I subscribe to Deer and Deer Hunting Mag. Find that it does not "really" cover conditions in SW area. Best info on Deer population is on Texas Fish & Wildlife web sites. It's principally focused on the USA Northern/Northeastern Sector.

Hey now, that's stepping over the line, crazy talk...

Charlie

I hunt mostly East Texas and never kill does. I leave that for the more desperate hunters. I have killed two does in 26 years of hunting East Texas. I get absolutely no pleasure out of shooting does, other than some meat. I would rather shoot a hog any day. I don't see a lot of deer, but I would guess the ratio at 2 bucks to 8 does. I really don't see this as a problem. I start killin all the baby carriers and then theres no babies. If I want to pull the trigger for the extra kill, there is more than enough coyotes and hogs. Now that's a real deer killer along with car collisions. They don't need my help with their deer herd survival. I could guess that a lot of the deer herd body weights going up is also contributed to people spending millions of dollars on food plots and feed. Think about it. I don't feed my deer, but have tried a few drought ridden food plots in the past. Not anymore. I like a natural setting. Most of the bucks I kill are plenty heavy. One spot with too many hogs, sometimes throws some uneven buck weights. Probably fighting hogs for food is bad.

Yup. Management agencies are staffed by graduates of the universities, and we all know what kinds of things take place in the universities. A good deal of it is politically motivated corruption of science.

At one time I was loaded with deer herds but am no longer. My small 133 acre place is just south of Bowie. And, they were all healthy. Then TPWD said to kill does because we had too many deer. I drank the Koolaid and now it's not unusual to hunt all weekend and see nothing. I'm the only hunter around but my non hunting neighbors say the same thing. The deer could possibly still be there but have all gone nocturnal. I'm still planting wheat but the food plots don't get hit like they used to. TPWD says that we have 18 to 24 deer per section but I used to see that many hitting the wheat in front of my house.

The wild card is that we have also had a lot of droughts and I have no idea what would have happened with that many deer. Another wild card is that more people have moved in on 20 to 30 acre ranchettes. But, they don't hunt.

I have often thought that TPWD looked at the runts in the Hill country and extrapolated them to the whole State.

OTOH, I remember seeing starving deer herds in Possum Kingdom State Park in the 60's. This was before any hunting was allowed and during a serious drought. It was pretty pitiful and Mama Nature culled most of them.

I have seen a change in deer numbers here at home. In the 80's they were thick here in Cass/Morris counties. We still have a very nice herd, but not like the 80's. In the SE panhandle I saw mule deer occasionally and damn near fainted when I saw my first whitetail in 84. We dove hunted, turkey hunted, and quail hunted, but wasn't worth our time to hunt deer. My dad actually thought I was crazy for moving a blind from Menard to Wellington in 94. Now we can see herds of 50-100 in wheat and peanut fields and have 20 deer at a time in our pens.

How many does did you kill off 133 acres?

My guess would look at another reason for your lack of deer

So you have a 1:4 ratio

Killing does to balance the ratio is good management. It's a fact.

Fawn survival is the key to population growth not carrying a bunch of does

Define killing all the does on your place with a number per year and the over years. Were all the neighbors drinking that Koolaid and killed all their does at the same time? Something is not adding up till the ranchettes part. I can not imagine a 1000 acre ranch selling into 30-50 ranchettes and not having one single person hunt their own ranch. All it would take is 8-10 of those ranchettes killing their tags and their family killing their tags off their ranchette to cause a problem sooner than one ranch killing a lot of does.

Interesting that you mention that. I've taken D&DH for many years, and have found it to be one of the most independent and less commercial-driven magazines related to hunting and wildlife management. And it shows by the fact that a subscription runs about twice what you pay for Field and Stream, Outdoor Life, and others that often appear more driven to sell merchandise than to press the issues.

Impugning the publication is not my objective. That said, every writer and researcher is an individual and is imbued with his or her own agenda and prejudices. When I see someone declare that there's a nationwide problem, I smell a nationwide "solution" in the offing. I don't believe anyone here would suggest that the deer herds should be managed through any kind of a national game management policy and Id bet that there's just about 100% agreement that small management units are best.

Yeah, I'm a bit suspicious.

That's pretty much what the QDMA followers did many years ago when they first claimed most states had far too many deer.

