East Tx Deer Numbers Thread

[kkp005]

Following also. We are in Madison Co and have been mld the last 15ish years. Used to shoot 8-10 does every year. We didn’t shoot a single doe this year due to us just not hardly seeing any. We also almost always have 1 buck pushing 140 plus and a handful in the upper 120s-130s on trail camera every year.. This year....NOTHING.

Not sure what the deal is. We have a lot of hogs but have been killing the hell out of them with thermal. Also seems like we are seeing more and more coyotes on trail camera.

I know it’s not hunting pressure effecting deer on us. We are surrounded by family land that is big chunks. 1000 acres (not hunted), 600 acres, 3600 acres (not hunted) and one side is high fenced.

[GarGuy]

Thanks guys. I appreciate it. I am curious to see if anyone jumps on tonight and adds insight.

What does your buck doe ratio look like on cameras?

[Anvilheadtexas]

What does your buck doe ratio look like on cameras?

I honestly did not pay attention to it. I will say I was not excited about deer prospects going into the season based on camera surveys and lack of sightings in summer. Some of our feeders were pretty well hogged up in fall (and yes that could be a part of the problem, but it’s not the full problem). From the stand, I saw many more young bucks... buttons, spikes than I saw does.

I have a good section of hardwoods that has no hogs and no feeders. It borders a big clear cut on an MLD club (clear cut was from a fire in 2015). The clear cut is now at the age where one would expect deer pouring out of it into my hardwoods, but the clear cut to hardwoods deer bonanza did not occur.

[RINCON]

I wonder if Bill O’Brien hunts in East Texas...

[Anvilheadtexas]

I wonder if Bill O’Brien hunts in East Texas...

I don’t know who Bill O’Brien is, but if he does hunt in East Tx I bet he “gets his two does” just like all of them. Lol

[Greenheadless]

In regards to MLD the only flaw I see is there is an emphasis on doe harvest and East Tx has never been exactly over populated with deer. That being said, the doe harvest to acre is fairly low on MLD clubs. MLD is not designed to over populate the woods with deer and reading your response you understand that.

The other thing is, the carrying capacity now days is very low in E Texas compared to what it used to be just 20 years ago.

You aren’t going to run 1 deer to 10 acres like in S Texas or the Hill Country. Most places are now pine plantations, and getting 1 deer to 40-50 acres is doing good.

[Greenheadless]

As for fawn recruitment this year, if you remember, we came out of last winter wet, the. Went completely dry until September. And I mean popcorn fart dry.

[trophyhunter01]

Season seemed slow in Walker / Houston county. But recent pics have up to 4 bucks at a time hitting corn and protein, got one pic with 9 does in and around the feeder. Guess they are hungry now. Struggled to see a solid doe in November. 5k acres MLD 8 guns

[mudkat]

on my place in rusk the number seams to be about the same but man my bucks were terrible this year nothing but young crummy bucks only had three ok bucks on cam in velvet and then almost nothing all season just pitiful this year

[Anvilheadtexas]

The other thing is, the carrying capacity now days is very low in E Texas compared to what it used to be just 20 years ago.

You aren’t going to run 1 deer to 10 acres like in S Texas or the Hill Country. Most places are now pine plantations, and getting 1 deer to 40-50 acres is doing good.

Agree that East Tx is never going to hold the deer like central texas, for whatever reason there is a ton of deer out there. In regards to pine plantations... I doubt there are any more plantations today than say 20 years ago? And there are alot of places not covered in pine plantation. I don’t want to make this thread about my place, but I have a very diverse piece of land - pines, hardwoods, open fields, water and nasty thickets.

Back when I hunted paper company land it was all pine. Place had lots of deer and I always wondered why?

[Greenheadless]

I guess I talking specific to SE Texas. If you get a chance, get on Google Earth, pull up the imagery and scroll back 10-15-20 years of imagery and look at how much has changed.

[Anvilheadtexas]

I guess I talking specific to SE Texas. If you get a chance, get on Google Earth, pull up the imagery and scroll back 10-15-20 years of imagery and look at how much has changed.

You bring up a good point. I definately seem to have more yaupon in my place and in some places it’s insane thick. Yaupon is native and has always been in east tx, but it’s definately thicker now.

[Greenheadless]

The place I hunt is a LARGE tract. You look at arial phots 20-30 years ago, probably 60% of the property was in mast producing trees. Today, I would bet it is below 5%. You look are all the neighboring areas, same story. We have records back into the 80’s and they were killing close to 200 deer of the place and the herd maintained. We don’t have much more than that in our entire population today.

When I joined the lease 10 years ago, we still had patches of oak flats. Probably 750-1000 acres total. Today, I only know of one sizable tract left, and it can’t be more than 75-100 acres.

Only thing we have left are the SMZ’s. We have very few of those and most are no more than 20-30 yards wide, but they came in and selective cut all the sizable white and red oaks out of the, leaving only water oaks.

Our last saving grace for deer habitat are the clear cuts. They now have a practice of spraying them with a helicopter the first 2-3 years of planting with a herbacide that kills everything but the pines (surprisingly it even kills the Chinese tallow).

[lovemylegacy]

The other thing is, the carrying capacity now days is very low in E Texas compared to what it used to be just 20 years ago.

You aren’t going to run 1 deer to 10 acres like in S Texas or the Hill Country. Most places are now pine plantations, and getting 1 deer to 40-50 acres is doing good.

I would like to cordially disagree. You may be correct if you are talking about Pines that form a canopy, thus choking out vegetation. However, there are a lot of clearcuts and especially spot cut or fifth rowed Pines that produce copious amounts of browse. Browse that is full of exactly what deer need and want. More nutritious food can possibly translate to more deer. So I understand and agree with you in part but it isn't completely true. Example; Our lease is atypical SETx lease, MLD for several years, doe and buck quotas increased from year to year. Our deer population is not huge by any standard, maybe a little below average, but just a few miles away a lease that is also MLD, their deer population is huge. What is the difference? I do not know. Same food, same lumber practices, same management practices. The only difference I know of is they feed a lot of protein.

[Anvilheadtexas]

Anyone else? What had been your observations in last year or two regarding overall deer population in East Tx?