Texas Hunting Times

Turkey Season Now Closed in 11 Texas Counties

Spring turkey season is closed in 11 East Texas counties for 2016. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission at its Thursday public hearing approved closing spring eastern turkey hunting in 11 East Texas counties effective next year, while restructuring the season in two other counties. Looks like hunters will have more time to hunt feral hogs, fish for white bass.

Hunting season for eastern turkey will be closed in 2016 in Angelina, Brazoria, Camp, Fort Bend, Franklin, Harrison, Hopkins, Morris, Titus, Trinity, and Wood counties and on National Forest lands in Jasper County. While closed, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department wildlife biologists will evaluate the prospects for future eastern turkey restoration compatibility and restocking efforts. The department’s goal is to reopen hunting should the eastern turkey populations in the affected counties become capable of sustaining harvest.

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is also restructuring the existing spring turkey hunting season in Wharton and Matagorda counties. The new regulations, which take effect for the 2016 season, will continue to allow for a 30-day spring only, one gobbler season and eliminate mandatory harvest reporting.

In an effort to expand hunting opportunity for youth and reduce regulatory complexity, the Commission also adopted a 14-day extension of the late youth-only season in counties having an open Rio Grande fall turkey season, to run concurrent with the late youth-only season for white-tailed deer.

CWD in Mule Deer & Elk in Texas

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a deer disease that nobody wants, but state agencies are obligated to monitor for the sake of wildlife populations and hunters alike. CWD was discovered in Texas just over two years ago limited to the northern part of the Trans-Pecos, but has it spread since then? Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) recently released the results from their sampling efforts for the 2014-15 hunting season. CWD was detected in one of 222 tissue samples that were collected from hunter harvested mule deer and elk from the Trans Pecos.

“Without the hunter check stations and the strong cooperation of hunters and landowners, we would know very little about the prevalence of the disease or where it exists,” said Mitch Lockwood, Big Game Program Director with TPWD. Also included in the sampling effort last season, 143 mule deer and elk brought to check stations were tested for bovine tuberculosis as part of a cooperative effort between TPWD and Texas Animal Health Commission to monitor for bovine tuberculosis. No positives were found.

To date, 839 deer and elk have been tested through the CWD check stations and strategic sampling that occurred during the summer of 2012; 282 were in the Containment Zone, 205 were in the adjacent High Risk Zone, 117 were in the Buffer Zone, and 235 were outside of the CWD zones. The disease has been detected in only 7 animals, all within the Hueco Mountain area, indicating a disease prevalence of 10–15 percent within that population.

“Additional sampling is necessary to develop more confidence in the geographic extent and prevalence of the disease, but the fact that CWD has not been detected in Texas outside of the Hueco Mountain area of northern El Paso and Hudspeth counties is encouraging,” said Lockwood.

CWD is a member of the group of diseases called transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs). Other diseases in this group include scrapie in sheep, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or mad cow disease) in cattle, and Cruetzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. CWD among cervids is a progressive, fatal disease that commonly results in altered behavior as a result of microscopic changes made to the brain of affected animals. An animal may carry the disease for years without outward indication, but in the latter stages, signs may include listlessness, lowering of the head, weight loss, repetitive walking in set patterns, and a lack of responsiveness. CWD is not known to affect humans or livestock.

There is no vaccine or cure for CWD, but steps have been taken to minimize the risk of the disease spreading from beyond the area where it currently exists. The Texas Parks and Wildlife and Texas Animal Health commissions adopted rules to restrict movement of deer, elk, and other susceptible species within or from the CWD Zones as well increase surveillance efforts.

More details about CWD and the 2014-15 findings can be found online.

South Texas Deer Hunting – Illegal Take

South Texas is known for quality white-tailed deer. Each year, Texas hunters tag numerous big bucks in this part of the state, but unfortunately there is also some illegal deer hunting taking place in the region. Just this week, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has reported illegal hunting in Starr, Webb and La Salle Counties. Some deer were taking by road hunters and other by lease hunters that liberally interpreted property lines.