The article itself makes no mention of the need for a nationwide effort, but simply suggests that it might be time to give doe a break in some areas of the Northeast and Southeast.

I do feel the numbers have declined some, but I believe it has more to do with the many years of drought than necessarily management practices.

The discussion brings to mind how many hunters are active readers of information and reports on hunting and wildlife in order to stay informed and increase their overall knowledge and understanding. Many of us have heard the term "low information voter" used in the political realm. You have to wonder if the same applies to a significant segment of the hunting community.

I don't get the magazine, so don't know exactly what the article says. Opening post makes me wonder where the numbers came from. Harvest statistics? My personal experience is that the number of deer hunters has plummeted over the past 15-20 years. I've been hunting the same Oklahoma public management area since the mid-1980s and it used to be almost impossible to find a place to park the truck off the road. The past few years I've seen hardly any other vehicles at all, and very rarely have I seen another hunter in the woods.

FWIW. Past 10-12 years I've noticed little if any change in the number of bucks I've seen, at least one each day (usually waaaay out of range), sometimes as many as 10-12. But there's been a steady increase in the does I've seen. The past few years it almost seems like I can't walk but a couple hundred yards without jumping another doe, often with a fawn or two. And from my stands it's gone from seeing one, two or three individual does at a time to often seeing small herds of several.

probably a cloudy argument all the way around. I'm not overly well read on what total estimated state deer populations are. it would not surprise me to know that total population from say 100yrs ago until today is actually down and just seems like its up because so much habitat has been lost to development that there are fewer deer in less space and it just seems like more. all told though I don't think the states deer population is in any danger. certainly not in any danger from doe harvest. habitat loss will continue to be a problem...I would think that would make doe harvest increasingly important.

these days too you probably have way more supplemental feeding taking place than you ever did before and way fewer people relying on the deer as a primary food source, so maybe the population overall has actually held steady. or grown.

you will always have areas of just naturally low deer density, or excessive hunting practices where it would be important to protect does. and you'll have plenty areas where this is not an issue and many need to be removed with regularity.

habitat loss has to be a huge player though.

In some areas, different methods of timber management are really affecting numbers. Used to, companies would just clear cut, row, replant, thin in 15-20, cut in 25-30. Now they're cutting, air spraying to kill off browse so saplings/seedlings get a good start (sometimes up to 5years) and other than cover, provides zero nutritional benefits to thousands and thousands of acres. (will actually occur on 1.4 million acres in Tx at some point just due to the company that owns it). I understand that's a drop in the bucket on acreage in the state, but it's an area that can normally hold a ton of deer.

I can only speak of my area of the state (Eastland/Callahan Counties. Deer numbers are down. The drought is a factor but over hunting also comes into the picture in my vicinity. The properties all around me are constantly being sold and subdivided with more and more owner/hunters coming into the picture. The latest place to change hands was a little over 300 acres in size. An elderly gentleman and his son hunted the place until 2013. Today it is divided into three parcels and each owner has a "buddy" that hunts with him plus the occasional grandkid. We are not prime deer country and do not have the numbers that you see in Central Texas and other areas. My part of the state can not withstand that type of hunting pressure.

aeb, where exactly are you at? Always assumed you were around Roby for some reason.

HQ place is between Moran and Cisco on Highway 6.

Thank you, not sure why I had it stuck in my head that you were further West.

I'll agree that predators play a big part in declines. Especially where wolves are re-established.

But huge areas in Michigan and Wisconsin and other Midwest states lost up to 80% of their herds due to EHD a couple of years back. Hunters don't ever have that kind of impact over large areas.

I have a friend that has trail cam pics of coyotes taking a 2 year old buck down at a feeder and killing him. The coyotes where I hunt thrive because all of the extra hog meat. So I think that with the good health from good eating produces more pups, and healthier more powerful adult coyotes with enough power to take down an adult sized deer. I focus way way more on killing the ones who rob the deer than the deer itself. The deer can get their numbers right if I can get the coyote and hog populations down. I can hear six packs sound off every evening and the hogs, man. Killed about ten yotes last year, and average 75 hogs a year. Now that's got to do something for the deer. If the does ever get out control Ill let you know about it.

So where was the study done?

Northeast.... Southeast...... East Texas...... all different areas with different populations that you can't make a blanket study of. Besides, what to wildlife biologist know?