I hunt a couple of miles north of Ranger. We have had corn pile up under our feeders the past few weeks. Buddy got a doe and she was full of acorns. We are seeing deer when we sit on fields. I wouldn't say our deer are nocturnal but we have not seen but one fawn this year. We have seen 3-4 legal young bucks and one mature 10 point. The wind has been terrible this year and I am hoping by the end of December we will see more action at the feeders. Glad someone put this post up seems a bunch of us are in the area. Be at the lease this weekend and hope for the best

I have hunted east coleman county for 13 years and have never seen it this slow. This part of west texas has seen rains all year and food is plenty. Opening weekend was ok with a few small bucks coming to the feeder and now the deer are nocturnal and very few are seen by my fellow hunters. As I go back and look at the camera pics I have noticed that all the bucks including the young bucks have full and swollen bellies. I turned my feeders way down so the corn does not pile up. I am going back this weekend and check my cameras. Good luck everyone!!

It seems to be the same story from the guys I know.

We are 8 miles north of Cisco. Two of us have seen nothing and one took a nice buck. Lots of tracks though. Last year I saw deer every time out.

3 miles south of Moran, pretty much the same story, very slow. Have seen a few doe and a couple of smallish bucks so far. High wind, bright moon, acorn...etc haven't helped either.

Hunt SE of Cisco, on this place for 12 years now and this is an average year for us so far as seeing deer. Almost no 3.5 year old bucks this year and not as many 2.5s as in lots of years past. Good crop of 1.5 year olds and fair crop of fawns this time around. No acorns on tje place this year except the few live oaks and those acorns are gone now.

If you think about it the next couple years might be tough on seeing lots of legal bucks, drought of 2011 and 12 really hurt the fawn crop and with lack of cover those years the yotes had a good time on the fawn population. Give it a couple more years with average rain and it will improve.

Lots of the leases in the area have too many hunters for the acreage and on too many of them the hunters want to tag out and the population cannot support that kind of hunting. Numerous years I have not shot a deer on the lease not because I could not have but just letting them have a break from me, the neighbors kill plenty, often more than what needs to be taken off the area, one place has 5 hunters that want at least 2 per person or more and bring grandkids out for more and that is on 150 acres.

When there is a good acorn crop, those that just hunt feeders often go empty on deer. Best action when the acorn crop is big is hunt the acorns and during drought years hunt the water if you have it.

Good luck and if you are one of the ones in the area with a big acorn crop hunt those until the last 2 weeks or so of the season when the deer usually start hitting the feeders hard.

Interesting to hear all y'alls experiences. Sounds like most of us are in the same position then. This is only our second year on this particular lease, though we know who and how it was hunted for the last 15 years or so and they appeared to manage it well. Last year we took 4 deer in total between 5 hunters on 850 acres. That said, we know some of the neighbours were shooting what looked to be really young bucks.

Unlike some of you, we had little to no acorns this year, but we had a decent crop last year.

Based on the tracks and cams we know there's deer out there, and there's definitely a few mature ones, they are all just really sneaky and definitely not coming to the feeders. I might try my hand at hand corning before i hunt and see how that works out.

It was completely dead on our place again this weekend. We're north of Cisco, a few miles across the Stephens County line. We had five of us out there and between all of us we sat a total of 20 different times. Nobody saw a thing the whole weekend. One of the guys ran into one of the hunters on the ranch behind us and he said they haven't seen much all season, either. One of our hunters took a 4.5 year old 9 pointer mid-week after the opener and that's all we've got. I've seen zero deer on more than half of my 21 sits so far. At this point I'm just hoping I can get some meat for the freezer, expecting a mature buck seems unlikely.

I've experienced seasons with bumper acorn crops and loads of native forage before, and though they were slower than normal they were no where near this bad. I think the drought over the last few years has left us with a smaller overall deer population due to several poor fawn crops in a row and maybe even some die-offs. I think there's just simply less deer out there than in years past.

With not seeing any deer I would have to let the does walk. The drought has taken its toll on the fawn crop,Just my opinion.

Yeah, I'm thinking that we should pass on shooting any does this season, too. There just aren't many out there, and with the recent rains next summer's fawn crop looks like it may be pretty good. We need more deer on our place, and shooting a doe would probably remove two or more deer from the herd if you assume she's going to have her fawn(s) survive this coming year. I'll probably just shot a deer behind my parent's house in the hill country when I'm down there for Christmas. They've got a ton of deer, and my mom hates them because the decimate her garden every year.

Hunted Friday evening/Saturday morning in southwest stephens county. Nothing Friday, had 1 doe under my feeder at shooting light on saturday morning but i'm inclined to wait it out.

The spike will get it if he comes out again, otherwise i'm just looking for Hogs which have gone completely nocturnal.

Deer tracks all over the place, they just continue to move at night and the guys are always ignoring the feeders.

Bingo..Been hunting Stephens county since 1997, worst I ever seen it. Fawn crops have been very poor since 2011.

I am in Stephens County, but stay in Eastland. This is our 5th year to hunt the same property. I the first 4 years, I know that I have had less than 5 sits that I didn't see deer. This year, a don't see anything at least half the time and several of the deer I see are just a glimpse. I also am not seeing deer going to and from Eastland to the lease (~15 miles) ... even in the dark! We had a few nice deer in September but the have gone complete nocturnal.

We haven't seen any acorns, but lots of browse ... and I haven't hit a good weekend weather wise yet. Hot all 4 times I have been and those winds opening weekend really put a damper on movement.

