Texas Hunting Times: Texas Hunting News

Robert Patterson, owner of Texas Mountain Ranch, says four more deer from his deer breeding facility in Medina County have tested positive for chronic wasting disease (CWD). Patterson has been working with the Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC) and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) since one of his captive white-tailed deer tested positive for CWD in June.

Patterson stated that 42 total whitetail deer have been killed and tested for CWD since July 28, and three additional positives were the result. He added that all four deer confirmed to have the CWD disease were males from the same buck, which leads him to believe the problem is genetic.

The Texas Mountain Ranch owner said he expects to have a final herd plan from TAHC and TPWD within the next couple weeks.

TPWD spokesman Steve Lightfoot said the test results were from a lab at Texas A&M and that they were being sent to a national lab in Iowa to confirm they are not false positives. He said the state agencies are still in discussions with Patterson about how to proceed now that CWD has been confirmed on the property.

The CWD task force advisory committee was given updated test results during a meeting in Austin on Thursday. The next meeting is not yet scheduled, according to Lightfoot, but it will be interesting to see how the movement of breeder deer and the deer hunting season within the state play out now that Texas is no longer CWD free.

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The Louisiana Office of State Parks is offering lottery deer hunt opportunities for hunters wishing to participate in 2015-2016 season lottery deer hunts available on Coochie Brake State Park and Big Cypress State Park. Both Coochie Brake State Park in Winn Parish and Big Cypress State Park in Bienville Parish are undeveloped Office of State Parks properties.

Applications are available on the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries website. The application is displayed under the DEER – OFFICE OF STATE PARKS category.

These special lottery hunts are restricted to hunters selected through the lottery application process. These hunts offer the opportunity for selected hunters to experience an enjoyable, high-quality deer hunting experience on these areas.

Details on the qualifications, application requirements, and dates of the draw hunts are listed on the application forms. Also, for those interested, this site has information about Texas draw hunts for this fall.

Applications must be received by 4:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 4. The application form, along with a $5 administrative fee payment, must be sent to the specific address listed on the application form. For more information on these lottery deer hunts on Louisiana park property, contact Britt Evans at 225-342-1587 or bevans@crt.la.gov at the Office of State Parks.

MLD permits. Love ’em or hate ’em, they have been a part of white-tailed deer hunting in Texas since 1996. Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) started the Managed Lands Deer Permit (MLDP) Program to help landowners tackle burgeoning deer populations on private properties, but the program has become wildly popular with management-oriented landowners throughout the state.

TPWD has recently stated that about 10,000 properties participate in the MLDP Program. All those properties take a lot of resources, so the overwhelming success of the program has not come without a cost. Currently, the state prints all of the permits and mails them to participating landowners. Not sure how many permits the average property gets, but I’d be willing to be that TPWD uses A LOT of ink and paper, not to mention postage for those 10,000 envelopes each year.

The MLDP Program has gotten big. It’s taken on a life of its own. Now, it’s time to save money.

One of the cost-saving measures that TPWD is testing this year is to allow participating landowners to print their own MLD permits. Apparently, a small number of ranches across Texas volunteered to try the “print your own permit” option for the 2015-16 deer hunting season. This may get some hunters hot and bothered, but it sounds like a pretty good idea.

After all, like tags, MLD permits are nothing more than paper. The same opportunities for permit abuse that existed before will exist under the print-your-own-permit. Hey, if people can counterfeit money I don’t think it would be too difficult to counterfeit a permit. Besides, over the years I’ve hunted on a couple of ranches that participate in the MLDP program. They’ve all admitted that get more permits than they want to use, every year.

So circling back, TPWD created the MLDP program to assist landowners that want to manage the habitat and white-tailed deer found on their property. Most landowners have a vested interest in the health of the animals on their property. Will some hunters abuse the ability to print their own permits? Probably. Those guys are probably abusing it now, so that argument would be a moot point.

In short, anything that saves money sounds like a good deal. Better to reduce program costs than to increase fees. If you have any experience with a MLDP property that’s printing its own permits this year, leave a comment to let us all know how it goes. Hunting season will be here before you know it, so get those game cameras out!

Deer Hunting The Passion, Not Deer Breeding

The hunting of white-tailed deer is a passion that many Texans share. Having grown up in a family of hunters, I shared many hours, days and years with my father, grandfather as well as other relatives chasing whitetail on a small tract of family land as well as a few deer leases (over the years) scattered across central Texas. The idea of harvesting a big buck was always high on my list of wants, but those much-waited hunting excursions were always about much more than just antlers.

Although we were lucky enough to tag some deer once in a while, the time that I was able to spend with friends and family while enjoying the outdoors is simply priceless. I can’t imagine not having had those times in my life. If you’re like me, then you probably feel the same way. I suspect most hunters reading this article probably learned much of what they know, at least initially, from a mentor. It was probably your dad or grandfather, but maybe even your mom or grandmother. I used to love hearing my great-grandmother talk about her trips with her 410 gauge. Yes, she referred to it as a four-hundred and ten gauge.

Deer Hunting: A Step in the Wrong Direction?

We can all look around and see that things have changed, deer hunting included. Well, the deer hunting industry sure has, and not just within the borders of Texas. When talking hunting, the words “big bucks” have taken on a whole new meaning ($$$). Although many have preferred to look the other direction, it’s been more than a little disturbing. Recently, in fact, the Boone and Crockett Club politely asked the commercial deer breeding industry not use their antler scoring system for marketing and selling deer.

Enter Texans for Saving Our Hunting Heritage (TSOHH) in 2014, a group that seeks to promote the values and tradition of sustainable, fair-chase hunting to all Texans, while exposing practices that threaten the perception and future of our sport. Late last year, a news release drafted by TSOHH hit the press and made some valid points regarding deer breeding and the release of pen-raised deer.

Big Deer Breeding Operations and Big Money

Source: “Deer breeding in Texas is a cottage industry backed by big dollars and focused on producing the biggest antlers. There are less than 1,300 deer breeders in the state and for the past decade, they have spent millions on lobbying efforts seeking more liberty with the people’s deer. Despite outcries from Texans and hunters alike, the breeders have gone largely unopposed.”

There is no question that a wedge has/is being driven between fair-chase hunters and commercial deer breeders operating within the confines of high fencing. I understand the desire for high fences because they do allow for increased management within deer herds, but a bucks raised in a 1/2 acre pen and then released just prior to being “hunted” is an entirely different matter. Most hunters can probably agree that a line must be drawn, but I suspect most of us will disagree on where exactly that line should be.

Save Deer Hunting, the Hunting Heritage

There is no easy answer here, especially since deer breeders within Texas have already used political strong-arming to exempt themselves from the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department’s “Stocking Policy,” thus allowing them to liberate captive-raised deer into any size “pasture,” regardless of habitat availability. TSOHH takes issue with this concession, as well as other key points it seeks to address:

• End cavalier use of drugs and no safety net to protect human health — Extreme animal husbandry practices that are common in the deer breeding industry lend themselves to the use of a long list of pharmaceuticals. Very few of the commonly used drugs are labeled for white-tailed deer. There is no recognized authority that protects the consumer from potential drug residues in liberated breeder deer.
• The 10-Day Rule — Current law allows for captive-raised deer to be “hunted” just 11 days after they are liberated from captivity. This poses threats to food safety because of unknown pharmaceutical withdrawal intervals in liberated breeder deer and promotes a perception of “canned hunting.”
• More consumer protections and disclosures — There is currently no requirement for breeder deer to be clearly and visibly marked upon liberation into the wild. Deer hunters deserve transparency regarding the origin and potential pharmaceutical history of the deer they harvest.