Texas Deer Population?

[LWD]

I talked to a deer breeder friend of mine about this. He said that depending on where in the state you're talking about, we could be missing almost two whole ages classes given the conditions of 2011 and 2012. That said, my lease is in Brown County and the deer we've seen this year have been very healthy looking. Game camera pictures from over the summer show considerably more deer than in either of the two previous years. No one has hunted the lease very much this year for scheduling reasons, but one nice buck has been taken. We'd have to have some really bad conditions for a very long time with really irresponsible hunting to come close to jeopardizing the whitetail deer in Texas. They can rebound very quickly.

LWD

[nck]

i've seen more pictures of very good deer killed in my area. Rusk, Panola, Smith, Gregg, Upshur, Anderson

[Chad C]

I'm still seeing tons of deer, everywhere I go! Heck, I just saw a big doe at North Tarrant Parkway and I-35 drinking from a stock tank next to an apartment complex.

[Hornytoad]

I hunt just out of Mason and we were use to seeing up to 20+ deer at the feeders. Except for the one wet year the area has been in a drought and deer decline for the last 8 years. since the major drought 2 years ago we have less then 40% of the deer we had at one time. We are on a ranch that we strictly bowhunt and we have only killed 2 does so far this year. We use to average 20 deer for the season. We are lucky that we had a good fawn crop this year so things should improve. I agree that the late summer green up is hurting the deer sighting also but we are not seeing that many on trail cam either.

[Txnative78]

I have noticed a large decrease as well. But I am seeing fawns everywhere with lots of twins so we should rebound quick. Also, with more rain, and less deer they are not coming to the feeders near as well.

[AtTheWall]

I agree about the drought conditions. 4 - 5 years worth of drought, hammering away at a resultant fawn crop, with a whitetails "in the wild" average life expectancy around 8 - 9 years, we are saddled in the middle of a whitetail down trend.

Factor in predators, coyotes that range many miles over a whitetail, with reduced feeding opportunities through these 4-5 years. Any doe that did drop fawns, which survived these recent harsh drought conditions, fawns got hammered with predation to the regions of Texas with coyote populations.

Many of the ranching operations, that ran cattle, ran out of water and in turn they sold off livestock, leaving tanks and water troughs dry till we started to recover from the drought. Many of these livestock watering stations are essentially the only watering opportunity for many of the whitetail. It's these regions that were hit the hardest.

In Kerrville for example, just 2 years ago, my family had dozens upon dozens of whitetails fighting for water in a 100 gallon water tank my folks setup for whitetail. Each and every day this tank was drained requiring refill due to the volume of mouths drinking water each day. Mind you the Guadalupe River is only 3 miles to the west of their home and this particular section of Texas, had more water than regions in traditional non-river and or non-spring fed water sources. The spring fed sources dried up and the aquifer was drained to low levels to where, most never had enough backpressure to reach their normal surface outlets.

Yes the drought has a lot to do with lowered whitetail numbers now. Cycles come and go and we are in the semi-recovery stages of one of the worst ever recorded in Texas history. Many river sections of the upper Guadalupe river went bone dry, where the river itself simply stopped flowing above, rocks lining the old riverbed, only to have the trickle of river down flow resurface miles down river. I've never seen this in my lifetime along the Guadalupe River....2 years ago was my first. Medina lake, it's only 4% total water coverage......96% of the lake is GONE! Frio river, nothing 2-3 years ago along many miles of river. Scenes to the north, east and west.....all tanks bone dry, tanks that never dried up, gone. We are in a slow rebound.....but it's gonna take years to really recover, if we ever do.

[bulltx50]

Welcome to mother nature at her best. As a biologist and having worked in this field for 25 years plus; this will not be the first time we cycle through herd reduction. The land will carry what it will carry in good times and in bad times. There are plenty of deer out there and yes some of us will have to hunt harder then we are normally would, but if the rains continue we will be hearing "we need to reduce numbers". Thus we cycle again whether it be by the hands of man or by those of mother nature. I love what I do.

[kyle1974]

Tags need to be allocated based on acreage. I know it's the sacred cow to talk about, but allowing tags per person with absolutely no consideration for the property they're being killed on is short sighted.

[Dirtymike]

The deer have learned not to stand on the side of the road, thats all
Especially in East Texas

this!

Where I am at in Victoria we have a over population issue. 20-30 deer standing in frt of the house. Deer sleeping in the yard that look at you then look away as you drive up. Come jan there will be epic doe battles for every kernel of corn.

[JackFlash]

Typical weather patterns and scenarios. Over the long term avg. We are still doing great. Numbers will rebound as they always do. I'm not totally convinced that seeing 20-30 deer a sit is necessarily a good thing. As stated above, the land can only carry so many. Antler size always increases when total deer numbers decline.

[Todd-ty729]

My belief is that we lost a large percentage of the deer herd due to the drought of 2011 and the subsequent crappy fawn crop from 2011 and 2012. Deer were recovering from the drought and many of the does just did not concieve.

Not seeing deer on the side of the roads now because the conditions are good on the inside of the fence.

During the rut you will see more deer running wild and not paying as much attention to traffic. I saw a buck standing in the median of I-20 just west of Weatherford last Sunday night. That dude was lookin' for luv!

[libertybow]

Tags need to be allocated based on acreage. I know it's the sacred cow to talk about, but allowing tags per person with absolutely no consideration for the property they're being killed on is short sighted.

I'm not sure I understand. If you are saying individuals should be allotted tags on their license based on the acreage they plan to hunt, how would you factor in the people that aren't on paid leases or family land--in other words, the people hunting public land, and those that get a license and hope to get an invite somewhere during season without knowing exact acreage?

[kyle1974]

Texas Deer Population?

The same way many other states do public land. By a draw. It's the same theory... So many tags for a given amount of land/population.

Plenty of people manage their land well enough that its not an issue but there are many areas of the state that are nearly shot out.

This probably has a snowballs chance in hell of ever happening again. It was done for quite a while with doe permits. I doubt TPW wants to put out the effort it would take for ballpark deer populations numbers in various counties.

[Chad C]

The same way many other states do public land. By a draw. It's the same theory... So many tags for a given amount of land/population.

Plenty of people manage their land well enough that its not an issue but there are many areas of the state that are nearly shot out.

Are you talking about states in which you can still buy over the counter tags?

[kyle1974]

Texas Deer Population?

It doesn't matter which states do what. If you look at the best managed ranches in texas, they all know about how many deer are on the ranch and base the kill numbers off populations. Look at one of the main criteria for MLD properties.. Game count and harvest numbers. There is no MLD qualifier that recommends or expects a certain number of hunters to make it successful.


We base the general statewide kill numbers off how many people buy a license and have a deer lease or get invited. Might work in some areas. Certainly doesn't work in all.

There are a lot of people complaining about low deer numbers in different parts of the state.