought, all plants and animals are stressed. Nutrition has been poor.

But what about age? This third leg of the stool is often overlooked by the nearsighted. With bobwhite quail, hunters looks to the current year’s hatch to determine quail hunting prospects. Not so with whitetail deer. A whitetail’s body is considered mature at 4 1/2 years of age, but antlers continue to increase until about 6 1/2. Habitat conditions at birth also factor in to future body and antler development.

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) biologist David Veale points out that the 2007 South Texas fawn crop was an excellent one, and got off to a healthy start in life. Out of a large class, more animals will survive. Those that did are 4 1/2 years old this year. Look back at last season, too. Because of excellent range conditions, deer did not have to move around to find food. The deer harvest was lower than usual. More carryover.

The deer hunting forecast compiled for the Hill Country quotes TPWD Derrick Wolter saying, “A lot of deer did not get shot, and there should be some nice, older bucks in the mix.” Deer hunting in the Texas Hill Country looks a lot better when hunters consider the fact that there are a lot of older bucks in the herd. Less buck harvest in the past means more mature bucks will be shot in the future.

In the Trans-Pecos, biologist Jason Wagner speaks of hunters reporting seeing many 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 year old bucks last season. In Northern Central Texas, James Edwards as said of last season, “Fewer young bucks are being reported in the harvest. Landowners have seen better quality deer over the entire area.” Deer management is helping. David Sierra reports that in the post oak region of East Texas, antler restrictions are bringing more older bucks into the harvest. The younger bucks that were allowed to walk last year are a year older now.

There can be no disputing that body conditions and antlers will be below average this year, and the Texas Hill Country is no exception. As Charlie Newberry in Henrietta and Ralph Suarez in Ballinger and practically every other contributing wildlife biologist mentions, habitat conditions could be a lot better. It’s a statewide thing. Current range conditions, however, when coupled with the low harvest of a large age class of deer, indicates that there could be a lot of 4 1/2 year old bucks out there looking for something to eat this season. Deer hunting will be good, but the deer themselves may not fair as well.

Texas is a Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) free state so far, but state officials cringe each time additional, undocumented white-tailed deer find their way into the state. Sure, some deer do walk across state lines everyday, but the real trouble lies in deer brought into the state illegally each year. Recently, CWD and Bovine Tuberculosis were not detected in more than 300 deer held illegally on an East Texas deer breeding facility, according to findings at the Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory.

“We are greatly relieved with the results from the CWD disease testing,” said Carter Smith, executive director of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. “We take disease issues very seriously because of the potential impacts to Texas’ natural resources, the public’s wildlife, and the multi-billion dollar deer hunting and deer breeding industries.

While the lab results provide a positive conclusion to an extensive epidemiological investigation by state wildlife officials, they do not moderate the illegal deer smuggling of a 77-year-old former deer breeder that led to the need for disease testing. Billy Powell pleaded guilty on June 14 to the felony offense of smuggling at least 37 white-tailed deer, over a 3-year time span, from Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio into Texas in violation of state and federal laws.

For those not aware, CWD has been documented in at least 10 counties in Illinois, posing a direct link for disease risk in Texas as a result of Powell’s illegal importation activities. “It is regrettable that Mr. Powell forced the state to take this action in the first place,” said Smith. “After he repeatedly smuggled deer illegally into Texas and risked introducing devastating diseases into both wild deer herds and penned deer operations, thereby threatening the state with immense economic harm, the Department had no choice but to step in. Quite simply, the hundreds of thousands of deer hunters who go to the field annually in pursuit of wild game and the thousands of landowners who manage the state’s wildlife responsibly don’t deserve to have their enjoyment of wildlife jeopardized by someone who shows such little regard for the public’s resources.”

The implications from a CWD outbreak in Texas’ internationally recognized white-tailed deer population, both free-ranging and captive, would be significant. Deer hunting is an important cultural and recreational component of Texas lifestyle, pursued annually by more than 600,000 sportsmen, and has an economic impact to the state in excess of $2.2 billion a year, according to published reports. In addition, studies show deer breeding activities have an economic impact in Texas of about $650 million annually.

Currently, 20 states and Canadian provinces are tagged as having documented CWD in their whitetail deer, mule deer, elk or moose. The progression of the disease into new areas remains persistent. In 2005, West Virginia detected a positive. Virginia got a confirmed case in 2010 and this year Maryland joined the list of infected states.

More than 1,200 permits are issued annually to deer breeders in Texas covering an estimated 80,000 whitetails held in captivity. The vast majority of deer breeders operate within guidelines designed to minimize risk of disease transmission. Since CWD testing and surveillance efforts were initiated in Texas a decade ago, more than 35,000 deer samples have been submitted for testing. TPWD has tested only about 800 illegally-possessed deer from 32 different violators.

“People ask me if I’m confident we don’t have CWD in Texas after testing that many animals, and I tell them my confidence level grows each year,” said Mitch Lockwood, TPWD’s big game program director. “But, that confidence drops to zero every time we learn about a deer being smuggled into the state. The threat is real and the consequences can be substantial; just ask any of those other states that are dealing with CWD in their deer herds.”

There are many debates when it comes to white-tailed deer hunting. Sit around any campfire during deer season and you’ll get a taste of what I’m talking about. Just about everything is up for debate or, uh, argument. The age of a buck, Boone and Crockett score, which deer are cull bucks, and whether or not someone should shoot a spike buck are all common topics hunters “discuss.” However, the hot topic in recent seasons has been, you guessed it, antler restrictions. With antler restriction regulations on whitetail bucks now canvasing much of Texas, check out what Texas Parks and Wildlife Department biologist Gary Calkins recently wrote on the issue:

“In the world of entertainment, the measure of success can often be seen by the number of T-shirts with a saying or logo made popular by a band or television show. In a way, the measure of success, or lack thereof, in the wildlife field, can be measured by the number of times we are stopped at the gas station and asked about the topic of the day. These discussions can range from rattlesnakes to bears, to the weather, and the impacts on turkeys. But in recent years, one of the more prevalent topics brought up is “antler restriction regulation.” Phone calls, hunting blogs, coffee shops and gas stations have all been the venue to praise or decry this regulation.