We had very poor fawn crops in 2011 and 2012. Last year wasn't as bad. I generally take a doe or two and spike if I don't have a nice shooter. I think everything gets a walk this in hopes that I will at least see a few more deer next year.

So did anyone see any Rut activity in this area this year? I doubt it will make much difference but i'm just trying to pinpoint when the second rut might take place.

I'll be out there regardless but this might change my tactics just a little.

It's been a little weird at our place outside of Carbon. BiL stated bucks were bumping/chasing opening weekend. I went the following two weekends and bucks were bumping/chasing. Couldn't go for a couple of weeks until last week and bucks are still bumping and chasing. So go figure when the secondary will be, but I think its about to show up based on prior years. I think part of this is due to the fact our ratios are way out of control. We are probably sitting at 4-1. BiL and FiL are old school "don't shoot does" kind of guys. My BiL took a younger good buck opening day. I have consistently seen 2 mature shooters, but have chose not to take a shot due to the ratios we have. I plan on making a dent on the doe population in the coming weeks. We hunt 260 acres.

I hunt in SW stephens county, north of cisco and east or moran. I saw a young buck chasing a doe on the second weekend, but the doe was having nothing to do with him. I couldn't make it out for the third weekend, but the others guys reported seeing some rutting activity but didn't elaborate on what they specifically saw. The weekend before thanksgiving I watched two bucks at the feeder for about 20 minutes one morning, and the older buck had his hair puffed up and was aggressively posturing towards the other buck. I saw multiple bucks that weekend but no does. Our lease seems to have a pretty even buck to doe ration. To summarize I haven't seen much rutting activity, but I haven't seen a whole lot of deer this season either. My guess is the third and fourth weekends of november were probably the peak of the rut, and we should be expecting the secondary rut to start up pretty soon. That time frame lines up with what TPWD's study on rut activity says about our region, also.

I'm on a lease in Eastland off Hwy 16. I got on it sight un-seen and scouted hard before bow season. Zero deer, no sign, no tracks... Humm...

Ive been out several times scouting / hunting and have never seen or bumped a deer. Was told they are all up the mountains feeding on acorns. Okay I climbed the mountains and glassed the place and still ZERO.

Eastland has extremely low deer numbers and my lease has even fewer. I won't waste my time and money in Eastland again. I'll stick to the Hill Country

Eastland may have lower deer density than the hill county, but I don't think it could be called extremely low.

I made it out to the lease and hunted this past Sunday. I didn't see anything that morning but it was really windy. I had two does come in at 5 minutes to last light in the evening. These are the first does I've seen since the second weekend of November. On a positive note, I checked my game cameras and had more day time deer photos this past week than any time so far this season. It was all does and young bucks, and the only decent buck I've seen this year hasn't been photographed or seen since the week of Thanksgiving.

Does anyone else have any updates from the area?

I hunted this past weekend and saw very few deer. One group of six does, one basket 6 and one basket eight, both 2 1/2 tops. Also a spike. 3 evening hunts and two morning hunts. This year has been the slowest of the 3 years on this lease just south of Breckenridge. I'm still getting TC pics but nearly every one is at night. And I'm not seeing the more mature deer seen earlier in the year. And the "more mature" deer seem to be 3 1/2 tops.

Have you tried using vanilla?

for me the problem is not lack of deer in Eastland Co

it's their nocturnal ways

I see big 8,9,10 pts on cams at night on my lease, which is close to Erath Co line

we did have more rain than usual this year, more acorns for them to eat, don't have to leave the
thick white oaks up in the mountain to graze/browse etc ..

and the season has been warm/milder than average

I am hunting hard the next 3 weeks, I'll post my findings


this is the problem on my lease ,,, nocturnal deer

At least you're seeing mature deer on camera! I've 5 or so regulars which include 2 spikes, a small 4 point fork, a crabby 6 point and one thats close to being legal but pretty small.

I've no doubt there's some big boys out there, but they aint coming to the feeders thats for sure! Hopefully one of your guys makes a mistake in the next few weeks and you get a shot. The changing weather might help.

IMO Eastland needs a doe ban until the numbers go up.

Guess it boils down to which way you like to hunt. If you want see a few deer on cam at night and maybe see one durring hunting hours over a feeder Eastland is your place.

I would not recommend hunting Eastland for people who enjoy seeing wildlife durring the day such as myself.

My enjoyment comes when the woods are alive with life and I enjoy the close interaction with wildlife (sometimes the fellowship) not so much the harvest.

Hope they start moving for you guys. Good luck!

Like everybody else I can only relate to what I see on our lease.
We have a 4000 acre ranch just north of the Eastland County line, 3 years ago we had a pretty bad fire go across a big chunk of our lease and it virtually wiped out 1000 acres of prime hunting land.
Prior to the fire we had a lot of deer on this property and were very careful to manage the herd and only shot 4 yr old bucks for the most part.
For 2 years after the fire we didn't seen nearly as many deer, then last year we actually had our best year and saw quite a few mature bucks and harvested several really good free range bucks.
Despite all the past drought problems, this year we were blessed with lots of rain. Our place is greener than it has ever been (in part I am sure because of the new growth from the fire) but also because we have a lot of water. Our tanks are running over.
But, this year has absolutely been the worst year ever and I thought based on last year and all the good bucks that we thought made it thru that we would have a good year.
We are not even seeing deer. Not even does. On my last 6 sets, I have only seen deer twice and they were does. I have yet to even see a buck. Even during the rut I didn't see a buck and most of my family has had the same experience.
Not sure what happened, is weird, but is very disappointing.