It’s time—the day before the opener of Texas’ General White-tailed Deer Hunting Season! That means the trucks are packed, the trailers are loaded, the guns have been sighted-in (hopefully), the knives are sharpened, the corn used to “chick-chick” the roads is waiting at a gas station to be purchased along the way, and guys and gals and boys and girls all across the great state of Texas will be making tracks today on the way to their deer leases, public hunting lands or personal properties. It’s amazing at just how fast a year goes by now days, but another deer hunting season is upon us.

Like many hunters, I grew up with a father that hunted. He introduced me to the outdoors and taught me how to spot the dove flyways on the property where we ran cows,  how to hunt squirrels, rabbits, deer and how to skin them all, including coons and nutria that we trapped, as well as anything else you could skin. Actually, furbearers brought a good price back then, and I think that really help control a lot of those mid-sized predator populations. Now that I think about it, we did see more quail and even some pheasants around still at that time. Hunting allowed me to experience nature up close, as well as spend time with family and friends. (more…)

Hunters are a lot like the white-tailed deer that they hunt, with each one being different from the rest of the herd. Some hunters like bucks with big, wide spreads while others want long tine lengths or bucks with mega-mass. Fortunately, not all bucks are cut from the same template. Late summer is the time of the year when whitetail bucks begin shedding antler velvet. While this is true for most bucks, what about the very small percentage of bucks that do not shed their velvet? How can this happen?

Hunter’s Story: “I heard from my taxidermist about the largest 6 point whitetail buck he had ever seen. Apparently, he was an 8 year old deer, harvested in December while still in full velvet, and the deer had been castrated, most likely by jumping a fence. The explanation goes something like this: The deer was likely injured/castrated in the summer of his 3rd or 4th year. Because the velvet dies off in the fall due to increased testosterone levels, and this bucks levels obviously did not increase, his velvet lived and the antlers continued to grow. (more…)

Most hunters know that a successful white-tailed deer management program is a multifaceted endeavor. For noticeable changes to be observed in a deer population, the age, genetics and nutrition of the herd must be controlled at some level. Because age is important, aging deer on the hoof and then re-evaluating that assessment after “ground checking” based on the deer’s tooth wear is a common practice on many ranches. After cutting a deer’s check most hunters expect to see teeth with some amount of wear, but most never expect to see a deer with fangs in its upper mouth.

These “fangs” are actually canine teeth. All whitetail have lower canines, but few deer have upper canines. The harvested deer that do have them often go undetected because hunters focus on the teeth located in the bottom jaw when aging, not those positioned on top. The upper canine teeth that are seen are usually discovered by taxidermist preparing buck deer for European (skull) mounts, not by curious hunters probing around inside an animals mouth. Common sense would make one believe that most ungulates such as white-tailed deer do not have canine teeth, but a small number in fact do. (more…)

Hundreds of thousands of white-tailed deer are killed in Texas each fall and winter, but typically by deer hunters in search of big bucks and those looking to fill their freezers. Automobiles even get a few, but it seems the deer and hunters in Eastland County have something else to look out for now—poison. The Texas Agriculture Extension is advising all area health care providers of a poisoning in Eastland County that occurred approximately two weeks ago.

It seems a ranch south of Carbon, Texas, tried to kill feral hogs by mixing deer corn with a pesticide called Temik, which is a neurotoxin. Apparently, the rancher spread a very large amount of mixed, poisoned corn over their 2,000 acre peanut crop to kill feral hogs, but it turns out that white-tailed deer where also feeding on the same ranch. (more…)

Hunters that have been out in the woods early this fall have undoubtedly bumped into some fresh rubs created by white-tailed bucks. Often times, discovering a new buck rub is enough to get my mind thinking about the deer that left the sign. How big is this whitetail? When was the animal here? Does he prefer the habitat found on this part of the property more? Where is the buck now? And, of course, will he return?

The general thinking on deer rubs is that big bucks rub actual trees and small bucks rub on saplings. This line of thinking suggests that the bigger the tree rubbed the bigger the whitetail buck doing the rubbing. Is this true? I would have to say yes, at least most of the time. The majority of bucks rubbing on larger trees are in fact larger antlered bucks. Bucks with large antlers tend to be larger bodied, mature, stronger, and as a result of all these attributes, dominant animals.  (more…)

Food plots are commonly used by deer managers to provide supplemental forage for white-tailed deer. Most hunters and deer managers prefer to plant forage species that are easy to maintain, but some plant species are worth the trouble. After all, nothing worth having comes easy and a little extra work can pay off big, especially if you consider alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) as a forage plant. Alfalfa is an excellent spring, summer, and early fall food plot choice for white-tailed deer. Alfalfa is a cool-season perennial legume that contains 16% to 26% of highly digestable protein. Not only will whitetail flock to a well-established alfalfa field, but this perennial can surive for 5 to 10 years, if properly managed.

Since established alfalfa plants can have taproots that extend to a depth of over 5 feet, this forage species makes for a very drought tolerant food plot. And what’s better than a drought tolerant food plot? Well, how about a highly productive food plot that is capable of fixing its own nitrogen? Yes, this forage plant is a legume that does not need the application of nitrogen fertilizer. Although not always easy to establish, alfalfa should be considered a highly effective forage plant for fall and winter food plots. (more…)

Every animal, including white-tailed deer, has an area that they call home. In the wildlife world this area is know as home range. The home range of an individual white-tailed buck, however, varies by season. One would expect that the range of a buck would be fairly stable for much of the year, only to increase in size during the breeding season. This increase in range would be the result of the buck’s behavior and increased movement in his search for receptive does. Although thought to be true, does this phenomenon really happen? 

Summer is a good time to be a whitetail buck. Not only do male deer get along, but packs of bucks run together in beloved bachelor groups. Hunters and managers alike get a thrill every time they stumble across a fraternity of whitetail. These observations often serve as confirmation that their harvest stategies or deer management programs are effective. We all like to see healthy bucks. Bachelor groups, by the way, can range in size from 2 to 3 deer up to as many as 28 bucks. At least that is the largest number of free-ranging bucks seen together that anyone has ever reported to me.

It is also during the summer that bucks move around a fair amount, but not as much as during the rut. As summer draws to an end, most bucks become less mobile and highly patternable. It is the time immediately after bucks shed their velvet that they become aggressive towards one another and a bit more territorial. By September, hunters at southern latitudes will start to see individual bucks visiting the same feeding areas again and again. (more…)

The importance of estimating a white-tailed deer herd on an annual basis is critical to any ranch interested in deer management. And although several survey types (methods) should be combined to get the most accurate deer population estimate, I prefer to use spotlight surveys to estimate the deer density on any given ranch. With that said, deer spotlight surveys on properties less than 400 acres in size become less reliable. The smaller the ranch, the more I shy away from using spotlight routes. This is not necessarily because the methodology is bad, but because smaller ranches have fewer roads. Fewer roads equates to shorter spotlight survey routes and data that is less reliable.

But it can get even worse, especially if a property owner tries to create more survey length by looping around in a smaller area. Surveying smaller properties increases the potential of counting deer in one area, then looping around and counting them again in another area. To accurately estimate deer density on any ranch, animals can not be repeatedly counted along the route. I refer to the importance of maintaining and recording data on individual deer herds all of the time, but I’ve never mentioned exactly how a spotlight survey should be conducted. We are going to fix that today. If you are interested in getting the best white-tailed deer density estimate possible, then this is how a spotlight survey should be performed. (more…)