I just got on a new lease between Holliday and Archer City, and I wanted to hear what those of you with experience hunting the county had to say about the deer hunting in the area. I'm particularly interested in what y'all have to say about antler quality and the overall quantity of deer. Thanks.

I hunted south of Holliday for many years. The river road/ Geraldine / dads corner area.
Good size deer , not a high number tho. The best time to hunt is during the week. A lot of hunters in the area and the deer become nocturnal. The mature bucks don't come to feeders once the get out of velvet. Best thing is to corn the senderos and hunt them. If you need any more specifics pm me.

Thanks ccrock, the ranch I'll be on is off of Geraldine road. It looks like a pretty good place, they've got some photos of some really nice bucks.

I agree 100%. We have killed some pretty good deer off our lease but the overall numbers of deer density are low. This past year was the hardest for us and I heard nearby wasn't much better. I think the drought finally caught up over the last several years.

Come on guys, rattler03 needs all the feedback he can get, I know that a lot of guys and gals on here hunt Archer county. Maybe yall are holding back some secrets, lol. Thanks for all the input so far.

This will be my 4th year hunting in Archer county.

As said previously, we definitely dont have the deer density of West Texas, but there are still quality deer up there. There are a lot of hunters in my area, but everyone I have met around my lease are very management focused.

Pre-rut and rut is when you are going to see the majority of your bucks. They tend to move in the night hours during the other times. The last couple of years though, right at the end of the season, I have seen some nice bucks on the edges of our wheatfields (if you have access to one).

Though i am more than satisfied with the deer hunting in Archer, what really makes it great is the other supplemental game. Have a ton of hogs up there. They are hunted and trapped pretty hard, but there are plenty to go around. Also the abundance of predators (mainly coyotes) and an extremely healthy turkey population keeps you busy year around.

One last bonus; lake Kickapoo. It's definitely not a Possum Kingdom lake, but since the water levels have gone down so far, you can pretty much just drive onto the beach anywhere on the lake. In the summer time (when it gets super hot), me and my buddies take a canopy, chairs, fishing poles and cold beer to hang out during the day between morning and night hog hunts. Great catfishing if you can find a good spot.

Hope this helps!

Don't do any deer hunting, but DirtNap is right..........plenty of toothy critters to shoot at in Archer Co.

Thanks guys, I appreciate the insight. Keep it coming ...

We hunted a larger place (2K+ acres) in the southwestern part of the county about ten years ago north of Olney. It was part of a bigger ranch and had been mismanaged pretty bad when we got on. It had a good amount of hogs, TONS of turkey, pretty decent dove hunting and a few deer, but not many. I think it had great potential for deer had it been managed right.

Sadly, we never got the chance to manage it and grow the herd because our one and only year on the place, we found out the lease broker we were going through (or the LO or someone anyway) was day leasing during the week when we weren't there, even using our blinds and feeders. There were a few other issues as well that kept us from staying on the place.

Overall, I liked it and would have loved to have stayed on it had the situation been different. I really think it had potential.

One thing that sticks in my mind about that place was it was either really muddy or really dusty. Wasn't hard to get stuck even in a 4x4.

bump

Grew up in that area, still hunt a couple spots south and east of AC. Good deer numbers,mostly skinny does and what we call "Archer 8's" - skinny racked 10-12" 8 points that are abundant. Don't see very many large deer unless you hunt a big place but there is the occasional wall hanger. Deer do get jumpy and nocturnal pretty early in the season. Hogs on our place pretty much disappear'd last season which is odd consider we don't hunt that hard, feed year round and have a few tanks plus a creek through the place. Had a couple show up on camera at random times, but last live pig we saw was October.



I hunted Fisher county for about 10 years, much bigger deer out that way.