First order of business that I can’t stress enough – this is NOT a trophy buck regulation. Even though we have stated that numerous times, it can’t be stressed enough. The driving force behind this regulation is an improved age structure in the buck segment of the deer herd which has many human, social and deer-related biological impacts. Everything from hunter satisfaction to fawn recruitment are impacted by this management approach.

The single-most important deer management decision that can be made on any property, in any given year, is the simple “to pull the trigger or not to pull the trigger – that is the question.” With the smaller property sizes and number of hunters in Texas, that simple question has huge impacts across the landscape. The premise of this regulation is to help with that decision and lead to a better deer herd and ultimately a better hunting experience.

Without going into all of the boring details, this regulation allows for the harvest of bucks with an inside spread of 13 inches or greater, or at least one unbranched antler. This provides protection to young and middle-aged deer, allowing them to grow and mature, and leads back to that improved age structure I mentioned earlier.

Today’s society operates at high speed all the time. We have Internet, cell phones, and almost every other conceivable device to “stay connected” – even cell phones that go to the Internet. We have become accustomed to instant satisfaction in nearly every aspect of our lives. With wildlife management, this regulation being no exception, instant satisfaction isn’t part of the bargain. Deer couldn’t care less what new “app” is out there for the newest gadget; nature still works at the same tempo it always did, so we are the ones that have to adjust.

With changes in management approaches, it can take several years to reap the benefits, simply because we have to wait for nature to adjust and catch up. From the outset, we said that the first two or three years may be tough deer hunting after the change to this regulation, but that then hunting would improve. We have also heard everything from “the deer have to have narrow antlers to run through the woods so they will never get bigger” to “if we kill all the big ones, only the little ones will be left.” Years of data can show that neither of this is going to happen and that we are seeing an improving trend in the harvest in the Pineywoods and throughout counties with antler restrictions.

The area that Texas Parks and Wildlife defines as the Pineywoods consists of 27 counties running roughly from Texarkana to Jacksonville, then to Houston and over to Beaumont, with the state line as the eastern boundary. This entire area had a deer herd that was being harvested too heavily in the younger segment of the buck herd.

When antler restrictions were first implemented, the northern 16 counties were the first group to have the new regulation. This decision was based on the fact that these counties were one-buck counties, had over 65 percent of the male harvest being 1.5 and 2.5-year-old deer, and through open “come one, come all” scoping meetings, had overwhelming public support to move forward. This initial group of 16 counties adopted antler restrictions regulations, with the 2006-07 hunting season being the first year to operate under the regulation.

The 2009-10 hunting season was the initial year that the southern 11 counties in the Pineywoods operated under the regulation, with the just-completed season being only the second to see the regulation implemented. Even though this group of counties was operating under a two-buck bag limit, the harvest of immature deer was exceeding the 65 percent benchmark used in the north as well. Scoping meetings were also held across this area, the year before, to gauge public support, and while not as strong as the northern counties, the scoping meetings showed favorable response for the concept.

Since the initial 16 counties have a little more history under the regulation, analysis of the harvest data is made a bit easier. When looking at the harvest data for the five years averaged prior to the implementation of the regulation, over 71 percent of the male harvest was made up of 1.5 and 2.5-year-old bucks. Simple math says that when you kill that many of them that early, there just aren’t going to be many that grow old. No matter what the genetics of that animal are, nor how much he eats, unless he grows up, he will never be able to show the potential of those antlers on his head.

Since the implementation of the regulation in the northern counties, age structure has shifted down to 53 percent of the harvest being in that same age bracket. The most noticeable is the shift in the harvest of 2.5-year-olds from nearly 30 percent of the harvest, down to roughly 20 percent; and having a higher percentage of 3.5-year-old bucks in the harvest than 2.5’s. Plus, the harvest of 4.5-year-olds and older is now at 17.5 percent of the harvest – nearing the numbers of 2.5-yearolds harvested.

Since the southern 11 counties only have two years under their belts, those can’t be analyzed on their own simply due to a lack of data. However, looking at the data from the entire Pineywoods lumped together, it shows a similar trend as the northern counties by themselves. From 67 percent of the harvest being the 1.5 and 2.5-year-old deer in 2005, it now shows that number to be just over 54 percent. The numbers of 4.5-year-olds and older in the harvest is almost identical to the northern counties and increasing.

We realize that it seems like a long time since the regulation went into effect in that first batch of Pineywoods counties, but we haven’t even gone through a full generation of deer in that area. Mother Nature does not get in a hurry with things like this, so we have to practice patience as well. However, all indications are that we are going in the right direction. We are not only collecting age structure information; other research projects have been ongoing to determine the effects of the regulation on the deer population. Recently a research project was completed to see if the breeding dates of the does had shifted as a result of the older age structure in the buck segment of the herd.

Results are very preliminary, but appear to show that very trend. If it is confirmed, it will mean fawns on the ground earlier, having a better chance at survival, and a more stable deer herd.  In the meantime – go hunting, enjoy the resource, take that extra minute to not only evaluate the antler spread of the deer, but to simply enjoy the moment and the opportunity to be out there immersed in nature. If you shoot the first one that comes out, you will just have to go home. There are way worse ways to spend your time than deer hunting in Texas!”