Five Deer Hunters in Starr County

While a Starr County game warden was on patrol, he came across an open gate leading to a ranch and decided to investigate. Upon entering the ranch, the warden spotted two vehicles and five people dressed in camouflage, standing around a hunting blind. At first the individuals said they were working on the ranch, but, after some questioning, admitted they were hunting. The warden followed the hunters down to where one of the hunters had shot an eight-point buck and helped the hunter load the deer. After further inspection, however, it was found that the hunter had marked the deer with a tag that expired in 2012 and also did not have a valid hunting license. The buck was seized and the meat was donated to a local family. Cases and civil restitution pending.

Webb County Illegal Whitetail Hunting

A Webb County game warden received a call from a landowner who believed someone poached a deer on his ranch. The warden arrived at the ranch and began to investigate the area. There, he found evidence of a deer being shot, a fence being cut and a deer dragged under the fence. The warden then went to the adjacent property to see if anyone was at the deer camp and to begin looking for evidence. There was no contact made at the camp, but the warden saw evidence of a deer that was recently processed at the cleaning station. The material used to repair the cut fence was also at the camp. After investigating further and talking to landowners plus the hunters leasing the property, one of the men said he had shot the deer on the neighboring property and cut the fence to retrieve the dead deer. Multiple cases pending.

La Salle County Buck Hunter

One evening, a La Salle County game warden set up on a back road near Los Angeles, Texas, where poaching activity was known to take place. Around 8:30 p.m. a slow moving truck made its way past the warden while shining a bright light. After following the vehicle for a short distance, the warden initiated a traffic stop. The two people in the car had a loaded rifle lying across their laps. A set of fresh deer antlers was also discovered in the bed of the truck. The two occupants were taken to jail for several Class A violations. A few days later, a deer carcass was discovered on a nearby ranch. The deer antlers from the truck bed matched perfectly. It was also discovered that one subject was a convicted felon. Felony charges are pending.

My Texas Hunt Harvest – TPWD’s Newest App

Texas hunters can now digitally-document their hunt harvest using Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s newest app, My Texas Hunt Harvest. According to TPWD, “This official free app is designed to make it easier than ever for Texas hunters to report harvested game in real-time. The app is now available for download for Android devices at Google Play and will be available soon for iOS devices at the App Store.” Although the My Texas Hunt Harvest app does not currently replace the paper tagging of deer and turkey, it obviously looks like this could be the future, making hunting license tags obsolete.

Built exclusively for Texas hunters, this official Texas Parks and Wildlife app allows hunters to report harvested game in real-time. My Texas Hunt Harvest keeps track of your hunting season successes and harvest information so you can easily access them on your smartphone or tablet. The app also will help Texas Parks & Wildlife biologists manage healthy game populations to keep hunting great in Texas. With My Texas Hunt Harvest, you can:

Log your harvested game animals.
View your harvest history, including dates and locations of every hunt.
Eastern Turkey hunters can now conveniently check their harvested game with the app instead of having to visit physical check stations.
After a one-time login, you can easily access your TPWD customer number for future reference.

For hunters specifically in East Texas, the app will help simplify the mandatory eastern turkey reporting process by allowing hunters to report their harvest without traveling to a physical check station. TPWD’s regulations state that hunters are required to report their harvested eastern turkey within 24 hours of harvest.

DOWNLOAD THE APP NOW: My Texas Hunt Harvest

The My Texas Hunt Harvest app can also be used for voluntarily reporting and tracking harvests for all other resident game species. With My Texas Hunt Harvest, hunters can log harvested game and view their harvest history, including dates and locations of every hunt. The electronic reporting options do not fulfill tagging requirements for any game required to be tagged, or requirements for completion of the harvest log on the back of the license as it applies to white-tailed deer.

Mature Buck Harvest Up in Texas

Texas is known for producing high quality white-tailed bucks, but data shows that deer hunting is getting even better! The number of mature bucks harvested last year continues to rise, while the number of yearling bucks continues to fall. That trend could continue if the wet weather holds up this year and another good fawn crop throws off yet anther robust cohort of fawns. To put things in perspective, buck fawns born this year will be mature during the 2020-21 hunting season!

