Texas Deer Population?

[Chad C]

Cycle of life! Density is at an all time high in areas as well.

[catfishryan]

I dont think its the drought at all.I think our state has become a shoot anything that moves state. Shoot so many for population control. Its working and not for the good

this.

i see plenty of deer. they are 1,2, and 3 year old bucks. the 3 yr olds will get killed and next year its the same thing again. there arent enough mature deer for all the hunters yet every hunter thinks they have to kill a deer. when they only see 3 yr olds they kill it because "if they dont the neighbor will" or its the biggest deer they have so they convince themselves its older than it really is, or they decide its a cull because it has short tines, is only an 8 pt, isnt extra wide.

an 8 pt is only a cull if u have 10 pointers, a narrow deer is only a cull if you have wide deer, a short tined deer is only a cull if you have long tined deer etc. in reality that "inferior" 3 year old could easily be a 5 1/2 year old, big bodied130-150 inch deer if he were allowed to develop.

too many places are being managed like they are highfence or 10000 acre ranches instead of simply letting bucks get enough age. i personally have never seen a 5 year old buck in central or north texas that wasnt a bruiser. he may not be a B&C, but hes a buck that id be proud to hunt.

as far as does i think hunters are having trouble getting a buck so they shoot does even though they dont have a very good deer population. buck to doe ratio is great, but there has to be a strong deer populaion first.

i can see the drought killing some deer in the hill country and other overpopulated areas, but not in places where there are few deer to begin with. on my place in eastern bell county(e of i35= no does allowed). i have had my doe numbers double each of the past 5 years, including 2011 when we had a whopping 9 inches of rain the entire year

[elkbowhunter]

I think the less deer due to drought observation has been met with some opposing findings. Interesting data. Good thread.

[MQ32Shooter]

I've seen less deer on my place since the drought. I know a bunch of mine left because 2 or my 3 tanks dried up completely. My neighbor has a lake thats about 7 acres in size and he said a bunch of deer showed up there 2 years ago during the worst part of the drought. Mine are coming back, but still do not have the activity that I had 3-4 years ago. I do have a bunch of little bucks that don't look like they are going to make much of a deer even in 2-3 more years. Got 4-5 spikes and two 3 pointers.

[TxSpinner]

Deer are a lie! Like bigfoot and the yeti. Don't believe what you watch on tv or see on the web its all a conspiracy. Deer don't actually exist.

[Todd-ty729]

I dont think its the drought at all.I think our state has become a shoot anything that moves state. Shoot so many for population control. Its working and not for the good

Just the opposite of this!

We are more management minded than ever before and it is only getting better by the year.

The drought had worse effects than most people realize!

Barely anyone was alive back when we had a similar combination of drought and heat (sometime in the 50's) and the Texas deer population and the number of counties that had whitetail deer were a fraction of what we are used to today.

Also the number of deer hunters is much higher than it was and the whitetail has thrived mostly due to deer management practices.

[Smart]

Personally I think food conditions around the state have the deer moving less and they arent as visible. There is no doubt we lost some deer but a large percentage is a little much. During the summer when food was starting to get scarce, our corn feeders were rocking. 8-10-12 deer at a time and all the mature deer we had on the list from last year. Now we are lucky to see one or two on camera.....and during sits you can see other deer passing through, working scrapes and feeding under the oaks.

Our fawn survival the last two years has been pretty **** nice as well. Either we got timely rains after 2011 or our deer are a little more tolerant of drought out west. No coyotes in our area helps as well....but again that IMO..

[Dirtymike]

The areas I visit and live are over run with deer. Weird. You got to georgetown deer in yards, austin deer in yards, granger wma deer all over, victoria deer are like seagulls, fannin county out on colleto lake deer are like seagulls, cuero dewitt county deer are like seagulls. NW of austin out by muleshoe deer are like seagulls. Everywhere I go I see tons of deer. I think we have TOO many deer! Friend of mine in east tx seems to have the no deer issue. I know more than one person in mission valley in victoria county that absolutly HATE deer now. One lady calls em devils! Cracks me up. Them devils ate my mums, them devils ate my garden, them devils all in my yard. They need to open up doe to gun hunters. I kill my 2 doe every oct but it is pathetic how many there are. It gets bad in jan feb. Everyone is super skinny and sickly.

[Buckwheat]

Well it's also green every where. Deer just don't have to travel like they do normaly. IMO. We are seeing more deer this yr than we have the past two yrs. a lot more does and fawns this yr.

[gilbear]

Personally I think food conditions around the state have the deer moving less and they arent as visible. There is no doubt we lost some deer but a large percentage is a little much. During the summer when food was starting to get scarce, our corn feeders were rocking. 8-10-12 deer at a time and all the mature deer we had on the list from last year. Now we are lucky to see one or two on camera.....and during sits you can see other deer passing through, working scrapes and feeding under the oaks.

Our fawn survival the last two years has been pretty **** nice as well. Either we got timely rains after 2011 or our deer are a little more tolerant of drought out west. No coyotes in our area helps as well....but again that IMO..

I agree with this ^^^

[kyle1974]

Cycle of life! Density is at an all time high in areas as well.

Yes I agree 100%. Do you think it's natural cycles or varying management though? Probably not a single factor. Maybe a stack of of several things going the right or wrong way for a given area.

Just looking at areas like duval county, many areas have practically no deer population mainly because of poor management.

[gekko man]

Personally I think food conditions around the state have the deer moving less and they arent as visible. There is no doubt we lost some deer but a large percentage is a little much. During the summer when food was starting to get scarce, our corn feeders were rocking. 8-10-12 deer at a time and all the mature deer we had on the list from last year. Now we are lucky to see one or two on camera.....and during sits you can see other deer passing through, working scrapes and feeding under the oaks.

Our fawn survival the last two years has been pretty **** nice as well. Either we got timely rains after 2011 or our deer are a little more tolerant of drought out west. No coyotes in our area helps as well....but again that IMO..

I agree also! We hunted the head of the river for 6 years and never saw or heard a coyote. Those ranchers did and do a number on the Yotes!

I am sure the acorns and hot doe have them locked down.

I am hoping we see the big guys this weekend but it will probably be the second week of December . Then it's on !

[Kdog]

Saw 12 Saturday morning, 14 Saturday night and 13 Sunday morning. Shot the last doe I saw on Sunday. We have more deer where I hunt that we did 5 years ago. I attribute this to supplemental feeding and the fact that we have few (if any) predators.

Tough trend for anyone to observe state wide, Texas is so diverse.