Left my deer sitting 2 hours and look what happened! Little bastard walked up on me while i was quartering him up and had to chase him off with a stick! (left my bow at my stand) AAAND YES he was a spike, the other antler was unbranched.

Surprising how fast they can get on them. Had two hunters this year have the same thing happen. One was in Kansas and the yotes cleaned it completely over night. The other one was in an area with relatively few coyotes. His deer hadn't laid for more than 45min and he ran 3 coyotes off of it when he went to recover.

Looks like they gutted it for you!

Dang looks like he got just a little backstrap

That's why you should carry a pistol.

When a Coyote gets to your deer before you, he needs to pay.

I had a nice pack of yotes beat me to my doe one night. It was a perfect storm as I'm trailing her through some thick stuff. Lantern runs out of fuel. Pull out the flashlight and a few yards later it goes dead on me. Not 10 seconds later a bunch of yotes light up only 30 yards away from me.

Not gonna lie, I with a quickness.

I come back the next day to find my doe exactly where the yotes lit off the night before. Stripped clean as a whistle.

That flat out SUCKS!!!

Amazing how fast they can clean one up...

Every time we have dumped guts this year there are no signs of it left the next morning.

That stinks. I have seen them leave nothing but a skull In a few hours.

He is not a spike though. A spike is both sides unbranched. That deer would not be legal in the extended spike/doe season unless a kid took it.

That is a bummer, waste of good venison. Hate yotes nearly as much a rattlesnakes.

All my dealings with deer eating Coyotes have been overnight

He didn't hurt any of the meat, ate a small chunk of backstrap and that was it. Funny, all that good meat, and all he wanted was the guts...

wrong

https://tpwd.texas.gov/regulations/outdoor-annual/regs/animals/white-tailed-deer

As long as one side is un-branched he is legal.


Special Antler Restrictions

Antler restrictions apply only in certain counties (see County Listings). In these counties, the bag limit is two legal bucks, but only ONE may have an inside spread of 13 inches or greater. In these counties, a legal buck deer is defined as having:
a hardened antler protruding through the skin AND;
at least one unbranched antler; OR
an inside spread measurement between main beams of 13 inches or greater (does not apply to a buck that has an unbranched antler).

Does age of hunter ever enter the equation at all?

Nope....

You'd think a wanna be green pants would read his outdoor annual.

I can assure you this is not a legal spike in Kimball County since we do not fall under the special antler restriction guidelines.

Hmmm. I stand corrected. Thank you.

This discussion has been on here before. There is a difference between the definition of a spike (legal to shoot in the extended season) and a deer with an unbranched antler (antler restrictions, not during the extended season).


TPWD

Yes it does in the 2 week extended season. A youth may take whatever is legal in the extended season that is legal In the regular season. An adult can't. I just mentioned this is not a spike in case it was taken in the extended season which is spikes only, not unbranched on one side like in the normal regular season. Lots of folks don't know that until they read the TPWD fine print. It can be confusing until you see the word SPIKE only for extended when you pull up your own counties regs. One must look up their specific county to know their regs. In mine this is not a legal buck after the first Sunday in Jan. I have no idea when and where this was taken but might save someone a headache down the line if you are hunting the Late Season Spike & Antlerless Only and think unbranched on one side is considered Spike.

At least it left you most of the good meat.