But Texas is not the only place where deer harvest management is paying off. Much of the U.S. is seeing similar trends with the percentage of mature bucks in the annual harvest going up. Increased habitat and population management along with hunter awareness are likely spurring the increase. Quality, mature bucks are king in deer hunting right now, and hunters are allowing them to get there.

Source: American deer hunters are killing the highest-ever percentage of bucks age 3½ and older, according to data gathered by the Quality Deer Management Association (QDMA) for its 2015 Whitetail Report, now available online.

In the 2013-14 season, the most recent season with complete deer harvest data available from all states, 34 percent of bucks harvested in the states that collect buck age data were 3½ or older. That statistic is up from 32 percent the season before, and significantly up from a decade before in the 2003-04 season, when only 23 percent of the national buck harvest was mature. These gains have been made while the percentage of yearling bucks (1½ years old) in the harvest has steadily declined, reaching a record-low of 36 percent.

“This is a testament to how far we’ve come as hunters in the past decade,” said Kip Adams, QDMA’s Director of Education & Outreach, who compiles the annual Whitetail Report. “More hunters are choosing to protect yearling bucks, and they are being rewarded by seeing and killing more of them as mature animals.”

This trade-off can be seen in state-by-state data. The five states with the lowest percentage of yearling bucks in the antlered buck harvest, according to QDMA’s Whitetail Report, are also the top-five states in percentage of mature bucks: Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas.

Comanche County Deer Hunting…

White-tailed deer are a popular game species in Texas and elsewhere throughout the US. Though most deer are taken legally, where there is temptation there will be people that do things illegally. So was the case in north-central Texas, where whitetail are quite numerous… and apparently the poachers are quite dumb/blatant. This illegal hunting story takes place in Comanche County.

Texas Parks & Wildlife Department — A Comanche County game warden had come home for lunch and parked his truck in the driveway when a knock came at the front door. His wife answered the door to find a young man asking if she knew where he could hunt hogs. She said she didn’t know and sent him on his way. The warden got to the door just as the man was getting into his white truck to leave. He felt there was something off about the encounter, so he moved his patrol truck behind his house and set up where he could watch the oat field just across the highway.

Comanche County Texas Deer Hunts

At dusk, he saw a white truck driving slowly on the highway and stop at the edge of the oat food plot. He then saw the man get out, remove a rifle form the backseat, sneak up to the fence and fire four shots into a herd of deer. Another car was coming down the road and spooked the man, so he ran back to his truck and made a U-turn just as the warden arrived to the scene.

The warden proceeded to handcuff, search and read Miranda rights to the man before asking him, “What were you thinking?” The young man said, “I didn’t think you would be home.” The warden then searched the field but did not find a deer or any blood. The man said he had just bought the .243 rifle and had not bothered to sight-in the scope.

The man was charged with deer hunting from a Texas public road and hunting in a closed area. His new rifle was seized.

Restoring Bobwhite Quail Populations in Texas

Despite the fact that the 2014-15 bobwhite quail hunting season was the best one in about 10 years Texas is putting more money to work to restore bobwhite populations within the state. It’s not simply a stocking program, but rather additional research to identify limiting factors affecting quail numbers. There is still some debate among landowners with regards to the “smoking gun” that has decimated bobwhite populations, although biologists agree many factors have contributed to the decline.

Habitat. The loss of critically-important quail habitat has been cited as the number one factor plaguing quail across Texas. Of course, fire ants, feral hogs, increased populations of raccoons, opossums, skunks, “clean” farming practices and overgrazing by livestock have only added fuel to the fire. In many areas, intense grazing by livestock has lead to the direct loss of the native bunchgrasses that bobwhite quail populations need to survive and thrive. Scattering seed grain and food plots for habitat improvement can help in local areas, but more is needed to make a difference at a larger scale.

The state of Texas has dedicated millions of dollars to help in the fight to boost quail populations. “There are a lot of generations now that haven’t even seen a quail,” said Matt Reidy, a wildlife biologist for Texas Parks and Wildlife.

The bird, once popular among Texas hunters, has seen a serious decline over the past decade in the state. Researchers believe that it is due to a loss of habitat. “It’s a bird that is really unique in that quail need specific habitat, and those habitats are declining,” said Reidy. He also noted that bobwhite quail are a good indicator of the health of grasslands, thus determining how well other species can survive in the habitat.

