Should TPWD limit doe harvest?

Just a thought with so many county's reporting low deer numbers because of drought years. I'm also wondering if they could put a bounty out on coyotes? What are y'all's thoughts?

They do in some counties or areas of some counties now under AR's. In the area of my county I live in you can not harvest any does unless you are member of the WMA Coop and get MLD permits based on your acreage and the survey for the area of the county. My area of the county should have a deer to 17 acres according to the annual surveys. In my immediate are due to no one shooting does and moderate hunting pressure on bucks the actual numbers are more like a deer to 7-10 acres.

in hunt county where i am we need more time to kill does, bow season and thanksgiving weekened isnt enough.

I was thinking about some of the county's west of DFW. Eastland, Stephens, Throckmorton, and Young. They all allow 2 doe per hunter.
jshouse, I hear a lot of East Tx hunters don't like the limits like your county has. Do you think it has increased the deer population any?

no doubt it has in the areas i hunt or have access to, which are SE and NW hunt county.

my family place in south hunt county is 45 acres (with only a couple hundred around it) and i have around 20 deer on the cameras every day.

the rancher on the NW property said he hardly ever saw deer on his place in 20 years, until we threw a feeder up and moved some cows 2 years ago. now they see deer pretty much everyday, and some big bucks too...and part of it MIGHT be for sale....

we could really use an extended doe season, or a late muzzleloader season.

As a rule of thumb deer numbers are generally low due to habitat(CC), livestock numbers(over stocking), rainfall(below average) and then lastly hunting pressure(to many hunters vs CC). If you have poor habitat then deer/fawn numbers will be low no matter what the deer numbers are like and predator numbers are like. LO or hunters ultimately will control numbers by the density of hunters. These is just my opinions.

Worth a 2 year test in the Cross Timbers where drought have impacted fawn production and survival.

Yes they should. I am beginning to think that we need TPWD to take a bigger hand. Like maybe considering all Texas MLD, county by county, & issuing specific tags to landowners every year. Smaller tracts of land go into a lottery draw system, like other states do.

Define "smaller tracts of land."

The two doe limit in Houston County hasn't had a negative impact on deer numbers in our area. Still seeing plenty of deer every season.

If the areas seem underpopulated, the doe tags are really designed to be like the spike tag that came with ARs where it's just there and people don't use it.

I think nature is going to probably do more to control the deer population than anything TPWD can do.

Maybe I am just in an area not typical to my county (COLORADO) but on our ranch we have too many does.
I'm not sure what the buck to doe ratio is but it has to be approaching 4 does to each buck maybe higher?

The only time we can shoot does without a special permit is during bow season.
For some reason I just see mostly bucks during bow season?
As when gun season comes we start seeing more does?
Personally I only want to shoot those big old BOSS does not the young breeders!
Where are they during bow season?
Thanks

If you are in Colorado County are you a member of the CCWMA? They do surveys in each of the 6 WMA regions they have in the county so that will tell you a little better what your ratio is. You can address doe numbers and other issues with the local biologist also. Does are allowed only in bow season I think due to the success rates being lower, less does get shot if they only need a few off. My county is divided into several regions and some have bow only doe harvest and some have doe days. What we do have is if you are a member of the WMACoop then you can get doe Permits based on your acreage and area of the county you live in(based on WMACoop survey for your area). You might check with TPWD biologist to see if they have that for Colorado County.

On our place, the population would be out of control in a few semi-wet years if they changed the harvest quota. Currently, we can kill up to 5 does if we don't take a buck. In the 90's, we saw great rainfall and were killing over 100 deer a year off the place, and still losing ground on the population growth. Drought hit in the late 90's and at the turn of the century that helped us get it back to manageable numbers. Without it, our overall herd would have suffered. Our place is typical of our area, but not typical of all of Texas. Through the recent drought, we are slightly more selective of our harvest but we have still killed a large number of does even with the population down.

Our area is old sheep and goat country. Even with a major shift to cattle, the predator mentality still resides in the locals and ranchers. The state and county trappers are very diligent in keeping the coyote numbers to a minimum. In the last 20 years, the hunters and rancher have only killed around 10 coyotes off the place combined. Trapper has done the rest. A bounty would be great, but wouldn't increase the kill rate on our place. Most our hunters kill every coyote they see as it is.

The problem with limiting harvest is it makes management that much harder. We hunt 600 acres and as a rule take 2-4 bucks (including culls/spikes) and 8-12 does. We do this because we're surrounded by 2000 acres where maybe 5-10 bucks are killed and maybe 5-10 does. We take more because A, we eat them, and B, our neighbors aren't killing nearly enough does and as such we are grossly over-populated. If you go to a reduction limit, our population is going to explode and well have no hope of holding it down.

There are some areas of Texas that may have an abundance of deer, & does in particular. Some areas however, like west of D/FW, is very dry & in a major drought, & it's been very hard on deer numbers. There is also a lot of general hunting pressure.

It seems like they should issue tags on a county by county basis. TPWD would decide, through biologist reports & other criteria.

be careful what you ask the state to do for you. few years down the road you will want your doe tags back and they wont care.
private land stewardship got us the great wildlife we have , not the State.
if you and your neighbors have had low fawn survival the last few years you should be looking at what You can do not asking the state.


on my lease we had very few fawn this year so we are not shooting does and raised the min score on bucks

I rather the state not dictate what should be taken for the most part but some areas do need some restrictions possibly. I think we hunters do a good job of maintaining it though. We only shot two doe on our 1,000 acres this year and sometimes take 10. We manage it pretty good ourselves based on what we see. We saw tons on fawn on camera but doe just didn't come out. It is what it is. The state does not have the capacity to manage county by county for the most part. Many counties like Kent/Dickens didn't even have a doe allowed 12 years ago and now you can take 5.

Foard County should be NO does for the next several years we have 2K acres and have taken 2 in 10 years

I am just south of Hunt county in Kaufman county. Hunt has a doe season and Kaufman does not. I think Kaufman needs a doe season. We have lots and lots of doe.

We have owned our place since 2007. In that time we have seen some of the wettest years of record and seen some darn dry ones as well. Far as I can tell the dry didn't hurt our fawns much. Lots of young deer every year and we struggle to shoot enough to keep the pop in check. We do feed protein 9-10 months out of the year have corn most of the year round and water.

Something is wrong with that.

Drought...long term?

Put out some feed and water?

Never been there or seen it and don't know what if anything they are doing to help the situation. Guess that must be dry.

All the food and water do nothing for fawning cover. Predators have easy pickings when a doe can not hide a fawn.

Around here they should limit the Buck harvest. In town there are probably 50 does to each buck.

Went to my folks house the other day and counted over 50 deer in a field. Nobody was coming so I stopped on the road and counted. Not a single buck in the mix.

Nope, they should just require all ranchers to high fence their property and manage how they want.....and then also require put and take hunts to reduce the whitetail hunting pressure...

I am doing my part.

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We have never killed a doe on our place and unfortunately may never. We need every doe we have. Predators and drought, overharvest in previous years, etc have given us a density of probably 1 deer per 30-40 acres. Funny thing is, more bucks than doe. It may sound impossible but it's true. Our bucks fight hard and broken antlers are the norm, even early in the season.