Rancher Frates Seeligson, who owns close to 5,200 acres near Stockdale, Texas, along with other landowners, has been helping fight the quail issue. Seeligson joined forces with Texas Parks and Wildlife four years ago and began the long process of restoring his land to its natural state. The move was intended to bring back native species.

“It’s not necessarily quail, while I love quail, and the quail are a game species and there’s a lot of money in hunting quail; it’s more for doing the program to get to the proper habitat and the balance that nature intended for this part of the state,” said Seeligson.

Seeligson believes the move has paid off. Now the state is also pitching in, to the tune of $6 million, to further fund restorations similar to what has taken place on Seeligson’s land. The hope is that quail will return to the area, and by most accounts, it is a process that has already started.

According to Seeligson, he recently discovered multiple coveys of quails on his land, for the first time in 15 years — an indication, he believes, that the program was working.

Wildlife Management Use Tax Valuation in Texas

The wildlife management use tax valuation is the new answer for Texas landowners asking themselves how they can keep those property tax rates low without having to maintain agricultural production on their properties. Livestock had been the go-to for landowners looking to keep an agricultural tax exemption. Livestock can be great, but on smaller properties where the focus is on wildlife and habitat management, then the wildlife tax valuation makes a lot of sense.

Since the 1990’s, the opportunity to claim a wildlife use to obtain a property tax exemption has been in place in Texas. But it’s not as simple as just signing up. An existing agricultural valuation is necessary before converting to a wildlife exemption, and then an application form and a wildlife management plan must be submitted to the appropriate central appraisal district.

Source: For several years, the opportunity to claim a wildlife appraisal to obtain a tax exemption on property has been in place. But the process can be a little bit daunting. “There are rules in several different places, the Tax Code, the Texas Administrative Code, and there are comptroller-created rules to go along with the guidelines created by TPWD,” said Keith Olenick, senior biologist at Texas Wildlife Company. “It can be hard for a landowner making the switch to a wildlife exemption.”

An existing agricultural valuation is necessary before converting to a wildlife exemption, and then an application form and a wildlife management plan must be submitted to the appropriate central appraisal district. “The application is available online, and the plan is based on a Texas Parks and Wildlife-created form, about 10 pages long,” Olenick said. The landowner can complete the form, but a biologist-prepared form covers the bases a landowner might miss that result in the application being denied, Olenick said.

“A lot of appraisal districts want more than the basic information,” he explained. “They want to see maps and descriptions of the activities that will take place. They aren’t always quick to agree to reduced taxes on thousands of acres in their district.” The Texas Tax Code includes wildlife management in the definition of agricultural uses of land and defines wildlife management.

“Basically, the plan must designate a targeted, native species and the practices need to benefit that species,” Olenick said. “This is the reason most plans are denied.”

Using wildlife management as an agricultural practice to qualify for the 1-d-1 Open Space Agricultural tax appraisal in Texas is not widely understood by many landowners or potential landowners, but implementing management practices can greatly improve hunting on just about any property. While it is relatively easy to switch from traditional agricultural uses such as cattle or hay production to wildlife management agricultural use, there are several guidelines that must be adhered to in order for the property to receive the special agriculture tax appraisal based on wildlife management.

The enjoyment associated with managing for wildlife, however, make the change in land use management worthwhile for many landowners. The results can be improved deer hunting, dove hunting or better populations of other small game species. Landowners are reminded that to qualify for the special tax appraisal, the following issues must be addressed:

1) The property must have already been qualified as 1-d-1 Open-Space Agricultural Use land the year prior to changing to wildlife management use.

2) The land must be used to support a sustaining breeding, migrating, or wintering population of indigenous wild animals. In other words, the primary use of the land must be for managing wildlife and/or habitat.

3) An application for 1-d-1 (Open Space) Agricultural Appraisal must be submitted showing the change in land use to wildlife management and submitted to the appraisal district in the county in which the property is located.

4) A Wildlife Management Plan for Agricultural Tax Valuation must be completed and submitted to the Central Appraisal District in the county in which the property is located.

5) If property has been reduced in size since the previous tax year, minimum tract size requirements must be met to qualify for open space land appraisal for wildlife management use.

Turkey Stocking in Texas: Habitat Management Before Hunting

Wild turkeys are found in robust numbers in many areas of Texas, but there are locations where turkey stocking is warranted. This is especially true in the eastern half of the state, where eastern turkey once roamed. Some of the turkey populations originally found there never bounced back after they were initially wiped out by unregulated hunting and changes in habitat. Now, those same areas are prime candidates for turkey stocking if property owners are willing and can work together.

For stocking stockings to work, however, it is going to require more large landowners to become involved. Land use practices of the past on commercial land, private tracts and even national forests have created challenges that are not favorable for turkey, but the turkey habitat found in some parts of the eastern half of Texas have improved dramatically. This mean stocking and, eventually, more turkey hunting in east Texas. But let’s not put the cart before the horse.

Source: “It was a cold, grey morning. Hardly the chamber of commerce type weather to welcome newcomers to the state. But there they were, 24 eastern wild turkeys from Tennessee and Missouri being liberated from the boxes that had been their homes for about 48 hours.

Once free, the 22 hens and two jakes flew off in all directions into the pinelands of Trinity County. Their new home is the White Rock Creek drainage situated between the Trinity River to the west and the Neches to east.

The release was the first round of this year of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s efforts to re-establish eastern wild turkeys in the state. The department released 248 on three sites in 2014. They will eventually release 80 on the White Rock Creek site, the only one approved for stocking this year.

To qualify for turkey release, a site must be at least 10,000 contiguous acres and meet stringent habitat requirements. It is a guideline that has proven harder to meet than expected when the department began its super stocking approach to wild turkey restoration.

The program is a true cooperative between TPWD and the states that provide the birds, the National Wild Turkey Federation that underwrites transportation costs and hunters whose upland game bird stamp supplies GPS tracking devices and pays for other portions of the project.

The often unmentioned key is landowners who not only allow the department to release turkeys on their properties, but also invest in the habitat management work necessary for the birds to thrive. Last year that included both a private and corporate landowner, along with a state wildlife management area.

King: One of the Biggest Free-Ranging Bucks in Texas History

With the nickname of “King” this buck was destined to make Texas deer hunting history. But as good as King looked, little did Houston County hunter Mark Lee know that the big buck he and his son Cullen were hunting during the 2012 and 2013 hunting seasons would end up in the number three position for free-ranging Texas bucks. Only two Texas bucks ever entered into the Boone & Crockett records have larger antler scores than King, but one is from over a century ago and the other is rapidly approaching that mark.

The “Brady” buck from McCulloch County taped in at a whopping 284 3/8 inches. The buck was shot by an unknown hunter in the 1890s. The Brady deer, a former B&C world record holder, still tops the list as the largest of Texas bucks. The number two position belongs to the the 272 0/8 inch non-typical whitetail that was found dead near Junction in 1925 by Fred Mudge.

Mark Lee’s buck, King, checked in with a B&C score of 278 5/8 gross, 268 4/8 net. Not at all bad for an East Texas deer hunting lease.

Source: “I’ll never forget the first time I saw him,” recalls Lee. “Cullen and I were out setting cameras and putting out corn when a bachelor group of bucks jumped a fence about 50 yards in front of us and took off across a freshly disced field. They were’t messing around, either. Their heads were down and there was nothing but a smoke trail behind them.”

As the bucks sped away, Lee said his son commented about the antler spreads on a couple of the bucks, and how tall one of the others was. Lee, meanwhile, was more interested in the buck that was bringing up the rear.

“I told Cullen, ‘dude, look at the other deer,’ and I handed him my binoculars,” Lee said. “He said, dang, dad, he looks like he’s got a big knot on his head.” A life-long deer hunter, Lee, 51, said he knew right away the buck he was looking was way more special than any he had ever seen.

“We watched them run for probably 2,000 yards and maybe 2-3 minutes,” Lee said. “I couldn’t tell exactly what he was, but guessed he had probably 18-20 points. His rack looked like a big crown on top of his head. That’s when I nicknamed him “King.”